Come Back To Me (chapters 1-9) - Paige569 (polar express read aloud TXT) 📗

chapter 1


Dylan and I had been neighbors our entire lives. He was the boy next store and I was the little girl begging to tag along with him and his friends. He had always been sweet to me and I had always been in love with him for as long as I could remember, but it was never like that for him I suppose.

To him I was just little Kate and nothing else.

Tomorrow he was leaving for college. He was two years older than me and was headed to New York City to attend NYU. He didn't know what his major was yet, but he had always been smart, just hadn't decided exactly what he wanted to do with it yet.

I would miss him. We had been friends since forever and confided in each other about everything.

I was the one he told about his first kiss or the person he ran to the time he ditched school and hid in our tree house; afraid to face his parents. He was ten years old and going to live up there and never come down. It had taken me two whole hours to get him to go and face the music; which had been a months' sentence of being grounded.

That was all in the past now. Tomorrow my friend would be gone and things would never be the same. I was smarter than to think that he would visit every other month or come home every holiday and summer vacation. He was growing up and faster then I could catch up to him.

Next week I would be a mere junior in high school and he would be a college freshman a thousand miles away from home.

I sat in our tree house, afraid to go down and be faced with the consciousness that he was really leaving. Maybe I would live up here and never come down just like Dylan had planned to do all those years ago. I could create a make believe world where nothing ever changed and things always stayed the same.

I looked at our pictures that hung on the wall, I was six and Dylan was eight. My dirty blond hair was pulled back into two frumpy big tails and my overalls hung loose; hand me downs from my older sister. Standing beside me in the old faded photo was Dylan, who looked as cute as ever. His dark hair was messy and over grown; even now it was hard to get him to go get a haircut. His deep brown eyes were the only thing besides his messy hair I recognized these days. He had grown over the last couple of years and no longer looked like this small boy in the photo I held in my hand, but like a young man. He was tall and his body was no longer gangly, but lean and firm.

"I always liked that picture," his voice brought a sadness that made my stomach both do flips and turn at the same time.

I looked over my shoulder to see Dylan standing half way up the ladder, revealing only his face and upper body.

"Me too," I said glumly.

I continued to stare at the picture even when I heard the sound of him shuffling inside the tree house and I knew he was beside me.

I could still hear the sound of people chatting and music playing across the yard and on the other side of the fence.

"Why aren't you down at your party?" I asked finally looking at him.

"I was looking for you," he said putting an arm around my shoulder. This wasn't unusual. He was like my big older brother in so many ways, but I never really thought of him like that, not really. How could I, I've been in love with him since I was four years old.

I pulled down another picture. It was of him and I at my birthday party, I had just turned five. All I had wanted that year was for Dylan to marry me. In the picture I was wearing my favorite beaded play dress that hung past my feet and over my shoulder, while Dylan wore a loose fitted, white button up shirt with tie and had his arm linked through mine as I held a pitiful bouquet of lilies.

"Oh god, look at us," he laughed taking the picture from my hand and staring at it.

I couldn't stop looking at his face.

"I'm going to miss you Dylan, nothing's going to be the same," I said looking away. I know this is so cliché, but I promised myself I wouldn't cry and hear I was on the brink of tears.

"Everything will always be the same between us Little Kate, you never have to worry about that," he said holding me close and stroking a comforting hand across my back.

Every year I planned to tell him how I really felt, but never had the courage. Now here he was leaving, and it was too late.

Tonight was my last chance, for anything. If I didn't do something now, I never would. So I was going to do the one thing i had dreamt of a thousand times.

I pulled away from him, just enough so I could see his face.

"What is it?" he asked with his eyebrows pushed together in concern.

I wiped the tears away from me eyes and really looked at him. I could feel my heart pounding fast and hard, like at any second it might rip through my chest and maybe it would. I was so afraid of so many things. That maybe he would reject me or laugh.

I took my hand and gently brushed a strand of his silky hair behind his ear. I didn't mean to, but I let it linger there on his face, with no plans of ever moving it what so ever.

Then I did the unthinkable, I kissed him.

At first his lips were frozen undermine and his body stiffened in surprise, but soon he was kissing me back. I slid my hands around his neck, forcing any amount of space between us to be shut out. I wanted to be near him and feel his body against mine in ways we never had.

His lips were softer than I had ever imagined and he tasted minty like peppermint and something sweet. It was the best kiss, my first kiss and there was no other way I would have wanted it.

The kiss had been gentle, but full of passion as he cupped my face with his hands, before skimming down my cheeks and along the extent of my arms, until they stopped at my waste and he held me closely against him.

He pulled back and I didn't open my eyes at first, I only smiled. I knew the moment I opened my eyes, the moment was over.

Slowly I came back and looked at him.

"Katie-"He started to say something; what I don't know, but I silenced him with my hand.

"No," I said shaking my head and crawling over to the ladder.

"I don't want you to call me Dylan; I don't want you to write, I couldn't stand it. Just come back to me," I said as I started climbing down the ladder.

When I reached the bottom I put a hand over my heart, making sure it was still there because it felt like I had left it up in the tree house, put away for safe keeping with all the other memories of him I couldn't carry around.

"I love you Dylan," I whispered, barely audible for even myself to hear and that's where I left him, never looking back.


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That was four years ago.

I am no longer sixteen and I haven't seen or spoken to Dylan in those four years, not since that last night and not since our kiss.

I had gone to a university for two years and decided it wasn't for me. I had just moved back home a month ago and was deciding what I wanted to do with my life. I looked out my child hood window and stared down at the old tree house then across the yard to Dylan's room. Everything appeared the same and it was strange. I could still picture us dangling on the old tire swing and hear Dylan calling for me to come outside and play.

My heart began to race like it used too and still does whenever I thought of him.

I felt nervous, I have waited for this day for a long time and it was hard to believe it was finally here.

Last week, Dylan graduated from college and tomorrow, tomorrow he was coming home.

Chapter 2


I woke up knowing it was here, Saturday, the day Dylan was arriving home.

How many times had I pictured this day; hundreds, thousands? The number was too high and I had lost track somewhere along the way.

I could barely breathe, little on think about what it would be like.

We had left things at a standstill and never discussed what the kiss meant or if it meant anything at all. I know I loved Dylan, I always have and probably always would, but did he love me back any other way then as Little Kate his child hood companion?

I couldn't answer that. I only knew how much I had missed him.

It might seem strange what I had done.

Cutting off all connections with the man I loved nearly my entire life.

At the time though, it seemed like the only way. He was leaving and I had to accept it. If I couldn't have Dylan with me forever and always, then I didn't want to have him in bits and pieces as he dipped his feet into the earth, tasting what else life had to offer while he was away. I couldn't risk being something that held him back.

With him I didn't want any regrets or resentments. I wanted whatever relationship we might ever have, to be done at the right time and back then, four years ago, that meant putting my heart on hold.

I thought about the kiss all the time though. Mostly at night when I lay awake, staring at old photos that I had taken down from the tree house shortly after he had left.

When I closed my eyes I would picture his face in my mind. The way his hair would highlight in the sun and his eyes were a smoldering depth of warmth and friendship.

A smiled broadly to know one, but myself. He was actually going to be here today. I would be able to touch him, hug him and maybe start things where we had left off.

I wondered if he thought about me at all over the years. If he too lay awake imagining my face or our kiss.

The constant ache of doubt swelled in my mind and I wondered if he hadn't, if I was still just his Little Kate and if I had let him that night, if that's what he would have told me.

I couldn't think about that, not now. Not