Broad Daylight

Gift

<<Time Skip >>

A cassette tape! Hell yeah! The idea pops into my brain while I'm driving back home from band practice.

I don't change out of my band uniform like I usually do but instead get inside and immediately start searching my room for a box. I check under my bed and pull out a brown shoe box. It's perfect.

Before I left school I grabbed a Twix bar from the vending machine.

I gently lay it on the bottom of the box, leaving space for other things.

I leave the box on my bedroom floor and run downstairs to the basement. I record a couple songs I think Sam might like and some songs that remind me of her. I rewind the songs and it's perfect. I hope she'll like it.

I jog, taking the stairs 2 steps at a time.

I put the cassette by the candy bar and rip a piece of paper out of my school notebook.

What to write, what to write.

I scratch down a sentence. And then another one. Once I'm finished it reads:

Sam, I like you. A lot. But you already know that. Shit. (I scribbled that out, don't worry.) I mean I hope you know that. Yeah. Anyway, would you maybe want to go out with me? On a real date? Sometime?

I read it back to myself for the 10th time. My handwriting is more of a sloppy scribble, but it's readable. Which makes it a pretty good letter in my opinion.

I lay it carefully on top of both the cassette and candy bar, right in the middle.

In the back of my head I make a note to buy Sam an extra pretty corsage.

I look down at the box and place the lid on top of it, smiling as I do so.

The dance is in 2 days. I hope it goes well.