LOVELORNED (CHAPTER TWO)
678 Words
### *LOVELORNED*
#### *Chapter 2: The Green Envelope*
3:14 PM.
I was the only person at the curb.
The same curb where I’d found him yesterday.
Rain again. Not as bad. Just enough to make the sidewalk shine.
My umbrella felt heavy in my hand.
Stupid. I was talking to an umbrella like it was a person.
_“Don’t be weird, Maya.”_ That’s what Lily would’ve said.
3:15 PM.
No Caleb.
3:17 PM.
Still no Caleb.
The football team ran past me, laughing, throwing each other into puddles.
Someone yelled, “Yo, new girl! Waiting for Reed? Good luck with that.”
I pretended I didn’t hear them.
3:20 PM.
I was about to leave when I saw it.
Tucked under a rock by the curb.
Another green envelope.
My name wasn’t on it. But I knew.
My hands were shaking when I opened it.
Inside:
_Sorry. Had to run.
Meet me tomorrow. Same place. Same time.
I’ll be there. I promise.
-C_
That was it.
No explanation. No “my dad needed me” or “practice ran late.”
Just _I promise._
I crumpled it in my fist. Then smoothed it out again.
Put it in my backpack next to Lily’s old journal.
For the next 24 hours, I told myself I wouldn’t go.
Broken boys break you back. That’s rule #1.
But at 3:10 PM the next day, I was there.
With the red umbrella.
And this time, he was already waiting.
Caleb Reed.
Dry. Clean hoodie. Hair combed.
Like yesterday didn’t happen. Like he wasn’t the boy who cried on concrete.
He looked up when he saw me and exhaled. Like he’d been holding his breath.
“You came,” he said.
“You said you’d be here,” I said. “And you are.”
We stood there. Awkward.
Two people who didn’t know how to do small talk.
“You’re not gonna ask me where I was?” he asked finally.
“Are you gonna tell me?”
He shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Then no.”
Something flickered in his eyes. Surprise. Maybe respect.
“Okay,” he said. “Fair.”
He pulled something out of his backpack.
A thermos.
“Hot chocolate,” he said, holding it out to me. “From that place on 5th. It’s terrible. But it’s warm.”
I took it. Our fingers didn’t touch.
But I felt it anyway.
For the next 3 months, that’s what we did.
3:15. The curb. Hot chocolate that was always too sweet.
We talked about nothing.
And everything.
He told me he burned his poems because his dad said “men don’t write.”
I told him about the empty chair at dinner and how my mom still sets a plate for Lily.
We never touched.
We never kissed.
We just sat in the rain and pretended the world wasn’t loud.
Until the day he said:
“Maya. Meet me at Navy Pier. Friday. 7PM.”
My heart did something stupid.
“Why?”
“Because I want to show you something,” he said. “Something that matters.”
He smiled. The first real one I’d seen.
And for the first time since Lily died, I felt excited.
Friday came.
I wore my only nice dress. The blue one Lily gave me.
I got to Navy Pier at 6:55.
Bought two tickets.
Waited by the Ferris wheel.
7:00.
7:15.
7:30.
8:00.
He never came.
I stood in the cold for an hour, holding a ticket and a cup of hot chocolate that went cold.
Calling his number.
Texting.
_“Caleb?”_
_“Are you okay?”_
_“Please.”_
Nothing.
The next day at school, he was gone.
Transferred. No forwarding address.
Like he was never here.
And that was the last time I saw Caleb Reed.
Until 4 years later.
When his book *LOVELORNED* hit #1 on t****k.
And the dedication page said:
_For M. The girl with the red umbrella._
*TO BE CONTINUED...*
- Writer
