Tommy sat in his living room. He was surrounded by old photo albums. He looked back on his life through these pictures, reliving all of it. The first four albums were from his years in Angel Grove. There sat Ernie's, the youth center, the Command Center. Familiar faces grace the glossy pages. One thick built with brown hair, decked from head to toe in red. Then an Asian girl with a soft smile, an African American boy joking around with her. A boy in blue concentrating on the textbook and machinery he was surrounded with. A girl in pink who's smile lit the page.
Tommy shook his head, snapping himself out of the trance. Other faces came back to life in Tommy's mind. Two black girls, both fond of yellow, a Korean boy on a baseball field, a stocky boy with a sandwich stuffed in his mouth. A blonde with glistening blue eyes, wearing light pink.
Yes, he relived his teenage years by looking through these photo albums. Soon, he came across one of his favorite photo albums. There was a picture from his first day teaching. He had laughed at himself that day. Flipping through more and more pages, he found his favorite bunch of photos, his wedding pictures. He had still been young then, twenty-nine. It seemed like mere days ago. Though in reality, it had been nearly forty years ago. He had still been so naive, even then. She was the one who kept his head on straight. The redhead next to him in the white gown. It had taken him so long, too to realize.
Funny, though, how he thought he would've ended up differently. He had imagined this future so many times, with different companions in his youth. The girls in pink came to mind, but while he had still been grieving that loss, he had failed to realize how many times his redhead had been standing next to him in the photos. She had been there for all the big moments in his life since they had met. So, maybe, it wasn't what he had imagined so many years ago, but looking through the memories on the pages, that was perfectly fine with him.