forget the notebook. just need you. i’m sending you an address. meet me there. don’t ask.
I could have waited.
But waiting wasn’t my thing.
Plus, it was always easier to navigate life with everyone pissed at me for different reasons.
Chapter 23
Different but the Same
NOW
(Amelia)
… I don’t know if you remember the first time we met. I wouldn’t expect you to. But for me, it was a day I could never forget. Like a light had suddenly been turned on. Everything in my whole world just stopped. The clichés are so easy to grab, and I’ll grab every single one of them for you, Delilah. Maybe that’ll make you smile. But knowing you, it’ll make you roll your eyes. Which, by the way, I love when you roll your eyes. I really do. It’s half the reason I like to annoy you. But you know that already.
Being near you - not even with you - just changes everything. It changed me and still changes me. Like I’m walking down this dark and scary alley. It’s the middle of the night. The only sounds are drunks fighting and the distant wail of a cop car. My hands stuffed into my pockets. My head down. No reason to look up and see someone and have a situation start.
And then you’re suddenly there.
It’s suddenly morning. A cool morning, but not cold. Birds lined up on a cable wire, singing a song together. Everything dark is light. Everything brown is green. Everything dead is alive.
And you’re just walking.
Right at me.
That’s what you did to me each time I saw you.
And now…
Delilah… where did you go?
I told myself I wasn’t going to do anything crazy with it. That it was fun to think of ideas and stories. If anything, just to get my mind going again and remind myself what it was like to write and create. When I got a fresh notebook and tucked the letter just behind the cover, I told myself that it was okay. I could take notes and jot down ideas based on the letter. I wasn’t going to use this story though. This was someone else’s story. I’d never find out who wrote the letter, or who Delilah really was, or what happened to her. So that part, in a fun way, was all mine.
When I pulled up to a house smack dab in the middle of a normal looking street in a normal looking neighborhood, my heart sank.
I thought Josh was having me meet him for a drink or for something to eat.
But this was a house.
A normal looking house.
Before I could reach for my phone to text him - or better yet call him and ask what the hell was going on - the front door opened, and Josh stepped out and waved.
I smiled, but that faded when I saw a little boy step up next to him.
Josh put his hand over the little boy’s head.
I still got out of the car and approached the house.
My facial expression must have asked the obvious question as Josh smiled as big as I’d ever seen him before.
“He’s my nephew,” he said. “Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“My best friend, Aaron. It’s his kid. This is Toby.”
“Toby,” I said. “Hey.”
“Toby, this is my friend Amelia.”
“Your friend is a girl,” Toby said.
“Don’t worry, little buddy, she has no cooties or whatever it’s called these days.”
Toby shrugged his shoulders, turned, and went back inside.
“You coming in or what?” Josh asked.
“What is this?” I asked.
“I’m babysitting.”
I laughed. The words Josh and babysitting did not seem to belong in the same sentence.
“I know that look,” he said.
“What?”
“The shock. You’re wondering how stupid could the parents be to leave their kid with me.”
“No. I didn’t say that.”
Josh leaned down and softly kissed my cheek. His stubble tickled me yet sent tingles through my body. “You didn’t have to say it. Come on in.”
I followed him into the house and the entire thing was crazy.
“Is this okay?” I asked Josh.
“It’s fine,” he said.
He led the way to the kitchen and Toby popped out from behind the island and let out a yell. Josh jumped back.
“Damn, little buddy,” he yelled. “You got me.”
Josh took a breath and touched his chest.
“Yes,” Toby said. “I always win.”
“Yeah, you do,” Josh said.
I stood and watched, trying to contain my smile. My mind kept playing the images of Josh with a baseball bat, smashing up a van. Or throwing rocks through windows. Or drinking and smoking. And here he was as a babysitter. As Uncle Josh.