Short Scene

                 I examined the little shop. With the sign FREE DONATIONS beside the small front door and the NEAL’S ANTIQUES, the store itself looked ancient.

       “Come on, Miko. You’ll be fine. Spiders won’t touch you if you don’t touch them.”  I said, as I stood across from my best friend and held Carter’s hand.

                 “Ew! Why would I touch them? Hunter, I’m not going in there. They’ll be everywhere. I think I can see spider webs from here,”  Miko said, a disgusted look on her face.

                “Okay, okay. Me and Carter will be right in here then, okay?”  I jabbed my thumb toward the antique store door. I felt only a little bad for going in without her, simply because her fear of spiders and bugs was quite frankly ridiculous sometimes.

                “Alright, and I’ll be here, on this bench, safe, sound and away from those eight-legged creeps and their icky sticky death traps,” Miko said, taking a seat on the wooden bench beside the shop door.

                Carter and I stepped through the small shop door and heard the bell ring, signaling our entrance.

                “Where to first?” Carter said.

                I looked around, tapping my chin and scrunching my face. “Oh! Clocks!” I grabbed my boyfriend’s wrist and yanked him along. I heard him laugh behind me and allow me to pull him.

                “So how’s your aunt been dealing with your mom lately?” Carter said, as we looked around among the different variations of old clocks.

                “She’s okay… They were never real close anyway. And me and Aunt Rose, we don’t even talk much. I go home, she hands me my dinner plate, and we eat usually with fewer than ten words each. She just got done getting rid of all my mom’s old stuff.” I said.

                “Are you… okay with that?”

                “Yeah, sure. As long as she doesn’t start hittin’ me, we’ll be good. And none of Mom’s stuff ever mattered to me, anyway.”

                That’s something I liked about my Aunt Rose. She never told me it was all my fault then hit me. That was something my momma was never good at.

                “Ah, she won’t. Rose is good, right? She’s not like your mom was.”

                “Not yet, at least. Hey—is that Theo?” I said, pointing at the chocolate skin-colored boy at the register checking out.

                We walked up to Theo just as he turned away from the cashier and met eyes with Carter.

                “Hey, guys. What are you doing here? No one cool comes to Neal’s anymore.”  Theo said, with only a little excitement in his deep voice.

                “What did you buy, Theo?”  I asked, smiling.

                “Oh, just some old jewelry box. My mom’s really into this stuff… Ah, I don’t know. What are you two love birds doing here?”

                “We’ve been to every other store on the block, and it’s not even noon yet. This was pretty much a last resort.”  Carter said.

                “We also have Miko waiting outside, so we should probably get going, right, Carter? You can head out with us if you want, Theo,” I said, hoping he’d accept so Miko didn’t feel quite so alone alongside Carter and me. “I’m starving and broke, so I think we’ll be going to that cheap diner next door.”

                Theo shrugged casually. “Miko? Who’s Miko?”

                “You don’t know Miko? Do you live under a rock? You’re my boyfriend’s best friend and you don’t know Miko? She’s my best friend.”  I said.

“Is she cute?”

I gave my friend a playful shove just as we start toward the door to leave. Theo, who obviously did not expect the push, went  tripping into the counter. His jewelry box went sprawling to the floor.

Unable to do anything, I threw my hands out to catch whatever I could, whether it be Theo or his new-to-him jewelry box. Theo caught himself at the counter, fortunately, but his now-open box had long landed on the floor.

“You’re such a klutz, Theo,” Carter said, laughing and patting his best friend on the back.

My attention lay on what had fallen out of Theo’s box.

It was an envelope, with a torn edge and scribbled letters on the front.