Signatures were scrawled all over, one overlapping another, covering the picture of the women's chorale and obscuring the baseball teams stats. Sharpies and pens, faded lettering, long forgotten names jumped out at me from all the pages. Some people had taken the time to write a little message, as if writing in a meaningless book would ensure that I would remember them long after we had gone our separate ways.
"Have A Great Summer" seemed to have been a popular sign off, a pathetic way to end a twelve year relationship. "I'll miss you" was another. Three words that didn't mean anything then and sure as hell don't mean anything now. As if half the people who had so hastily written them down for lack of anything better to say would either remember or care who I am.
These messages meant nothing to me, meaningless memories from my past that could so easily be shut up inside a worthless book once more until I once again waxed nostalgic and thought I needed to look back on my teenage years.
I should have never come back. This place was too full of wasted opportunities, memories best forgotten. I began to shut the book on my past again when something caught my eye. "Turn to the last page." Curious, I readily did so, and what I saw made me tear up.
"Spin—Look, I really don't know what to write in this dumb book, you know I never have been good at this. Well, we're off to college now! Four years of partying. God knows we deserve it! Woohoo!
Okay, this is going to sound stupid, but since you're going off to California to go to school and I'm staying here to take care of Mom and you never read these stupid things anyways I might as well just say it (write it?). Spin, I think I love you. Not just as a friend, because I love you like that too, but I love you love you. I think I've loved you since the day you punched my tooth out in Kindergarten because I wouldn't let you have the blue face paint. I can't tell you to your face because I don't want to ruin our friendship, but if you do read this, just know that I love you just the way you are Spin. Never change for anything or anyone because you are perfect.—TJ"
TJ Detweiler. My first kiss, my first crush. I could never tell him. He was the unattainable, the god of my idolatry. I guess part of the reason I came back was to see him. Maybe I'll have the strength to tell him how I feel. But who am I kidding. He's probably married, or dating someone. I shouldn't have come back. This is going to be terrible.
* * *
"She was a wonderful woman. I'm glad that I could be here for her in her last years. She kept telling me that I could be out, doing something important with my life. She told me to go everyday, to go adventure, to go to one of the other colleges I had been accepted to, she told me that she wasn't worth it. But she was. You were, Mom. I'll treasure every moment that I ever spent with you. Every second of Oprah and Ben and Jerry's ice cream, I'll remember every laugh, every smile, everything you ever taught me. You were the best mother a kid could ask for, and it's no wonder that God called you up there. He was probably jealous of all the attention I was getting down here. Well, we'll miss you. But no one more than me. I love you, Mom. I always will."
From my seat in the back row of the church I could see TJ wipe his eyes on the sleeve of his tuxedo and had to fight the urge to do the same. Mrs. Detweiler had been my surrogate mother, and for her to have fought her cancer for so long was a miracle. I can't even count the number of chocolate chip cookies she made me, or the times she would drive the six of us to parties, or let us camp out in the tree house for weeks on end during the summer.
People around me were standing up to sing a hymn, but it was all I could do to keep from sobbing with every chord of Amazing Grace. When the song was over the crowd began to leave, go up and pay their condolences to TJ and Becky. In the group clustered around TJ I saw a fussy red-head with her flaming hair tied up in a bun, revealing a deeply freckled and bespectacled face. Gretchen had aged well. Vince was up there too, hugging his old best friend, while a tall, porky man with blonde hair was blowing his nose into a handkerchief. Mikey? Wow. Gus was standing at attention, his hair in the standard military buzz cut, with his arm around a petite brunette. Was that…no, it couldn't be Corn Chip Girl. Could it? And in the middle of it all was TJ, dark brown eyes red with weeping, his hair mussed as if he couldn't be bothered with it, looked almost exactly as I had remembered him. Except for the hat…I expect it wouldn't have matched very well with the suit. I was still studying him, trying to soak in every detail, when suddenly, his eyes locked on mine.
My insides went cold, terrified at being caught staring, but I couldn't tear my gaze away. Vince must have seen him lose focus, because he followed his gaze and caught sight of me as well. He made like he was going to come towards me, but that was too much. I grabbed my small purse from the bench beside me and walked out of the church. I was only a few yards out the door when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
"Ashley, sweetie, where are you going?" It was just my mom.
"Mom, I can't…I just…I'm going back to the house, okay?"
"Sure hon, Dad and I will meet you back there in twenty minutes, alright?"
"Sure," I called over my shoulder. As soon as I had turned the corner I broke out into a run. But I only made it three feet. Damn Stilettos. Without further hesitation I ripped off my shoes and just started sprinting. At this point I didn't care where I was running to, I just had to leave. Tears were streaming down my face, and somewhere along the way my ponytail fell out, but I didn't care. After ten minutes I stopped and stared.
I was in the Detweiler's back yard staring up at the tree house. The fifth plank from the bottom had rotten through and I almost fell through, but soon I was huddled in a dusty corner of my favorite place in the world and crying like I was twelve years old and I had lost my Mr. Monk-Monk that TJ gave me for my eighth birthday.
When I had cried so much I couldn't cry anymore I didn't move. I sat there in my childhood refuge and stared out the window at the darkening sky. Breathing deeply, I could almost smell the Winger-Dingers and potato chips from stake-outs and late night powwows. I could hear the yelling from the time Vince almost deserted us for his steroid chugging, blonde girl dating varsity basketball team mates, I could feel the blood on my fingers from the time I ever punched Gus for making Gretchen cry. God I missed this. Why did I ever leave? Why did I ever think that there was more to life than friends and junk food?
A crash and a muffled curse from below the tree made me leap to my feet. I looked for an escape, but the old knotted rope that you could toss out the window had frayed with age and our old pulley system could only handle the approximate weight of 15 crates of Squirrel Scout cookies. By now, there was no other alternative. With dread and anticipation I watched a tan hand appear over the edge of the boards, followed by a red hat, and a face that had haunted my dreams for my entire life.
"Um…hi, TJ. I didn't mean to…I wasn't…umm…well, yes. Hi." I could have hit myself. Why couldn't I ever talk normally around him? Does he have this affect on everyone? His face blanched as he pulled himself up into the tree house.
"Spinelli…hi. I didn't know you were here. I thought I saw you at the…in the church, but…" he crawled into a sitting position directly across from me. Why did he have to stare at me so?
"Yeah, Dad called me at school a few days ago and told me what had happened and I figured that I…well, that I owed it to your mom to come back here." He smiled bittersweet and nodded in understanding.
"She'd have been glad you came. Did you see Gretchen and Gus and the rest? They were there too…"
"Yeah, yeah…I haven't seen you all in so long…was Gus there with Corn Chip Girl?"
"Yes, they've been dating for the past two years…I think he's going to pop the question soon actually…" he grinned lopsidedly at me.
"Wow. Why didn't I know about all this?"
"You could've Spin. Christmas, a phone call, a letter even…did you even think about us at all after you left?" His brown eyes were boring into mine, his hands twisting in his lap.
"Of course I did Teej! I couldn't forget about you. Any of you. It was just…after my brother came home…well, you know how he stole from us and he…held up the bank…I just wanted to get out of here. I was sick of the Ashley's staring at me like I was a convict, and all the teachers acting like nothing was wrong…I just wanted to get away. But Teej, I could never forget about you." I was biting my lip so hard I thought it might bleed. He scooted around so he was sitting next to me and I inched closer to him involuntarily. We were quiet for a moment, lost in the awkward kind of silence that defined adolescence, until he spoke quietly.
"Spin, did you ever read…um, did you ever read what I wrote in your year book?"
"What, you mean in ninth grade when you wrote that poem…how did it go again?" I was directly avoiding the question. I didn't want to know if he didn't love me anymore.
"My summer job is mowing the grass, but nothings more fun than watching you kick Lawson's ass. Don't mock it, there's a reason that I'm majoring in economics." His lips twitched as though he were about to smile. "But that's not what I meant. I meant our senior year…that one."
"Um…yes…I did." Ice was shooting through my veins, and my heart was beating so loudly that he must have heard it.
"Well, I want you to know…that I meant what I wrote. And I still do. Because I've always loved you Ashley Spinelli." My first name sounded foreign on his lips, and I almost laughed for joy.
"And I've always loved you Theodore Jeremiah Detweiler."
"How did you learn my first name?" he asked, stunned. I groaned at his reaction. Of course that's what he would focus on, not the fact that I had just confessed my undying love for him. The look on my face made him laugh softly.
"Just kidding," he whispered. Then he leaned down and kissed me softly. I smiled against his lips. For the first time in a long time, I was home.