• I opened my eyes to the dull air of summer and the clicking of tracks as the train that goes past this ruined little shack I call home, rattles the windows slightly. Third day, I got up at twelve in the afternoon to check for any sign of her appearance. There was none, only the last goodnight she'd sent me before the day that she'd disappeared. I opened it from the mailbox, reading it a fourteenth time:

    Hey! Sorry I couldn't get on tonight, I went out to supper with my sister and my dad. I really missed you last night, and they both bugged me to watch a movie, it was about relationships... And the director was Scot Daniels, Talk about ironic. I love you, I'll see you later hopefully. Gnight! Mwaaaah!

    That was the last thing she said, I couldn't shake the warmth my body had created by those simple words, it was like she was really there again. I yawned, I'd gone to sleep around ten in the morning, god-awful night waiting for her again, taking my mind off the good and bad things she could be doing. Did she find some other guy? I wonder if he was cute, or hot, unlike me, plain, simple, really bad hair, I didn't know what she could possibly think of me, but she said she saw inside, and I let her believe that I took that as the truth.
    I screwed around on the computer until my stomach rumbled for food, I sighed and rolled away from the desk, getting up and walking straight towards the kitchen. I opened a box of bagel-fulls,and decided against that, she had actually thought they were sickening, until she'd left on a trip for her relatives, they had no internet, and had eaten country food for two weeks. My lips pulled down at the memory, she said she'd been afraid I wouldn't be there when she got back, what a silly mind she had, she would never know how much I loved her, more than myself, obviously.
    I decided on a nice bag of doritos, and a coke, followed by the pill, for my psycho, and a pen.
    "You know what?" I asked myself casually, "If she were here, She'd know that." A little face in my head gave me a questioning look," How much I really love her I mean" I'd waited for her for five years, five, hard, long, desperate years. We lived so far apart, yet so close, and she was only thirteen when I met her, I was about fifteen. She liked the way I was funny, how I could be so "guyish" it didn't bother her, until she was about fifteen, and she went bonkers on me because I didn't talk to her. She told me very stealthily that she cried most nights, when I didn't say the things I used to, but she held back, for me, god, I love that girl. Her and her martyr ways. I sighed once more, thinking now that maybe she had been abused, or raped, or brutally murdered. I checked Yahoo! just to make sure, no legal adults murdered, or any other form of life-impairment.
    "Damn mail" I grumbled, remembering that my bills were post-due. A mocking voice said in my ear; well, stupid, maybe, if you were smart, and not a lazy a**, that wouldn't be a problem. I ignored the outburst, I knew it was true. I pulled on some checker pajama pants, and a gray t-shirt. As I began to open the door, a noise from my computer made me jump; an email? I ran to the desk, fluidly sitting in the jet-black chair. A message, from her, thank god, but maybe it was her parents? Or her sister? I read it hungrily:

    You should get your mail.

    What? I should....wait she said I should get my mail. A new message popped up:

    Hope I didn't worry you, love, just promise you didn't miss me too much.

    That was definitely her, she had a strange way of writing that made her words sound technical but true. Now I was annoyed, She was fine, and I'd worried, she was probably at some guys house getting dressed. I let the message sink to the back of my mind. I shall ignore, my mind said. I went back to the door and turned the knob slowly as I let out a large yawn, letting my hand pull its' self over my mouth. I stopped abruptly when I realized someone was on my porch swing, my plastic green, weather-proof, cheap-A** porch swing. I gawked at what was on the bench, swinging lightly from the now heated breeze. My face twisted as she smiled, her eyes looking over every part of me, not standing to hesitate on any part. I looked at her just as hungrily, my eyes rolling past her body slowly, knowing it was too perfect to be anything but a dream.
    She was siphoning a neighbors internet, and she had a laptop on her lap, which she'd charged in the old avalanche in my driveway. She placed it carefully on the bench, making sure it wouldn't fall if the thing swung, and turned to my, her face now serious. why was she here. I'd thought she would have left me so long ago, but she's here. I could have praised the gods at that moment, but I was frozen as she came closer, until she was maybe one foot away from my face, looking straight into my brown eyes.
    "Hello" She breathed. Her voice was so mature, when I'd first talked to her, I'd expected it to be high-pitched and squealy. I could hardly resist the images popping into my brain, some mature, like talking, some....not so mature. I saw that and grinned. She saw my grin, and grinned back, showing crooked teeth, her parents had never bought her braces, I'd never had good teeth either. She seemed to hesitate though, maybe wondering why we were still outside. "Wanna come in?" She shrugged, her idea of a more detailed version of "Of course, nothing in the world would make me happier." Or maybe she was skipping her rules, and was thinking twice about coming to see me. She held her laptop in her slender hands, her eyes following my every move. "What crime am I convicted of officer?" I teased her, lightening the mood, she smiled half-heartedly, a weak attempt at faking happiness. I turned around, taking advantage of her full hands, and pulled her chin up with two fingers, looking into her hazel eyes. "whats up?" Her eyes were weary, like she should be careful. She was being truthful when she'd said she didn't talk much, she talked so much on the phone I'd thought she was a crazy person at first. But she was easy to love, and I did, so much. I wondered if I should say that to her, but I thought better of that, I'd let her say it first, when she was ready.
    When she sat all of her stuff down, she turned back to me, with the same speculative look as before.But then her eyes suddenly got brighter, and she rushed towards me, something I hadn't expected, and threw her arms around me, tightly. It looked like she could barely help herself when she cuddled her head into my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around her, hugging her gently until she released me and looked at my face, which was possibly burning off at how much it was glowing. She pulled me in again and whispered in my ear three small words that turned my world upside down, and then made me so crazy with happiness I could hardly breathe. I held her closer, breathing her in, as if trying to mold our bodies together like paper. "I love you". So it was true, all of it, that I knew, that she'd said. She was here, how I don't know, and it turns out she was with some other guy, but that guy, that lucky guy, was me, the luckiest man on earth, the man with nothing but everything in the same handful. How could life get any better.