There it was in my little hand, shining like a spotlight into my eyes--a note, torn from a small book with the frayed left-hand side like all my scattered emotions...written in pencil with careful first-grade lettering were the words "I still love you. Do you still love me? Love, Sam."
And I stood paralyzed on the lawn, sniffing pollen from lilac and forsythia, feeling the latent soaking of a mild puddle incident only ten minutes earlier.
I vanished then, away to a place where there were no sniffles, no mud puddles and no little boys asking me questions I could not bring myself to answer. I left the scene entirely and hurled myself into the future where I would fall in love again and again and have my heart disassembled and put back together like a smash-up derby car, into the future where I would experience the deepest love known to human blindness and then the rejection of repeatedly unreturned phone calls...where I would write masterpieces of emotional clarity and gifts of compassionate wisdom and never so much as hear confirmation of having been received, not a word ever again yes or no, he loves me, he loves me not...
...and I lie now in the grass pulling daisy petals from my mouth where they had become lodged so long ago, my throat obstructed from answering the sweet boy who trembled before me. Yes, I still love you, I will always love you. I can say it now, Sammy, And it's a good thing too, because this time, I've got to say it to my self.