Finding Her Time

Several months later…

“Do you think anyone else suffered that Literary Analysis exam? Because I’m pretty sure I failed,” Claire’s roommate, Pauline, complained as they walked into the campus post office.

“Actually,” Claire hesitated as she pulled out her key, “I’m pretty sure I aced it.”

“You would,” Pauline leaned up against a row of small metallic mailboxes. She watched as Claire rummaged through her mail.

Claire smirked. Then she froze when she came across what she thought had been a stupid catalog. She stared at the cover and then flipped through. Excitement flashed quickly in her eyes and she beamed at Pauline. Quickly, she closed her mailbox, threw her key into her pocket, threw all the mail but the catalog into her bag, and then set off into the snow. Pauline followed with a frown.

Claire turned back. “Hey, Pauline, I’ve got to go make sure Mitch is packed. I’ll see you at the dorm?”

“Sure,” Pauline shrugged, “Tell your boyfriend he still owes me a bag of Twizzlers. I know it was him who ate them all when you guys were in our dorm.”

“I’ll remind him,” Claire called over her shoulder as she started to run to the other side of campus. To Mitch’s dorm.

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“Mitch!” Claire exclaimed as she ran into the room. Her face was pink from the cold. It was snowing that day, “I need to show you something!”

“Do I get a ‘hello’ at all?” he asked his back to the door as he was packing clothes from his wardrobe into his suitcase.

“Oh, good,” Claire sat down heavily in the swivel chair at Mitch’s desk, “I was afraid you hadn’t started packing.”

“I started as soon as I got back from the lecture hall. I didn’t even go out with the guys to celebrate the end of exams.” Then Mitch paused and turned to Claire with a frown, “And by the way, that doesn’t count as a ‘hello’.”

“You’ll have plenty of celebrating once we’re home. After all, it’s Christmas. Your mom finally decided to let my dad help with Christmas dinner. That only took like four years.”

“My mom’s a bit of a control freak; there’s nothing we can do about it. And besides, it wasn’t until this spring that we realized that your father could cook. We have every good reason to be hesitant to trust your family’s cooking. None of us seem to forget the black mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving.” Mitch smirked.

Claire stuck her tongue out at him. “Would you let that go already?”

Mitch raised a hand and scratched his chin in mock-consideration, “Gee, I don’t know, Claire. I might be able to forget about it. But someone has forgotten to say ‘hello’ to me even though this is the third time I mentioned it.”

Claire rose from the chair and wrapped her arms around Mitch’s neck. He smirked down at her, but received a very gentle look from Claire. She stood on her tiptoes and met his lips in a very soft kiss that warmed them both up from head to toe. When they parted, Claire mumbled a very soft, “Hey Mitch.”

Then they broke the moment up. Mitch went back to packing and Claire stood there patiently with her hands behind her back. Mitch turned around, “Now, there was something you wanted to show me?”

Enthusiastically, she shoved a magazine in his face. “It got published,” she practically sang.

Mitch’s eyes widened and he took the magazine out of her hand and flipped through the pages. At last he came to a page towards the middle. He stared at Claire’s story in the glossy paper. He read the title aloud, “Finding Her Time By Claire Silver.”