Read Running Northwest for Free Online Page B

sanity.
    Stephanie stood there looking at some of the pictures, trying to calm herself down from the hectic morning. She looked down at a small box that was on the floor by her feet. Inside of it were pictures of Jared and of her and him together that she had taken down to throw away but had not gotten to yet. She looked up and noticed she had forgotten one that was higher up on the top of the cabinet. It was from a trip down to the Florida Keys, a vacation they took during the first six months of their relationship. She reached up to grab it and tossed it in the box with the others; she felt it hit something else she could not see. She looked briefly at the picture of her and her ex and then promptly threw it into the box with rest.
    “Bastard,” she said aloud .
    She reached up to the top of the cabinet and felt around for whatever it was that she had hit, feeling around with the tips of her fingers. Her hand found whatever it was and she pulled it down. It was a framed picture of something, but of what she could not tell because it was covered in a thick layer of dust. She grabbed a dust rag, dabbed it in some water and went to sit down in a chair, scrubbing the dust off as she was sitting.
    Three or four minutes later, Stephanie was still sitting in the same chair in her office in disbelief as she stared at the old picture of her and another man. She had not seen the picture in a long time and thought she had lost it.
    “Jared must have laid it down,” she thought aloud .
    It was probably so she could not see it anymore. Or so he did not have to look at it on the rare occasion when he came to visit her at work. Jared had jealousy issues, which she found ironic considering the fact he had cheated on her multiple times in her own home.
    The man in the picture had his strong arms wrapped around her waist and was holding her close to him as the sun was setting. She was about 22 years old when the photo was taken. In the picture she was smiling, her eyes were closed and her face was turned slightly up and pressed up against the man’s cheek, who was smiling also. Her long slightly curly brown hair blowing in the ocean breeze, they were holding hands. It was a man she had not seen, spoken to or heard from in a few years, almost five to be exact. She ran her fingertip across his face, as if she was actually touching him. The picture was taken on a beach south of Tampa, Florida when they went there on vacation together. It was taken on the night they had their first kiss.
    She looked at the old picture for another minute or two remembering that day and remembering him and as she did, a tear ran down her face. She bent down to the box that held the pictures that would be thrown away later and grabbed one of her and Jared together. As she held the two pictures next to each other, she compared all the little details of the two. She reached down and grabbed another picture of her and Jared, and then another, eventually going through most of the box. Stephanie realized that in none of the pictures of her and Jared together did she ever have this same smile on her face – this same look of pure happiness and peace that she had with this man from her past;  the man who was holding her in his arms so long ago. She looked at her ex-boyfriend’s face, his forced smile – almost as if he was annoyed, his eyes off somewhere else. Not like the other man’s smile. His smile was of someone truly in love and content, his eyes filled with love for her. Stephanie knew this because he was in fact, very much in love with her, at least back then.
    “It was so long ago,” she said quietly to herself.
    She also remembered, though what she had done to him and how she had made him feel. She pushed him away and rejected him not long after they got back from this vacation together. She destroyed him and his heart she knew that. She was young, and dumb and scared of how he felt about her and how she was starting to feel about him. Shortly