The Time Capsule

James

I wasn’t planning on getting a kiss after the speech. Hell, I never thought Selena would even get close enough to kiss me, and I’d accepted that. But then it happened, her lips touched mine. And I wasn’t even the one to initiate it. To my surprise though, I was the one to pull away from the kiss.

My eyes popped open and widened. Her eyes popped open and widened. And for just one second we were sitting there in shock, staring at each other.

“James! Selena!” Ambers voice rings through the parking lot, making Selena and I turn to face her.

Greg was still getting a basket out of the car while Amber was walking towards us with a tablecloth. We still had a few seconds we could talk, but I was speechless and I think Selena was too.

She glances at something behind me and then looks me in the eye for less than a moment, “sorry.” She whispers and then stands up and runs to Amber, grabbing her arm and pulling her back to the car. They passed Greg as he was walking toward me, and in the midst Amber even dropped the tablecloth. Selena obviously needed to debrief about what happened.

And as I sit there waiting for Greg, who went back to pick up the cloth, to come sit by me I think about her last word. Sorry. ‘Don’t say it unless you mean it,’ I always told her. That was something she followed too, or at least tried to around me. Sorry. Does that mean she regrets kissing me? Or didn’t want to hurt me? What type of kiss was that anyway? It’s not like I was paying attention to it. Sorry.

“What just happened?” Greg asks, breaking my train of thought.

“huh?”

“Selena bolted from here, I’m sure you noticed.”

I scratch the back of my neck, not really knowing how to respond. Did she really bolt? I hadn’t noticed that part of it. “I-we-she-well, you see-” I couldn’t seem to form the sentence, my brain still trying to figure out what happened.

“Dude, James, spit it out.”

“Our lips sort of…touched?” It came out more as a question since I was still trying to wrap my head around the idea.

“WHAT?! You kissed her!?”

“huh? No, I-that’s the thing, I didn’t. She kissed me.”

Greg looked at me confused. “you’re telling me that Selena, our sweet, shy Selena kissed you?”

“yeah, and I pulled away.”

“whoa, you’re seriously going to have to start at the beginning.” And so I tell him about everything that happened up until that moment. By the end of it, Greg was laughing. “you said I love you?”

“yeah, I did. You’re the one that kept pushing me to just explain things.”

He chuckles a little more, “that was before I knew you loved her. That changes things. A lot of things.” Then something behind me catches his eye and I turn around, assuming it would be Amber and Selena. Instead I come face to face with a carving in the wood. “and I don’t think that’s why she left.”

I nod my head, “I don’t think so either.” I turn back to face Greg with a frown on my face, “I did something really stupid Greg.”

“yeah, I’m beginning to wonder how you have survived on your own.”

I roll my eyes and continue, “This is kind of ‘our’ spot, Selena and I. We’ve always ended up here together.”

“Obviously not for a while,” he motions toward the scratched over word that read ‘James and Selena, BFFs’ with a heart around it. At some point someone, maybe even Selena herself, came and put an ‘X’ over it, but you could still tell it was our names.

“Remember when my parents split and no one could find me?”

“yeah, we searched hours and then you suddenly appeared.”

“actually, Selena did find me. Right here in this same spot. We talked, I don’t even know about what, but we talked. That was when we carved our names and put BFF. And then this is where I asked her out and where I asked her to be my girlfriend. It also became the place we officially broke up. Now, to add to the list, it’s where I told her I love her. It’s got a lot of history now that I think about it.”

We sat there for a little bit just thinking and then Greg stood up straight with a grin on his face, “I’ve got a very, very smart idea.”

“and what would that be, Greg?” And then he tells me the plan “I’m assuming you didn’t give her the present?” I shake my head no, “great. So we’ll head back to my house and set up a little scavenger hunt. Place one charm with some note, I don’t know what type of note…a nice note. It’ll lead to a dinner for you two. Doesn’t have to be romantic, just a chance so that you guys and talk EVERYTHING out. I think most of this hate you two share is just from not being able to vent about it.

His plan included everything; the birthday present I had wanted to give her today, a scavenger hunt, and a nice dinner. The only part missing was knowing if she’d finally forgive me or not.

And that one question is what was scaring me the most.