Gem City

Chapter 4

“Magic"s In The Makeup” – No Doubt

The feeling rolling around in Courtney"s stomach as she read the letter for the third time could not decide if it was angry, nostalgic, or really, really sad.

Courtney,

I know how you feel about handwritten letters, so I hope this one is legible. Anyway, I wanted you to get something other than bills or junk in your mailbox when you first moved in. I wanted to cheer you up from the last time we talked. Thinking about you being as sad as I am makes me feel even sadder. Sorry I didn"t try to use a synonym, sad was all I could think of.

I know we both said we would try not to make this harder on each other, so that"s all I will say. I hope you have all of your pens organized and that you and Vanessa are having fun. Tell her I said hi.

Know you can call, Court.

Miss you,

Ben

Well…there"s that. Not making things harder at all. A vision of Ben"s easy smile floated into her mind, and the guilt sank like a rock from her chest to her stomach, when the actual scene set before her was a newly organized desk with Train tickets for that weekend sitting prominently on top. She slid the letter and the tickets into a drawer in order to make the solid adult decision to, well, ignore it, for the time being.