Whiskey Flick by Ringbloom Ryan

Author:Ringbloom, Ryan [Ringbloom, Ryan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Ryan Ringbloom
Published: 2019-06-15T16:00:00+00:00

That’s Next Year’s Problem

“This is for you.” Sasha hands me a little wrapped package.

No one knows anything yet. All the telling. All the baby steps. It’s not happening until after the holidays. That’s all I’ve asked for this Christmas. But apparently, I’m getting more.

I open the box and see our faces smiling up at me. There’s a small string attached to the photo.

“Pull it.” Sasha smiles and clasps her hands together, moving in closer to me on the sofa in her living room. The white lights and red accents of the sophisticated tree only a designer could pull off glow in the corner.

I pull the string, and one picture turns into two, three, it keeps going and going until there’s at least a dozen or more of our pictures. Some of them are recent, a picture of us from our skydiving adventure, a picture from an overnight trip to Philly we took, a selfie in bed. And then I realize the other pics are from back then, pictures I erased, deleted from my phone a long time ago.

“How do you have these?” I ask, unable to tear my eyes away. Sasha in a gown standing next to me in a pair of old sweats. The two of us on the golf course by my parents’ cabin. Roasting marshmallows. Drinking wine. Silly selfies. They’re all there.

“I always asked you to send the pictures to me. I saved them all.” She points to one of us hugging in front of my parents’ Christmas tree. “This one is my favorite.”

It’s hard to look at these pictures now and not see what was always there between us. After everything happened, I had deleted every trace of her from my phone. With the exception of one picture that was of just her. It was from the last time I had seen her before she showed up that day to talk. I studied that picture. I always believed between that picture and the video footage of that day, I could get the answers I needed. Where had it come from? Had I led her on? Was I just some curiosity? Was she using me for a way out with Henry?

“I see it so clearly now,” I say. I knew the feelings on my side, labeling it as just a crush, but now seeing all these pictures from the past dangling on the string, it was always there between us. Both of us. “Do you think the others saw? Do you think he did?”

“No, I honestly don’t. We were struggling to see it ourselves, how were they going to see?” She glances down and examines one of her fingernails. “Besides, I’ve kept up with your posts. The pictures of you and Remi.” Her nail, she’s obsessed. “Sometimes you seem just as happy when you’re with her.”

Jealousy over Remi. It’s fantastic. It almost makes me wish Remi knew about us, because she would love knowing that my girlfriend was envious of her.

“Remi is my best friend and absolutely nothing more.

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