Candle In The Wind

Chapter Thirty

The Time Capsule (18 years ago)

“You got everything?”

Juliette asked as she unfold her shirt and revealed her favorite teddy bear. It was an old, brown bear she couldn’t bear to sleep without.

“You’re putting Pesto in the time capsule?”

I said, while still working on catching my breath. I ran from my house to meet Juliette down at the barn.

“You’re putting in your signed hockey puck,”

she replied, “Ryan Callahan, your favorite player,” she said as she looked at the hockey puck in my hand.

I nodded as I smiled. “It’s a time capsule, I’ll get it back in a few years when I’m a grown up and we’ll be married.”

Her brows furrowed as she gently placed Pesto in the metal box. “Why are we gonna be married?”

I shrugged, “that’s what grown-ups do, like, we have to be married to stay friends as grown-ups.”

“How do you know we’ll still be friends?”

She looked at me skeptically.

I tilted my head to the side. “Because you’re my best friend, Juliette.”

She bit her lips then smiled, Juliette had crooked teeth and she hated it—she recently told me her dentist was waiting until the rest of her baby teeth fell out before starting her with braces. I thought she was pretty anyways, though I never told her.

She had beautiful curly hair she would always have in space buns, and other hairstyles, which she had made me learn and remember the names of.

“I’ll also put this in then,”

she said as she pulled the hairpin out of hair. The one I stole from my mother to give to Juliette on her eighth birthday.

I watched her gently place the hairpin inside the box, right next to my hockey puck. I slowly reached into my back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper and quickly hid it in the box under Pesto the bear.

“What was that?”

Juliette giggled, reaching in to search for the paper.

I was quick to pull the box out of her reach and held it behind my back. “It’s just something I wrote.”

“What did you write?”

she asked.

I swallowed nervously. “You’ll see in a few years.”

“Calcium,”

she pressed with a stern look.

That nickname meant no funny business.

“Jill,”

I replied.

“Let me read it!”

Without any warning she jumped forward.

“No!”

I crawled back with the box still in my grip. Juliette was on top of me wrestling for the box trying to read that stupid, embarrassing note I wrote.

She wrestled me for the box for a couple more minutes until she finally gave up with a loud obnoxious sigh. She pulled away and started pulling hay out of her hair and shaking it off her clothes. I knew she was pretending to be mad at me because she would’ve left a long time ago if she was really mad. Juliette wasn’t the type to stick around and bear something or someone when she was mad. She had a pattern of avoiding whatever or whoever she was mad at.

She glared at me. “Fine, don’t let me read it.”

I sighed as I locked up the box since that was all we had for the time capsule. “You can read it once we’re grown-ups.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever, how are we going to dig a hole?”

“I asked Tony to dig a hole for me this morning, right behind the barn,”

I said proudly.

Tony was one of our gardeners, he’s really really nice and unlike the rest of the people who worked on my fathers farm—Tony was very friendly.

“What if you guys move away?”

Juliette asked as she stood up and offered me a hand to help me up as well.

“My dad owns everything.”

I could tell Juliette was still skeptical, but she nodded anyway and pulled me up.

Just like Tony promised, he dug a nice hole for us. I dropped down on my knees and gently placed the time capsule into the hole and started using my hands to bury it. Juliette joined me on her knees too and used her hands to pull dirt over the hole.

It was her idea to do a time capsule. I went along with it because it was Juliette’s idea. No other reason.

Once we fully buried the capsule, Juliette turned to look at me.

“What if I move away?”

she asked.

Juliette had the softest brown eyes I’ve ever seen.

“I’ll find you,” I said.