"Hello?"
"Hey, Kate?"
"Yeah, who is this?"
"It's Michael. How are you doin'?"
"M-Michael? Wow... I'm good. H-How are you?"
"I'm great, Kate. Listen, I'm moving back to town here in a few days. I was wondering if you might be able to meet somewhere and catch up tonight."
"Oh, sure! Moving back to good ole Franklin, huh? I mean, that sounds great. What did you have in mind?"
"Well, how about we meet at the coffee shop and go from there?"
"That sounds wonderful," Wonderful? Really?! "Uh, what time did you want to meet?"
I could hear that smile in his voice, "How does 6:30 sound? Then we can grab a bite too."
"That sounds great. I'll see you then, Michael."
"Okay, see ya."
Click. In the course of the phone call, I had managed to open every piece of mail on the table. Catching my breath, I began to calm down and absorb who had just called me. Michael. Michael Boyle. I caught the smile on my face in the mirror in the bathroom and quickly removed it while inspecting my appearance. My color was looking a little better, now that the days were getting longer. I had been getting more sun and didn't look quite as pasty. Lack of sleep the last few nights hadn't helped the hint of grayness beneath my eyes, but that was nothing a little makeup couldn't fix.
Oh, who am I kidding? I haven't had a decent nights sleep for years! How can I show my face with Michael...he can see right through my facade.
Remembering back, I could recall every conversation we'd had on the back of his old green Ford pickup. Every crush that had been discussed, every evil teacher out to get us. I had shared everything with Michael. He was my best friend. But I would never have admitted that my heart jumped at the sound of his voice. Or the fact that no one had been able to understand me like he had. Admitting those things would be risking the perfect relationship I'd had with him, and that was not something I was prepared to do. We'd both been interested in history, but differed in my musical endeavors and his defensive spot on the varsity soccer team. After graduation, we had headed off in different directions and continued emailing and calling for weekly updates. Weekly updates changed to monthly, monthly turned to once a semester, and then stopped altogether. There was no "falling out" or disagreement. It was just understood that we were busy and that we would catch up "next week". By the time Ambrose and I had decided on a date to be married, he had moved out of his dorms and his parents said he had moved in with a girlfriend. Not wanting to interrupt, I had just sent his parents an invite, assuming they would inform him, and called it good. Now, after six years of nothing, Michael had tracked down my number to drop back into my life again.
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