The Twilight Twenty-Five: thetwilight25 dot com
Prompt: #2
Pen Name: Maddie-the-Muse
Pairing/Character(s): Leah/?
Rating: K
Word Count: 498
Photo prompts can be found here: thetwilight25 dot com/round-eight/prompts
"This was on the porch for you," Seth said, tossing a shoe box tied with twine through Leah's open bedroom door.
She caught the box, turning it right side up to examine it, before looking toward the door to ask who it was from, but Seth had already moved on down the hall to his own room.
She carefully pulled the end of the twine, loosening the bow, and lifted the lid. The box held a collection of paper scraps and a few other small items. On the top of the pile a sheet of lined paper from a note pad sat folded in half. She placed the box on her bed and picked the note out of the box, unfolding it as her curiosity got the better of her. The note was short, written in neat block letters, and un-signed.
Leah,
If things were different, I would take you to all the places you talk about. I'd find a way to make your dreams come true.
Maybe one day, I'll be brave enough to actually talk to you about it, until then, I'll bring those places to you.
xo
Leah flipped the paper over, looking for a clue as to who could have written it, but there was none.
Setting the letter aside, she started lifting items from the box: a photo of the Eiffel tower at sunset, a small vial of black sand, a cheesy postcard of someone going over Niagara Falls in a barrel, pictures clipped from travel magazines—The Grand Canyon, Machu Picchu, Big Ben—a sticker of a cartoon Venetian gondolier. The contents seemed endless, and with each one that Leah pulled from the box, she marvelled at the very idea that someone had paid such close attention to her to enable them to collect all of her travel dreams together.
But who?
She couldn't remember talking to anyone specifically about wanting to see the black sand beaches of Maui or taking a road trip to the Grand Canyon, but these were things she had dreamed of doing since she was little.
Overwhelmed and excited, she dug further into the box, her fingers shaking as she pulled more of her bucket-list dreams and spread them out on the quilt covering her bed.
A tiny snow globe with Stonehenge inside, a keychain with a San Francisco trolley dangling from it, things near to home—the Space Needle—and things far thrown—The Leaning Tower of Pisa. The collection grew until the entire surface of her bed was covered.
The last item in the box was a small pink envelope. With shaking hands, she lifted it and pulled out a Lady and the Tramp valentine card, the perforated type children give out in elementary school. A smile spread across her mouth—Valentine's day had passed months ago. Flipping it over, she found the same neat block letters: Be my valentine? Meet me tonight at the place you go when you need to get away. Midnight.