The End of Forever, chapter two

I’ve been staring very hard at stuff lately. Now, I was looking at the family photo album, trying to make sense of the pictures. I don’t recognize some of the people in them, and I recognize even fewer of the settings.

Looking at photos has always driven me crazy.

I flip restlessly through the pictures. There’s Mom. She looks different, less tired, happier. There’s dad. He looks calm and fearless, nothing like the way he is now. And there I am. I look different too. I’m tanner, and my hair is a lighter brown, almost blonde. I’m standing with my arm around another girl, whom I don’t recognize, smiling at the camera.

I can recognize myself. I look happier and healthier than now, but not startlingly so. It’s what’s behind me that is unrecognizable.

I’m standing in front of house. It’s in good shape, but small. On the ground there are stones instead of grass, and the street is packed with cars. Behind the house, a hulking building reached up towards the sky.

And in the driveway are both our cars.

This could be a friend’s house, I thought, but then why would both our cars be there? Is it possible that this used to be my house, and we moved?

Actually, now that I think of it, I seem to remember moving. Or, not the moving itself, just the knowledge that I haven’t lived here all my life. I didn’t remember the old house, or the move, or being “the new kid.” I just knew that, once upon a time, I had lived somewhere else.

Sick of looking at pictures, I re-open the diary.

June 16,2004
We’ve left. I can barely sit still. It seems I can’t wait a second longer to reach our beach house. And the car ride lasts an hour and a half.

This is gonna be torture.

I’ve been waiting all year for this. The waiting starts as soon as we’ve left the beach house for the summer, and lasts until the car finally bumps over the stones that make up the driveway.

The wait is awful. But I feel happy. This is the car ride to where I belong, and I know every single mile. I could drive here myself, blindfolded. We’ve been driving for ten minutes so far, I know, because we’re passing the Macy’s shopping center, which marks the first ten minutes of the ride.

An hour and twenty minutes left to go. I think I’m gonna die.

Later:

We’re crossing the bay. We’re crossing the bay! WE’RE CROSSING THE BAY!

The water looks clear and blue and cold. I wanna jump out of the car right now and jump in.

Except that probably wouldn’t be a good idea. I’d end up locked in my room for the rest of the vacation.

You know, I’m actually enjoying this. Journals aren’t anything like best friends, but you can’t stuff your best friend in your pocket, because then you’d wind up with an ex best friend. And stretched out pockets. Also, if you start telling your best friend about all the minor details, like the coolness and blueness of the water, she’ll get really bored.

Now we’re on the island. Long Beach Island, aka the beach. I’m gonna live here forever. When I grow up, I’ll buy my own house here. And my kids will live here, and their kids, and their kids, and their kids. And…

And we’re now bumping into the driveway. It is the most beautiful sound in the world.

I put down the diary. “The stones that make up the driveway.” I wonder.

Could the beach house in the diary be the house in the scrapbook? And will the diary tell me why we don’t have a beach house anymore?

And could I, somehow, regain the fun, fearless nature I once had? I look back at the picture in the open scrapbook. “What happened to you?” I ask myself outloud.