The Twists and Turns of Love

As she walked up her to her house, Sarah couldn’t help but feel nervous. It was strange, because her house had always given her comfort and warmth, but now she just felt out of place.

She lifted a finger to ring the doorbell, which didn’t help the weirdness of the situation, since she had never rang it in her life.

Sarah stood on the porch waiting, suitcase in hand, looking around at her front yard. The swing her dad had made on the maple tree was now replace by a plastic swing set. The wooden fence had been painted over to an unnaturally white shade. The wonderful rocking chair Sarah and her siblings used to play with as kids had disappeared. It was as if there was no trace of all those memories she had in her head. Like they never existed.

The wait turned out too prolonged, so she rang again. She heard a neighbor’s door opened and tried not to look as stupid as she felt, standing there waiting for her mom to open the door, wondering if they were just ignoring her, or if they had gone on vacation without her or if they had moved without telling her.

“Are you looking for someone?” Sarah heard someone ask her from the neighboring porch.

She turned to look who had asked her, when she saw him. He was casually leaning on the porch rail, wearing an inquiring expression and smiling at her.

As she was about to respond, she noticed something very familiar about him. Like if she had talked to him before.

“Brandon?” she asked, smiling
“That’s me. Who do I have the pleasure of meeting?”

“Don’t you remember the girl whose braids you cut off in the first grade?”

Sure, it had been devastating at the time, but now it was just funny. And here she was with the boy who commited the crime.

“I never thought I’d see you again.”

“You were the one that moved away, you know.”

“Yeah, it really sucked but now we’re back.”

“That’s great.”

They were caught in an awkward silence. It was even more awkward since she had had a huge crush on him during her early school years.

“Have you seen my family?” she asked.

“I saw them leave about ten minutes ago.”

“Do you have any idea where they were going?”

“I think they told my dad they were going to their grandma’s house.”

“Great,” Sarah sighed, plopping down on the last step.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, leaning farther over the rail.

“It’s nothing.”

She heard him go down his porch steps and breathed out. If she had had to talk to him a minute longer she would have started stuttering or she would have gotten all red. But instead of leaving, he walked up to her porch. Sarah looked down and fumbled with her suitcase and hoped it had been some sort of hallucination, but when she looked up back up he was startlingly closer.

“Can I ?” he asked, motioning to the spot on the step beside her.

“Sure.”

The steps weren’t very wide, just enough for both of them to fit, which wasn’t exactly helping the situation. She tried to make her body as little as possible so he wouldn’t brush against her but it was practically impossible.

“So how come you’re back?” he inquired.

“How do you even know where I’ve been?”

“Well, when I asked about you, they explained you were at some preppy little institute.”

She ignored his teasing and just hung on the first few words that had escaped his mouth. He had been aksing about her.

“I won it fair and square, and, plus, it isn’t that preppy and it definently isn’t little.”

He laughed.

“But is everything alright? It’s way too early for you to have finished school and there are no vacation or breaks at this time of year.”

“It’s kind of a long story. A really long story.”

When people say that, it usually means back off, touchy subject, but obviously Brandon was oblivious to that universal code of conduct.

“Well then why don’t we grab some coffee or something and talk about it?”

She could have said it was none of his business, or that she didn’t feel like talking about it, which were both true. But he was her first crush, and she had to admit his looks had only gotten better as the years passed; she couldn’t just pass up an opportunity like that.

“I’d like that.”