note.
It said:
“You left something behind. Please come back.”
I knew she would probably be confused.
Maybe even worried.
I didn’t know whether she would remember me.
But I hoped she would come back.
The next evening, the doorbell rang again.
I opened the door.
Charlotte was standing there.
She looked pale and nervous.
“Did I do something wrong, sir?” she asked quickly.
“Please don’t report me.”
“I won’t.”
“They’ll fire me.”
“You’re not in trouble.”
She stared at me.
“Then why did you ask me to come back?”
I stepped aside.
“Come in.”
She hesitated.
Then walked through the doorway.
“You deserve to see what you did.”
She looked confused.
I led her into the living room.
She took a few steps.
Then stopped.
Her hand went to her chest.
“Oh my God…”
She looked around the room.
Photographs covered the walls.
Enlarged photographs.
Photographs from my high
school prom.
There I was.
Seventeen years old.
Standing beside Charlotte.
Dancing with her.
Smiling.
Looking happier than I had looked in years.
The photographs had been kept by Uncle Ray all those years.
I had never thrown them away.
Charlotte slowly walked closer.
She looked at one photograph.
Then another.
She still didn’t understand.
Then I said the name I had called her in high school.
“Lottie.”
She froze.
Her eyes widened.
She looked at me.
Really looked at me.
“Tyler?”
I smiled.
For several seconds, she couldn’t speak.
Then she covered her mouth.
“Oh my God.”
She recognized me.
The boy she had taken to prom twenty years earlier was standing in front of her.
But I wasn’t the same boy anymore.
The person standing before her was healthier, confident, financially secure, and successful.
Still, inside, I remembered exactly what it felt like to be seventeen and believe
that nobody could ever see past my appearance.
Charlotte sat down.
She began to cry.
I sat beside her.
Neither of us spoke for a while.
Eventually, she told me what had happened to her life.
The modeling dream hadn’t worked out the way she had hoped.
