Short Story

Locket

    She is beautiful. She’s always been beautiful. The way her strawberry-red hair falls gently onto her freckled, pale shoulders, or when she is asleep and mumbles soft words and sounds while she dreams. She’s beyond beautiful when shes awake. Always full of energy (spunk as she calls it) and never has a dull moment. Just being around her makes you happier. She’s beautiful when she laughs so hard she starts to cry tears of happiness. She's beautiful when she cries tears of sadness, too. I’ve only had to see her cry once. That is one of the most painful days of my life- the day I lost Emily. That day, I lost a part of myself.

    I fell in love with her Freshman year. By that point, we were dating for about 2 years. I now realized why they call it “falling in love.” You take one step and your thoughts and feelings slowly start to crowd your mind, then in a blink you’re two feet in and totally, endlessly in love. People talk about love like it’s amazing and perfect, which it can be. I found that if you’re truly in love like I am with Emily, love hurts.

We were constantly together, like Shaggy and Scooby from Scooby Doo. Emily loved that show. We watched so many episodes over our years. Emily, who loved to sing and act, used to imitate the characters whenever they said something funny, and sang the theme song like it was her duty. The summer of Junior year, we had one of our monthly movie marathons at her house. The smell of popcorn and sugar over took the whole basement like usual. Even though she was a health-freak, she always made an exception for her Scooby Doo days.  There was a sea of fuzzy blankets and pillows. That was the day I gave her the silver locket. I waited a while to give it to her. I get so nervous sometimes. When I pulled the box out of my over-sized track sweatshirt, her eyes were the size of plates- absolutely huge. I slowly put it around her neck, the sight of her smile making me smile too. She then held it in her delicate hands and began read the front of it.

“Chad and Emily. Just the beginning.” she read aloud. Even though all of our friends called us “Emily and Chad,” to her it was always “Chad and Emily.” She hated the thought of putting herself before me. She stopped, a tear slowly running  down her cheek, and opened the locket. Inside, I put her favorite picture of us, the one where Emily was making a silly face (the usual) and I was hugging her small waist. She closed her bright blue eyes,  now a steady stream of slow-falling tears flowing onto her cheeks, “I love it Chad. I love you.” She gave me the tightest hug she possibly could and kissed me. She wore that necklace everyday from that movie marathon on.

    Late December, Senior year, I was walking through the school’s courtyard. The icy breeze was making my skin cringe and my nose red. Usually, I try to hurry to my classes but I wasn’t in the mood to today. Suddenly, someone is grabbing my coat hood and pulling it back with a force.

“What the heck do you think you’re doing!?” I scream, not even half way turned around.

I hear, “Is that how you speak to your girlfriend, Chad?” It’s Emily. I turn around and pick her up, hugging her closer and closer every second. I think her backpack weighs more than her.

“How’s your day going baby girl?” I ask.

“Pretty fantastic! It’d be even better if we could go out to lunch really fast though! I miss talking to you, do you think you could skip study hall for me?” I have so much homework and an AP Chem. test 7th period, but I decide to go. I guess you make sacrifices for the people you love.

    We walk into Buliary’s Burgers and sit down at the closest booth near the door. The smell of grease and seasonings fill the air. The waitress comes to our table with a smile on her face and takes our order.

“So, what’d you want to talk to me about, babe?” I ask after the waitress leaves.

“I just missed you so much and wanted to talk about a few big decisions I’ve recently made regarding college.. I wanted you to bet the first one to know about it all.” Emily says with a tone that makes me think that she’s hiding something. The thought of college excites and scares me. My whole life with Emily, we’ve talked about going to Stanford together, just a few hours north of here. She always told me that it would be perfect for the both of us- the best of both worlds. I’d get to become a teacher and she could take some acting classes, while we would still get to stay together and I hoped, end up getting married. It was always the plan.

“Ya? What’s up?” I ask.

“I love you more than life itself. You know that right?” Emily asks. Of course I know how much she loves me. She knows how much I love her too. We remind each other constantly and I think thats why our relationship has been so successful the past 5 years.

“Ya? I love you so much. Why?”

“I made a big decision a couple weeks ago that no one knows about. It’s been a secret for a while… and when I got the results back… I thought I should tell someone. I wanted you to know.” She says, her voice getting softer and softer as she speaks. “I applied to Julaird about a month ago… not expecting anything out of it. Just something I thought might be cool to do. I got a letter in the mail a couple days ago…” she stops abruptly. “Chad I got accepted.” I get a lump in my throat the size of China when I hear. Juliard. Across the country. Opposite ends from Stanford? New York?!

“It’s been my dream to be on broadway for a while now, and you know that. I don’t have to go. I really don’t. I just thought you should know…. My locket also broke today in the cafeteria so i should probably go and get it fixed soon.”

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That night, I can’t fall asleep. I lay in my queen size bed, with my blue fuzzy comforter and pale green pillows thinking about Emily while staring into the darkness. I have butterflies in my stomach and my thoughts are a tornado whirling around in my brain.  Just  thinking about possibly losing Emily, the love of my life, makes me sick. I’ve already thrown up 3 times in the last hour because of it. I look at my clock on my bed-side table. 3:26 am. Why do I always have the deepest thoughts late at night? I spend the next hour weighing all of the possible options we have. Only two really stand out to me- I either tell her not to go to Julaird and stay with me at Stanford, or let her go to Juliard without me. If I let her leave, I’m losing the love of my life, the only person I can even imagine myself with. Long distance relationships never work out. If she doesn’t go to Juliard, she’s giving up her dream for me, putting my needs before hers like always. I think back to the locket I gave her. I knew what I had to do.

                    ---

Looking back on the decisions I made in highschool, I wouldn’t regret anything. I spent 5 years of my life in love with the most beautiful and wonderful woman. I’m glad I made the decisions that I made and wouldn’t regret any of them. Emily is now on tours all over the world, experiencing things she never has, and most important, living her dream.