Distance

Alaina was sipping at a glass of juice on a relatively calm morning, where everyone seemed to be tired and mellowed out. These were pretty rare around her house, since there were so many of them in the family, especially so, considering almost half of them were ten and under, loud, and liked to argue with each other over anything. It was Jess’ turn to sleep in, and Amy had gone and slept at a friend’s house overnight and wasn’t likely to be back until at least the afternoon.

It seemed even the normally loud and exuberant Robbie had a rough morning, he walked in with yawn and sat next to his younger brother Drew. Dropping the mail on the table, the eight year-old promptly began tucking into his bowl of oatmeal, with the five year old mirroring him.

Lazily poking through the few things in the pile that came today(a little hopeful for a certain something), Alaina came across an envelope that stuck out from the rest. Her address was scrawled in the middle of the envelope with crooked and uneven handwriting, and a little stamp with a picture of the golden gate bridge resided in the upper right corner.

Only nine days had passed since that night she went and put the letter in the mailbox, so she was consequently incredibly surprised to see that she had received a reply so fast.

Unless this letter was just a horribly timed coincidence from an uninvolved person.

Or, maybe her partner was just as excited as she was.

She couldn’t contain her smile.

Forcing a finger through a little gap in the flap’s sealant, she hurriedly ripped it open, eager to get into the envelope and get to its contents. Pulling out the two sheets of lined paper inside, she could see ink bleeding through the back, and signs of messy handwriting.

The odds of this being a coincidence now were about one in a million.

Unfolding it, she was glad when she realized she could still decipher what they were saying, he was saying, despite the questionable legibility. She was mildly flattered and pleased to find that the letter was a pretty good length for a bit of an introductory-type letter, too.

She was glad that her pen pal seemed to be quite social and not a bare bones kind of communicator. That would be no fun after all.

Reading through, she found herself unable to stop smiling and acting like she’d just got the news that she had won the lottery and her family was going to be getting ten million dollars that they could spend however they’d like. And then her family told her she was getting half, and she could spend it however she’d like.

And that meant no more shitty allowance every month.

Alaina was almost disappointed when she got to the end of the letter, realizing she wouldn’t be getting another letter for atleast a week. She had tried to read through it real slow to savor it and delay the inevitable reading of the last word.

And also that meant she was going to have to sit down and write another letter.

Looking up when she saw her mother sit down on the other side of the table in her peripheral vision, she could see an amused look playing across her face.

“Read it to us, will ya, sweetheart?” She asked before taking a bite of the toast she had just buttered.

“Okay.”

Clearing her throat, Alaina began.

“Dear Alaina,

Thank you for the letter, I was almost afraid my partner would chicken out, or get cold feet, or something, and I would be stuck waiting around for a letter that wasn’t ever going to exist. Almost every day since I got that confirmation letter, I’d been checking the mailbox and getting disappointed when there was nothing good in it.

Holdup, I should probably introduce myself before I write anything else, so I’m just going to copy the way you did it.

My name is Billie, and I’m a thirty year-old man from California. I’ve got five siblings, and they’re all older than me. It’s not too often I meet someone whose got more brothers and sisters than I do, but I guess you got me beat by one.

You’re right in the fact that Oakland is near San Francisco, only like 10 minutes if you’re taking the BART, but if you make the mistake of driving you’re probably gonna be stuck in traffic for thirty, forty minutes. But I honestly don’t spend that much of my time there, I’m much more of an Oakland and Berkeley fiend myself. I pretty much grew up around here for the most part so maybe I’m a little biased, y’know, but I think these parts of the East Bay have way more heart than any other place out here. We’re a real community.

But I guess it’s worth visiting if you like to travel. Personally, I used to travel a lot for work, so I like to hang around my usual haunts rather than going places all the time. But, if you ever come out here, I can show you all the best spots tourists don’t know about.

And I don’t think that you’re bad at writing yourself, you weren’t boring at all. I like your little cat circus tangent, it actually ended up making me laugh out loud when I was thinking about it, and then I was at the supermarket and I laughed to myself when I saw this HUGE bag of cat food, and I thought of you. I think I accidentally scared a pair of old ladies, though...

Anyway, I have to end this letter cause I’m supposed to be meeting up with a couple of my friends right now and I’m already like twenty minutes late. And my friend, Mike, is such a worrywart now that he has kids, if you’re even ten minutes late he’s calling you and asking if you’re dieing or something. It’s a real pain honesty.

I look forward to your next letter, write me soon,
Billie”

There were a few moments of silence, and then her father chuckled. “You better not let Jess hear that, him saying he’ll show y’all around and all if you go over there, she’ll never let you forget it.”

“Oh, I know. It is a nice offer, though.” Alaina said thoughtfully, wondering if his generosity was genuine, or if he was just trying to sound polite and not totally rude. Like, if she actually mailed him back and said she was coming over, he’d tell her to fuck off and to not think he’d actually waste his time with some teenage tourist.

“Maybe if he wasn’t a complete stranger.” Her father retorted pointedly from across the table. “If you knew this man a little better, then maybe, but I would never ship you off to the other side of the country to some middle-aged mystery man.”

“Well no kidding, Dad. Duh.” She sassed back, immediately feeling annoyed at how childishly he was treating her, acting like she was a seven year-old with no sense of stranger-danger. Of course she wasn’t dumb enough to go run off and beg some man she’d sent one letter to take her on a trek all around Northern California.

Besides, she would rather go to So-Cal with all the beautiful beaches there… Santa Monica, Newport, Malibu, Long Beach, San Diego. There were so many gorgeous options. Sure, northern California had San Francisco and Santa Cruz, but she wanted the beach. In her entire life she’d never been to the coast and been to the ocean.

“No need to be so bratty to your father, Alaina Louise!” Her mother reprimanded, bringing out the middle name to show she was serious.

Grumbling, the brunette teen got up from the table, and brought her empty dish to the kitchen sink, keen on getting out before any more scolding happened. She definitely didn’t need that in her life, that’s for sure.

Already heading back to her room, she was trying to formulate a good response to the letter. She had a few peeves with what he wrote, and grammar was clearly not his strong suit(not that it was hers either), but she could address those in what she wrote back. Not his grammar, though. She wasn’t going to criticize that to him, because that was rude and impolite, and her mother always told her that if you didn’t have anything nice to say then you shouldn’t say anything at all.

Besides, if she got started on writing back now, that would mean she would possibly get a letter back sooner.

And she wanted that.