Confused, I asked, “It?”
“Yes, it. You two only had eyes for each other. It was so obvious to everyone but you two. Like the world didn’t spin around you guys, you spun around it. You and Dawson had this bubble formed around you from the very beginning, like you two couldn’t be separated by anything…”
Becca stood up and walked over to her bookshelf, bending down (a pig on her butt staring directly at me) and then said, “Ah-ha!”
She pulled out something from the bottom shelf and pattered back over to me.
I recognized what she held in her hand immediately. A yearbook from high school. I got one my freshman year, but unfortunately, it had gotten burned up in the fire – along with every other part of my life.
Becca flipped through the pages quickly, as if she knew exactly what she was looking for. I scooted closer, taking peeks at the blurring pages.
“Look…” she said, sliding the book over into my lap. It still smelled of glossy paper, like the yearbook hadn’t been opened since the day she got it.
I followed Becca’s finger as she dragged it along the smooth surface, skimming over random pictures of people I barely recognized.
“Look at that picture and tell me that you two weren’t totally wrapped up in one another.” I swallowed as my heart lifted up higher in my chest.
I almost wanted to cry, staring down at the two young teenagers, totally captivated by one another. From the looks of the picture, we were in the middle of some type of pep-rally, with blue and black streamers flying through the air behind our heads. Everyone was posing for the picture; Becca in her cheerleading outfit, with a perky ponytail, sticking her finger up as if she were saying “We’re number 1!”, then you had Casey (who now lived in California with her Army husband and three kids), sticking her tongue out and scrunching her eyes closed. Max was standing on the other side of Dawson, sporting his blue football jersey, as were a few other guys, and then there was Dawson and me – smack dab in the middle of the chaos, but we weren’t even looking in the direction of the camera like everyone else. Dawson was staring down at me, smiling like a boy on Christmas morning, and I was peeking up at him, with the same type of smile. It really did look as if we were in our own little world, not even realizing that there were other people screaming all around us.
We had on the same smiles that we wore today, and last night, once again, wrapped up in our own little world. Dawson made the world seem a little brighter.
“See?” Becca piped, causing me to tear my eyes away from the photo. “If I believed in love, you and Dawson would be it, even after the last six years apart.”
“I thought you hated Dawson,” I said, wondering why all of a sudden she was rootin
g for him.
“I hated him when I thought he hurt you.” I nodded in agreement because that was understandable, but there was one more thing I was confused about.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the house?”
Her eyes squinted. “What?”
I pushed back, leaning my body against her soft couch. “Why didn’t you tell me about he and his father building my house?”
Becca’s mouth dropped. “What?!”
“You really didn’t know?”
“Know what? What house?”
I swallowed and filled her in on the fact that Dawson and his father had rebuilt my house and how Dawson now resided in it.
“HOLY SHIT. This could be a freaking movie, Ivy!”
I laughed, “It is. Haven’t you seen the Nicholas Sparks movie?”
“Oh my God. Did he write you letters?! If so, I’m dead.”
I laughed harder. “No, shut up. He didn’t write me letters.”
Becca gave me a side glance, pulling her blonde hair to one side. “Are you sure?”
I chuckled. “I’m pretty sure…but you really didn’t know?”
She shook her head, looking around the room in complete and utter awe. “No. I didn’t know or I probably would have told you. You know Dawson and I didn’t really speak for years, and even though I don’t agree with some of the stuff he did while you were gone, I know for a fact that he cares so much about you.”
I urged her to continue.