September 3rd, 2005
Your music is turned on high volume, flying out through your open windows to ride the breeze. Jessica is spinning in a summer dress while the sweet California air mingles with the fabric. Already your lives have been reduced to the towers of boxes that line the walls of your apartment waiting to be moved, but neither of you are in a rush. If you were, maybe you would stop dancing in the open space where the couch used to be, twirling around until Jessica gets dizzy and you laugh along with her when she stumbles, but you aren't, so you don't.
Now Jessica's started the work of emptying the kitchen cupboards if your things, leaving you to do the same in the bedroom closet. It isn't hearing her singing along to the music that makes your heart warm, but the idea that soon she will be filling the walls of a new home, instead. With the pieces of herself, and you of yourself, and this great thing being born between you. The lease was turned in yesterday but you both had been packing for days before that. You get the feeling your roommates are just happy to see you leave.
The song ends with the faint click of the CD changing itself in the player. New notes and lyrics begin to play, one of Jessica's CDs. You reach and uncover a hidden corner of the closet yet to be packed that protects an old looking shoe box forgotten with time. It isn't until you reach with half your body that the tips of your fingers can even latch on.
The lid is dusty, untouched for you don't know how long, but you know it's yours from the permanent marker on the side - 'Sam W'. You think. You can't recall what's inside anymore. So you lift the lid.
Minutes have passed and it sits spilled out on the bed sheet, and you remember exactly why it was in the back of your closet.