I was just pulling the large cardboard box out from my closet when I heard Matty calling for me. I hesitated a couple of seconds before making the decision that I did, in fact, want to show him the contents. “I’m up here!” I yelled, figuring he might as well come upstairs to see what I had as I did not think I could haul the heavy box down to the main floor.
A few moments later, Matty was standing in my bedroom door frame. He still looked a little sleepy after his nap, and even though we had been under some shade, his skin glistened slightly from the heat. “Was I snoring?” he asked.
“Like a chainsaw,” I joked. “The neighbors called to complain!”
“Ha!” Matty replied. “Whatcha got there?” he asked, stepping forward into the room.
“Well,” I hesitated. “How would you like to take a trip down memory lane?” And with that, I opened the lid of the box to reveal the stacks of photos, notes, and yearbooks from our childhood.
“Oh, wow,” Matty exclaimed as he dropped on his knees across from me to examine the contents. He scooped up a handful of pictures and started eagerly flipping through them. Most were of the two of us but there were also group shots of us with our school friends along with yearly class headshots and oversized, glossy pictures from our school dances.
We gravitated to those dance photos first: freshman and sophomore year homecomings, winter formals, and proms. Matty and I had always been each other’s dates for the dances, although we went to the events with our friend group. Pairing up allowed everyone to exchange corsages and boutonnieres and to have photos taken as a couple by the professional photographers who set up at every event. For the formal dances, we all rode together in rented limos and went to fancy restaurants beforehand. And once at the dance, everyone danced with one another. In addition to couple pictures, we also had group pictures taken by the photographers.
We laughed at the photos of ourselves all dressed up, my hair and makeup way overdone and Matty’s hands around my waist in the awkward way the photographer always posed everyone. We’d never been able to take posing for the pictures seriously, unable to keep proper smiles on our faces, always cracking up at the silliness of the whole thing. The pictures of just the two of us showed two teenagers who were happy and comfortable in each other’s presence.
Flipping through the old pictures brought back so many good memories, memories I had pushed down after Matty moved away. It had been too painful to remember all the times we had spent together; before the start of junior year, after Matty had left, I had put all the photos and mementos in the box and hid it away. I had only opened the lid a few times over the years, quickly putting it back on as just seeing the items inside made me get a lump in my throat.
“Yearbooks! I haven’t seen these in ages. My mom packed up most of my room, and I was never able to find my collection of photos once we got to California,” Matty said, looking up at me with an angry look on his face. “She swore she packed them for me, but I suspect she may have thrown them away or at least hidden them well. I ended up with no pictures from here except the ones I had in my wallet.” He looked up at me before saying, “The wallet you gave me, of course, with your picture tucked inside.” He smiled at me, reaching around, and pulling that very wallet out of his back pocket. He opened it up to show me that my picture was still where I had placed it all those years ago.
“I can’t believe you still have that!” I said, overwhelmed with emotion. The brown leather wallet itself was worn but still in surprisingly good condition. My picture was in the little plastic photo protector that had come with the wallet, the same holder I had slid my picture into sixteen years ago. I reached out and flipped the plastic over to find our prom picture on the back side, again, where I had placed it before putting the wallet into a gift bag and giving it to Matty at his going-away party.
“Oh, Matty,” I said, not sure what to say, just smiling back at him. I, too, had a picture of Matthew in my wallet, although I had it tucked inside an interior pocket. I wanted to keep my memories of him to myself; I didn’t want anyone to see the photo and ask me about him.
We sat for a few moments, stupid grins on our faces as we just looked down at the wallet, which was now laid open on the floor. “I think my parents just wanted me to forget the past completely,” Matty said as he finally folded the wallet up and tucked it back into the pocket of his shorts. “I should have packed my own things and not left it to my mom. However, I was thankful that I at least had these two pictures of you.”
“My folks wanted me to forget, too” I confessed. “I mean, not to the point of hiding or throwing
