Twenty
TWENTY
ALEXANDER
R ain battered at my window, the sky a dismal dark grey. The sun lazed, slow to rise now that autumn had settled in.
I picked up my phone, Francesca’s pretty face filling the lock screen. Every morning, she was the first person I wanted to talk to, and the last before I slept. Unfortunately for me, the time difference meant it would be hours before she woke.
Pulling up her social media, I flicked through her recent pictures, losing myself in her. In the arch of her smile and the twist of her hair as the wind lifted it.
I threw myself into hazy memories of summer in her arms when I saw a picture of the lake on her page. Smiling, I touched the screen, missing her hard enough to hurt.
Switching to her baking profile, I indulged myself in her videos. Listening to her talking about her kneading and flour dusting, whisking and creaming. A smudge of flour on her face, the way her cheek dimples when she lets her passion take over.
God, I love her .
I wished I’d been brave enough to tell her when we were together at the lake. It felt too soon. She was too young. Lived too far away.
Still. It was true.
I loved her.
And I missed her.
It pained me every single day to go through the motions of my life without her. Work. Clean. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.
Well… Work. Clean. Eat. Pine. Sleep. Ache. Repeat.
So I laid in bed, wiling away the hours of my Saturday wrapped in digital moments of her, until she came online. The moment her name popped up on screen, her sweet face in a little bubble, I couldn’t temper my smile.
‘Hey pretty girl.’