The Twenty Year Triangle

Chapter Three

I wake up and sit up in my bed, rubbing my eyes as my old bedroom comes into view. The early afternoon light from the window illuminates the space. Confusion causes me to squint at the Johnathan Taylor Thomas poster on my wall.

Didn't I take that down years ago?

As I roll out of bed, I look down to see I have on an old summer dress, a red one with tiny white flowers printed on it. I used to wear this all the time but haven't in years. I then notice a book on my dresser and walk towards it. I immediately recognize the very old and tattered copy of The Neverending Story. 

 I open the book to find the note I tucked inside all those years ago. the memory feels so fresh as if I've been transported right back to that day. 

Hey, sleepy; I didn't want to wake you, so I'm creepily writing a note at your bedside. If that doesn't scare you away, will you meet me in the barn when you get up? We should talk. Is what is scribbled on the note. It's torn from a notepad with a little monkey at the bottom holding a sign that says, take a message. 

I don't want to relive this memory, it hits me in some form nearly every time I come home and here it is again it seems, but I can't seem to wake up, and I cannot take my eyes off the darn note and that perfect handwriting.

I guess even my subconscious loves to torture me. 

A noise from downstairs shakes my attention from the tiny paper in my hand and I hope I'm waking up from this thing. 

Not the case, instead, everything changes. I realize the poster is gone, and the walls are simply bare white, other than some patchwork like it looked before my dad painted it. It's no longer brightly lit. Instead, it appears to be early evening. The book that was just there is gone; in its place, a bottle of wine, the fancy overpriced stuff, with two glasses on either side. The note in my hand is no longer written on the monkey paper but rather a torn page from a romance paperback sitting next to the wine. 

Julian... I recall when this was, and remember momentarily getting mad about the torn page, but then all I focused on was the words.

Grab the wine and meet me in that old barn- got a surprise for you is what's written on this note in much sloppier handwriting.

"Fuck, wake up," I tell myself, but I don't. 

I flipped out that day... when Julian left me that note. I read the words, meet me in the barn, and it brought it all back. I hadn't been back in that barn since he left... and...

The next moment, I am standing outside the barn holding the note with a shaky hand. Suddenly I walk inside, I have no control over my body in this dream, and I desperately want to wake up. 

But I can't.

Julian is standing there waiting for me. My eyes wash over his handsome and youthful face. The fine lines from all his long days and hard nights are not there yet. His curly chestnut locks are still overgrown and adorable, not yet cut into a short conservative style he wears now, his emerald eyes full of hope and not bitterness. It's like a punch in the gut remembering what I used to see.

"You forgot the wine," he comments. "It's okay; we'll go somewhere after. I didn't realize how dusty and rundown it is here."

He pauses when I don't speak but doesn't see something is wrong. He never was good at reading signs. Instead, he lets out a nervous breath. "Never mind any of that. Kinsey, I have something to ask you." His sensual lips curve into a soft smile as he drops to one knee.