That Summer

Author: Janet (SkyGirl5)

Genre: S/V, AU

Summary: A summer full of unexpected events turns out to be the best and most difficult of Michael Vaughn's life.

Disclaimer: Sydney, Vaughn, etc are properties of JJ Abrams and ABC.

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Prologue + Chapters 1-10 // Chapters 11 - 20 + Epilogue

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Prologue

The summer I was twenty-seven years old was one I’ll always remember. That summer was both the best and hardest summer of my live thus far. Now, at my old age of sixty-nine, I believe it’s safe to say it will continue to be the best and hardest of my life. I learned important lessons about life in those short months, up until that point having been a rather jaded young man who was waiting for an ivory life to begin. Mostly, though, I learned something important about myself that year.

Until then, you see, I believed two things were indisputably true about the world. First, that love doesn’t last forever. Second, that no matter how much you pray or wish, in the end, it’s only a waste of time and you’ll only be let down when, at the end of the day, your wishes and prayers fade away, never even close to coming true.

How did I become so cynical, you may wonder? Well, it’s simple really. When I was younger - much, much younger – five, maybe six perhaps, I believed that my family was the best in the world. I thought my parents were so in love and perfect for one another. I thought that’s how it would be forever. I couldn’t have known it at the time, being so young, that I couldn’t have been more wrong.

My daddy was a drunk, an abusive one at that. He never hit me, though I suspected he’d try to on occasion; for some reason she was always his target. As I grew older, I’d notice the bruises and cuts and I’d wake up during the night to hear their screaming. Finally, when I was eleven, it all came to a head when my daddy was arrested for assault – not on my mama, though, on someone at a bar where he was getting wasted.

A few years later, he was released from jail, came back - still drunk, mind you - and attacked my mama once more. That’s when I realized that love doesn’t last forever. It can’t; it’s not possible. This, you see, is how I came to my second belief about life.

All those nights I’d pray. I’d pray for the screaming to stop. I’d pray for my daddy to stop hurting my mama; hurting us. I’d wish he’d go away and once he was gone I’d wish he’d never come back. A lot of good that did me…

Praying doesn’t work. The town where we live has a lot of those crazy religion preaching people who think everything can be solved, as long as you pray enough that is. Well, that’s all fine and dandy for them, but what about the rest of us? Those of us who live in the real world? You can pray to God every night and every morning until you’re old and grey like I am now, but He isn’t always going to listen, how could He? There are six billion people in this world (well, there were less back then) and He couldn’t possibly listen to them all.

That’s what I thought anyway, but by the end of that summer I knew for certain that at least one of my beliefs about the world was utterly wrong. Now, only a few month’s shy of my seventieth year on this earth, I know, without a doubt, that both of them were wrong.

So, what about that summer was so earth shattering? Well, I’ll tell you. Her name was Sydney Bristow.



Chapter 1

I grew up in the deep south; the deep, deep south as in the place that should practically be declared its own country because it’s so different than the rest of the US of A. Down there, in Alabama to be exact, typically either one of two things happened to a person as they were growing up: they either knew right from the start that the moment that high school diploma was put in their hand they were outta there forever, for good (except maybe returning for a holiday or two) or they never wanted to leave because it was their home and it got under their skin, the way those great southern towns can, for those that enjoy them anyway. There was, however, a third thing that happened to some people, like to me. Those people wanted to leave desperately, but were trapped there because of something, or, usually, someone. Even more usually that someone was a girl. It wasn’t in my case, though. Well, in a way I guess it was, but I called this girl Mama.

Since my daddy was the way he was, I was all my mama had, so I couldn’t leave her. She’d look at me with her brown eyes in that motherly way that she’d be begging me without even begging and I was stuck; I couldn’t go. After I graduated high school I went on to college in Birmingham, only a few hours away. Then, once I received my degree, I returned to Liberty to stay, but I guess I’ve gotten a bit ahead of myself.


Liberty, Alabama, where I was born and raised, is about as small a small town as you’d ever find. It has exactly one street, not surprisingly called Main Street, and on that street was… well, just about everything. Big Jesse’s Barber Shop, now owned by Little Jesse (Big Jesse’s son), but still the social center of the town; Dobson’s Market, a combination pharmacy, diner and grocery store and pretty much the only place to purchase food within the town’s borders; and, of course, Liberty K-12, home to kindergarten through twelfth grade and only about two hundred students in all.

Being part of the deep south, our town had exactly one of all those things, and most any other type of store that existed there, but lining Main Street there were a total of three churches, two of them Baptist and one of them some sort of nondenominational. Most every family in Liberty attended one of those churches at least once a week (though for a great number of families it was usually more than once), except my family, that was. I don’t think I ever set foot in one of those churches, but that’s another story for another time.

My childhood isn’t something I like to think about very much; it wasn’t a happy time for me. Well, part of it was, but that part was a lie, you see, so it no longer is happy to me. My daddy being the way he was taints all memories I have of that time, at least, of my home life. What I do remember most were the summers.

Back then, not very many people in the town had air conditioning in their houses. Liberty wasn’t a very well-off town. We weren’t close to living in poverty by any means, we just weren’t overly wealthy. Not having air conditioning was quite unfortunate for most of the days out of the summer. If you’ve lived down there or visited, you’ll know what I mean, but if not, I’ll try to explain.

Summers in the south are like summers no place else. For starters, the air is thick with humidity, so thick that it feels like the meringue atop a lemon pie; it feels like you can’t even move through it. The air sticks to your skin along with your shirt and pants causing you to always feel as though you need a shower, even if you just took one. The sun would beat down on you too, hard. If you bought an ice cream cone from Dobson’s and took it outside you either had to eat it so fast that it gave you one of those terrible headaches or you’d be licking it off your arm within seconds.

Lucky for me though, my house had air conditioning, which meant it was a central hang out for kids in my grade. You see, there was only about twenty kids in my grade, which meant we were a real close-knit bunch, having spent out entire lives together. We were friends with the kids in the grades above and below us, too and we all spent the summers together, running outside when we could and sitting on a shaded porch, sipping cool drinks, when it got too hot.

Growing up, my best friend was James Powers. When I was in the fourth grade his family moved into the house across the street from mine and we immediately became inseparable. In school, we rose to the top of the social hierarchy as we grew older and soon everyone knew us to be the kings of the school. James doesn’t live here anymore, though. He was one of those who knew he had to get out of our small hick town the moment he moved into it, even if he did enjoy his school existence. He only stuck around for a month after graduation before going to some fancy law school up north; he’s never been back here either, but that’s okay I suppose.

Anyway, James, me and all our friends would spend summers at my house. When we were younger, we’d chase after the girls, trying to throw water on them as they screeched in horror. As we grew older, we still chased them, but for an entirely different reason. One girl in particular caught my eye and her name was Sydney.

Sydney was a very quiet girl, probably one of the quietest people I’ve ever known in my life. She never said much in school or anywhere else. She was one of those people who if you asked her a direct question she’d answer it just as polite as can be, but she’d never start a conversation herself. During those summers, she’d come over to my house, but she’d never say much. Usually, she’d bring a book along with her to read while the rest of us played cards or tormented the younger kids (depending on what mood we were in that day). She never spoke to us, but every so often, she’d look up from her book and smile at me.

Well, of course, this made me completely enamored with her. I’m tellin’ you, one look at her dimpled smile and I was a goner. The only problem was, she didn’t seem to be too interested in me. Sure, I’d swagger up to her with my grin on and I’d lean up against one of the posts to the porch and I’d try to turn on all the charm I had. This routine usually had girls swooning at my feet, ready to kiss my sneakers, but not her; not Sydney. She’d talk with me for a few moments and then turn back to her book as if the conversation hadn’t taken place at all. This, of course, only made me want her more, but whatever I was sellin’ she wasn’t buyin’.

Eventually, I gave up on Sydney, but she was always a friend to me, just like all those other kids were until, one by one, they disappeared after graduation. Only two people from my class stayed around Liberty: Becky Rose, who took over her mother’s clothing shop and Alex Stanton, who’s the Sheriff’s deputy. Everyone else faded away. I’ve spoken to a few of them, when they came to visit their families, but that’s all. Some days when I sit out on my front porch, the front porch of the house I grew up in and the house where I still live, I think about them. I wonder whatever happened to them; I wonder if they ever wonder about me, but then I realize that they probably don’t. After all, once you leave Liberty and lead, what is almost guaranteed to be, a more exciting life elsewhere, you’d probably never think of it again. I wouldn’t really know this though; I’ve never really left.



Chapter 2

In college, I majored in journalism and creative writing. I’m really not quite sure how I fell into that either. I mean, in high school, I hated English class, but I think that may have just been because we had to read boring books and all that Shakespeare crap. I hated Shakespeare, but I loved journalism, which, I guess, worked out for me rather well. I never really excelled in any particular field of study. My math grades were alright, but is there really a career in that besides a teacher? Trust me I’d make a horrible teacher. Science classes and me didn’t go well together at all; same with history so that left me with journalism.

I had a problem, though. A bachelor’s degree in journalism was all well and good, but how exactly would I make a living doing that? Sure, I could have written for a newspaper in a larger city, maybe, but Liberty didn’t have a newspaper and I had to go back to Liberty.

You see, my mama had diabetes all her life and for the most part she managed it well. She was almost forty by the time I was born, so by the time I graduated college she was sixty years old and, for some reason, her diabetes was affecting her whole body. The doctors weren’t sure why, either. They told her to go see specialists who might be able to help her, but she refused. She always hated doctors. She said it was enough that she had to give herself insulin injections every day; she didn’t need to be poked or prodded by anyone else. This, of course, wasn’t exactly conducive to her health improving, so I had to return to Liberty to take care of her.

Luckily, by that time Liberty was slowly beginning to come into the modern world meaning we were opened up to the wonderful world of the internet. Sure, the stubborn people marched themselves straight to church, praying for God to save them from the devil’s intervention that was the internet, but for me it was a gift. That way, I could find a job that would let me write articles and email them (albeit through dial-up, but that was better than nothing), thus enabling me to make enough money to support myself and my mama.

I got a job, well two jobs actually. One job was a once-a-month column in a magazine for teens encouraging them to major in journalism. That didn’t pay much, but it was fun. The other job was a bi-weekly column about a subject my editor gave me. Usually, I could write the column after doing a bit of research using the internet and I was set. Some would call it a cake job, but it was actually a lot more work that it appeared to be. It wasn’t overly time consuming though, so it allowed me to be able to help my mama the best I could.

For years my mama and I lived that way and it worked for us. Some people wondered if I wasn’t bored or lonely or ‘a loser’ for staying with my mama, but those people just didn’t realize that we were all each other had. We stayed that way until a few weeks before my twenty-seventh birthday, when she passed away in her sleep. Complications from her diabetes, the doctors told me.

That was hard. I have to tell you, it was probably the hardest thing in my life. For nearly twenty-seven years she had been there and suddenly she was gone and I was alone… well, not exactly alone. That’s one of the benefits (and sometimes a curse) of a small town like Liberty. The moment word of her death got out I had more people showing up to help me than I knew what to do with. They all volunteered to help me with funeral preparations and everything; I didn’t have to do a thing, which was good, because I doubt I was in much of a state to make important decisions.

The drawback, however, to letting them take over, was that they planned my mama’s funeral to take place in Liberty Baptist Church. Like I mentioned before, I’d never set foot in a church in my entire life, neither had my mother (at least not in her adult life). We never talked about God or the Bible or nothing like that, so, let me tell you, it was a big shock when that preacher came up to me and told me how my mama was in heaven with all the other angels. Luckily he could see that I really wasn’t in any state for a Bible lesson or a lecture on the sin of not attending church. After that day, though, I never went back; never had a reason to.


Now, you see, I’m to the part where this story really begins. After mama’s funeral, I was sort of lost with myself. Looking back, I see that my problem was that I was waiting for something to happen, as if some switch would be flicked and everything would fall into place. However, that was not the case. I didn’t know what to do with myself. There I was in Liberty, thinking I had to stay, but really I didn’t. Then, to my horror I realized that the town had gotten under my skin like it does and I was trapped there. I begrudgingly came to realize that I enjoyed recognizing the faces of those who I passed on the street. I enjoyed (albeit some days more than others) that I couldn’t simply go into Dobson’s and buy my groceries without having a twenty five minute conversation with Mrs. Dobson and whomever else was in the store at the time. Mostly, though, I doubted I’d be able to survive any place else. For twenty-seven years, I’ve had the snail-paced way of life from the deep south engrained within me; ridding myself of it would be near impossible.

So, there I was, walking down Main Street on my way to Dobson’s to pick up some food for the weekend when I saw her. Her brown hair floated out behind her, carried by the light breeze blowing, as she walked down the street towards me and though she was wearing large, oversized sunglasses and dressed in clothing far too warm for the temperature outside, I knew it was her. Sydney Bristow had returned to Liberty, but the question was… why?



Chapter 3

Like me, Sydney Bristow grew up with only one parent for most of her life. When we were both eight, her mama died suddenly, but I never knew why. For the rest of her time here she was raised by her father. I don’t remember much of Sydney before her mama’s death, mostly because I was in my ‘girls are icky’ phase of life at the time, but I always suspected her mama’s death was the reason for her quiet personality. It may not have been, I don’t know, it was simply my guess.

Like many of my other classmates, Sydney never returned to Liberty in the time since our graduation from high school. This surprised me more than it did for the other students, after all, she was all her father had and, as far as I could tell, they didn’t have a poor relationship. Then again, maybe they were just good at hiding it.

You see, in the south, another thing that ranked right up there with church going was the gossip mill. For example, if Sally kissed Robert on the way home from school, it was very likely that both Sally’s and Robert’s parents knew about the kiss even before their children arrived home. That was simply the way life was around here. Hardly anything happened without the entire town hearing about it, unless you were amazingly good at hiding it that was. For instance, I’m not sure that there was any gossip around the town about my daddy’s abuse. About his drinking, sure, but that was because he drank in public, but not about his abuse. Then again, maybe I just didn’t hear it because I was involved.

Anyway, I never heard anything poor about the relationship between Sydney and her father. Of course, I never heard much about them at all, except one rumor about Mr. Bristow having a fling with the pianist at Liberty Baptist, but I’m pretty sure that was just a rumor.

Something even stranger about this being Sydney’s first appearance in Liberty since ten summers ago was the fact that her father passed away not two months earlier; and she didn’t attend the funeral. This, as you might imagine, caused a major uproar in our fair town. Not attending the funeral of a parent was an unforgivable sin in the eyes of these people. Even if you hated your parent, you were still expected to be there, accepting condolences. Sydney didn’t show though, and for weeks afterward the town was abuzz about it. It had calmed down by then, but it was bound to strike up once more as soon as they realized she was back (which really would be in a matter of minutes).

Now, I’m not one to add to the gossip mill. I listen to what’s being said (it’s sort of hard not to) I rarely participate though. But, I have to admit, even this piqued my curiosity and had me wondering what exactly was the reason Sydney didn’t attend her father’s funeral. Surely, she must have had a good reason. After all, Sydney was such a sweet, good natured girl – it was easy to tell that even though she was quiet. It would be hard to imagine her as someone who would skip out on her own father’s funeral without a very good explanation.

So I stood there on Main Street, not twenty feet from Dobson’s Market, my mouth dangling open slightly, my eyes fixed upon her as she walked towards me. I must have been quite the sight to see because I noticed her brow furrowing at me. She stopped and pulled her sunglasses up off of her eyes and perched them atop her head. It was then I was able to see into the deep chocolate pools of her eyes for the first time; they were more beautiful than I remembered.

“Michael Vaughn?” she asked, a smile creeping across her face.

Now I should have responded to this, but I couldn’t, for something stunned me even more than her actual appearance in town. When she spoke, it was with a complete lack of southern drawl. Not even the tiniest speck or hint of accent was left; she sounded like a complete and total Yankee, one of them people who have never been south of the Mason-Dixon line in their life.

I stood there for a moment, making an utter fool of myself before finally croaking, “Y-Yeah, that’s me. It’s a pleasure to see you again Sydney.”

“Pleasure to see you too,” she smiled. “You still live around here?”

“Never moved actually; I still live in my mama’s house,” I told her.

“Oh, how is your mother?” she asked.

Mother - now there’s a foreign term to me. Sure, I knew what it meant, but I doubt I’d said that word in my life. “Actually, she passed away about eight months ago,” I said. Immediately, her face fell into that concerned, consoling one I’d seen all too often in these pass eight months. She told me how sorry she was and I gave my typical ‘thanks, but it’s okay,’ line.

“So where you livin’ now?” I asked, quickly changing the subject. I’d definitely received enough sympathy to last me a life time; I didn’t need anymore. I knew she’d be glad to give it, I just didn’t need it.

“Chicago,” she told me. I nodded, recalling that she was accepted to a college in that area after high school. She must have attended and never left. “Yeah, I’ve been staying up there with my job and all; been really busy.”

“What do you do?” I asked her.

“Investment banking,” she told me. Then, she briefed me in the financial aspects of her job, of which I understood nothing. Along with many other things, the stock market and investing had never been one of my strong suits. I simply smiled politely and nodded along with what she said, pretending like I understood a word of it, when really, she could have been talkin’ in a foreign language for all I comprehended.

“Sounds interesting,” I commended.

“It can be, yeah. Well, listen, I don’t want to hold you up or anything-”

“No, no it’s fine,” I assured her. Boy, she really had been in the north too long. No one in the south would apologize for stoppin’ you on the street to talk to you for an hour let alone the five minutes we had been gabbing.

“Oh, well, I’ve got some place to be in a few minutes, but… maybe we could get together later to, you know, reminisce or something?” she suggested with a smile.

“Absolutely,” I gave her a nod. Then, I told her that after I picked up my groceries at Dobson’s I’d be home for the rest of the day. This was the typical way of telling someone to just come over, but she, obviously influenced by the big city life for too long, asked for a specific time. I told her four o’clock and she agreed before flashing me a smile and going on her way.

Oh that smile, the one that made me go weak at the knees when I was fifteen years old, still had the same affect on me. I hurried off towards Dobson’s planning to get something special for Sydney along with my other needed items.



Chapter 4

I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve never been a ‘must have my living space spotlessly clean’ type person. It’s not as though my house is harboring diseases or breeding little critters or anything like that, it’s simply not neat as a pin. This meant that I had to spend almost all the time after I arrived home from Dobson’s cleaning up my house.

I had barely finished when I heard a knock at the front door, meaning Sydney had arrived. On my way to the door, I glanced at the clock. Noting that it was exactly four on the dot, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. In the south, arriving at four meant you’d be there around four thirty and that wasn’t even late, it just was. The north really had affected Sydney too much.

“Hi,” I smiled to Sydney when I opened the door.

“Hi,” she smiled back. “This place looks nice. You painted it white.”

“Yeah, I was sick of the green.”

She gave a single nod. “Looks better white.”

“Thanks, I thought so too. You wanna sit?” I asked, gesturing towards the wooden benches that had forever lined my front porch.

“Actually,” she asked cautiously, giving a nervous glance towards the west side of my house. “Can we walk to the stream?”

I gave her an affirmative nod and a warm smile before stepping out of my house, shutting the door behind me. We then walked even with each other down the porch steps and towards the west, where the stream ran. That stream was also part of our summer hang out routine. It was very narrow and only came up to your ankles if you stood in it, but it offered some cooling protection from the blazing hot summer days, that is, if you watched out for the creatures living in it, who enjoyed snapping at your bare toes.

Though in the collective ten minutes I spent in Sydney’s presence that day she had probably spoken more to me than in the previous twenty-seven years combined, I always knew Sydney loved that stream. I don’t know how I knew; I just did.

“So what do you do Michael?” she asked me with a sideways glance.

“I’m a writer,” I told her. She looked shocked so I continued, “Yeah, I really am. I write articles for two different magazines.”

“I don’t think I would have pictured you as a writer, but I’m sure you’re a good one,” she said. I gave her a smile, though I think I stared at her for a bit too long, because she began to laugh and look slightly nervous. “What is it?”

“Nothing, nothing…. I guess maybe I’m still surprised to see you here in Liberty,” I said to her. Okay, so that wasn’t the whole truth, but it wasn’t a full lie either.

“Mm you’re surprised I’m actually speaking - don’t lie,” she said in a knowing tone. I laugh and shrug my shoulders, nodding slightly; guilty as charged. “Well, as it turns out, in the real world you actually have to speak! I don’t know about you, but this came as an utter shock to me.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I am shocked as well,” I told her in a patronizing tone.

“I know!” she exclaimed as if it was some new, horrifying revelation. “It was terrible. Of course, in the beginning I was horribly bad at it. I mean, you know me, I didn’t talk to the people I had known for thirteen years. Suddenly, I was being forced to talk to people who I hardly knew, which is hard enough. But… I got by,” she sighed. “I still don’t talk much around strangers, but I’m not the only one on the planet that does that, so it’s okay.”

“Yep, it’s fine,” I told her. Another few moments of walking in silence and we reached the stream. Sydney smiled at the bridge going across it. Now, the term ‘bridge’ was a bit strong a word. Really, it was a few planks nailed together, some of them missing. In fact, the same ones that were missing back when we were kids were the exact ones missing then.

She looked back at me with her grin. “It’s nice to see this place hasn’t changed much.”

“Didn’t you get the message? We’re not allowed to change down here,” I told her. Seriously, it’s like an unspoken law. She laughed, knowing it to be true. “So tell me, Sydney, what’s it like in Chicago?” I asked her as we began walking along the banks of the stream.

“Oh Michael…,” she began. The moment those words left her lips my head snapped towards her; her drawl was beginning to return. “It’s so different I can’t even begin to describe it. When I first got there I wasn’t sure I’d survive. Everything is… opposite of here. It’s so fast and everything happens like that,” she said while snapping her middle finger and thumb together.

“I can now understand why people from up there can’t survive if they move down here,” she told me.

I nodded; this made perfect sense to me, just as much sense as me knowing I’d never survive up there. “So where do you like it better?” I asked.

She laughed in response, shaking her head. “As much as it’s too hard to describe the differences, it’s harder to pick a favorite; they’re too different. I love it in Chicago, but here will always have a place in my heart, you know? Though I doubt I could see myself moving back here for good, at least, not in this stage of my life.”

I nodded. She gave me a perfect lead-in for my next question. “So how long you plannin’ on stayin’?” I asked, not wanting to come out and ask what she was doing here. Some would, but I find that to be a little rude. However, those same people who would ask that question don’t seem to know the meaning of that word.

She shrugged. “Not sure really. At least for a few days, until Monday. Maybe longer. Oh that reminds me – I should be going. I have to find a hotel to stay at and, as you know, there aren’t any around here,” she said.

She was right; there aren’t any hotels in Liberty or the surrounding towns, at least none that I knew of. “Why don’t you stay with me?” I offered. This may seem strange to you, but it’s simply expected in a small town like this. Old friend visiting? They stay with you. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

“Oh Michael I can’t put you out like that,” she shakes her head.

“Come on Sydney. I don’t want you driving off to some god-forsaken motel three towns over. Stay the night at least; I insist,” I told her. She looked hesitant, but I gave her a reassuring smile and nod.

“Alright,” she sighed. Then, she gave me a huge smile. “Thank you Michael.”

“You are very welcome,” I told her, placing my hand on her back and giving it a light rub.

I didn’t know it then, but that moment, that exact moment, was the beginning of quite possibly, the most unexpected ride of my life.



Chapter 5

“Michael, are you sure you don’t mind me staying?” she asked for what seemed like the hundredth time. She gave me a very concerned look as she lifted her second piece of luggage out of her trunk and placed it on the ground beside her car.

“Seriously,” I said, hoisting up the bag. “It’s fine. I insist that you stay. Besides, really, you’ll be doing me a favor. My house gets rather lonely at night and it’s nice to have some company.”

“Well, in that case, I’m glad to be of service,” she smiled. I smiled back. Then, I made sure I had a firm grip on her luggage before carrying it towards the house. She must have either packed everything she had or owned abnormally heavy luggage because I was practically dying carrying those bags. It must have showed, too, because she asked, “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” I grunted, though I was beginning to wish she had parked closer to the house.

“Always the gentlemen, Michael. Your mama’d be proud,” she smiled when she passed me. She then jogged to the door and held it open so I could get inside.

“Thanks,” I told her. “You’re right, she would be proud… that she whipped it into me.” Really, my mom never whipped me (although she did give me a few rather nasty verbal lashings when, on occasion, I’d slip out of my ‘gentlemanly’ behavior), but Sydney smiled at this anyway.

“You want me to carry these straight upstairs?” I asked her, gesturing towards the steps with one of the heavy black bags. She gave a single nod and I began to trudge up the stairs, suffering less since I was out of the beating sun but still struggling since I was, in fact, going up.

“You have a guest bedroom?” she asked.

I laughed softly at her tone. “I love that you sound shocked I’ve actually managed to keep a roof on the place.”

“NO! No, of course not!” she said adamantly. “I just didn’t peg you as the type that would keep a guest room completely prepared with those fancy little soap things and lace curtains.”

I had no idea what ‘soap things’ she was talking about and, while there are lace curtains, they belonged to my mama and are, thus, not my doing. “Not quite. I just kept my mama’s room pretty much the same,” I told her.

Sydney’s never really been upstairs in my house, at least not that I can remember, so I led the way down the hall towards the main bedroom. I put her things down at the foot of the bed with a groan, glad to have that weight off. “So… this is it. You need anything?” I asked.

She shakes her head as she looks around. “You still sleep in your childhood room?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, I just didn’t have the heart to move mama’s stuff out yet, you know?”

She nodded. “Yeah, same way with my father’s stuff. I just… I don’t know what to do with it, but… I’ll deal with it tomorrow I suppose.”

For a moment, I almost took the mention of her father as a door opening into that conversation. Then, I realized that bringing up such a subject would have been entirely rude and ungentlemanly of me, so the best course of action was to forget that comment was ever made and continue on with our conversation. “Right, so, if you need anything you can let me know. I can make us dinner if you like; I got food.”

“Dinner sounds nice, but I think I’m going to take a little nap first. I’m kinda tired,” she said. I nodded to her before backing out of the room, closing the door behind me.

I walked downstairs and stood in my kitchen for a few moments, wondering what exactly I had gotten myself in to. Sydney Bristow was upstairs sleeping in my mama’s former bedroom. How did that happen exactly?

Oh. Right. I’m a gentleman. But what exactly was I going to do with her? I mean, in theory, I had created a very awkward situation. For starters, she was a woman and I a man. Two people of different genders platonically sharing a house was bound to cause a few tense moments between us. Not to mention it was probably only a matter of minutes before neighbors began showing up on my doorstep wondering about her. Then, once they found out she was staying here – oh boy look out. Not only would the rumor mill be buzzing about the apparently estranged Bristow daughter who didn’t have the sense to show up at her father’s funeral, but they’d be all a twitter about the fact that, obviously, behind these closed doors we were having a heated affair. Obviously.

I shook my head and made my way to the refrigerator to decide on what dinner would be. There was no sense in worrying ‘bout that, at least not then anyway. One step at a time – that was the motto around those parts and I needed to stick with it.

Forty-five minutes later, just as dinner was well on its way to being done, Sydney appeared at the foot of the stairs, yawning. “Good nap?” I asked her.

“Very,” she nodded. “Your mama’s bed is very comfy.”

“’m glad to hear it. I’m also glad to hear your southern way of speakin’ has returned,” I told her, smiling.

She laughed softly, flashing me a dimpled grin in the process. “That reminds me of a story I think you might enjoy, but first – can I help you with somethin’?” she asked, gesturing towards the stove and cutting board beside it.

“Of course not, you’re a guest. Besides, I’m nearly done,” I told her. “Can I get you something to drink? I’ve got water, lemonade, and tea… I’m afraid that’s all.”

“Some mint tea would be nice, if you have it,” she said. I confirm that I did indeed have it and she thanked me before continuing on the story she mentioned a moment earlier. Apparently, her roommate freshmen year in college wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. She was a blonde wealthy girl from the north, who, apparently, had never heard of Alabama. Well, she had heard of it, but couldn’t figure out where it was and had a dreadful time understanding… well, everything about the way Sydney behaved. In addition to that, she thought Sydney’s southern drawl accent was some sort of disease of the throat.

By the time she had finished her tale, I was laughing painfully. “She thought it was a disease?!”

“Absolutely,” Sydney said, also laughing. “She kept asking if I wanted throat lozenges.”

“That’s bad. I had a similar, but opposite experience,” I told her. She looked intrigued so I continued on. “Well, my first roommate was from the north, so not only was he getting used to my ‘weirdness,’” I said with air quotes, “as he called it, but he was getting used to the whole southern atmosphere. He lasted a total of three weeks before he called his parents and they came and took him home,” I told her.

“You’re kidding!” she gasped, surprised. I shook my head. I was not kidding, although even I could hardly believe it at the time. “That’s nuts!”

“Yeah, but he was pretty unhappy. In fact, I think at one point he was crying,” I said, cringing slightly. I really did feel bad for the poor guy. Sydney cringed slightly, giving a sympathetic sigh.

Through dinner, we amused each other with a few more roommate horror stories. Then, after she helped me clean up, she retired back to my mama’s room, saying there was some legal papers she needed to review before going to bed. I bid her goodnight and organized some of my things before sitting myself down in front of the TV, where I would inevitably fall asleep, wondering what the rest of the weekend would bring me.



Chapter 6

The following morning, a Saturday, I awoke with my head tucked painfully against my one shoulder. I really needed to learn to not fall asleep that way or risk permanent neck damage. I stood from my recliner and stretched, popping my neck back into place. Immediately from the doorway I heard, “That was disgusting.”

I looked to my left and saw Sydney, coffee cup in hand, grimacing. I laughed softly, “Sorry, I know its gross, but it’s the only thing that helps.”

“Mm,” she sighed, sipping the coffee, “Yeah, I saw you there drooling all over yourself.”

“Excuse me I was not drooling,” I insisted. She smiled, shrugging slightly, before walking away from the doorway. I followed her asking what she was doing up so early on a Saturday, ‘so early’ being nine thirty am, when, normally, I’d still be fast asleep in my chair. Not actually having a nine-to-five job made me very lazy about my sleeping habits, basically meaning I slept and woke whenever I wanted. Well, sort of. When Mama was around she’d never let me sleep past nine and ‘sloth my life away’ as she put it.

“I have a meeting with my father’s lawyer,” Sydney told me. I nodded, recalling her desire to review important legal documents before bed. “What are you up to today?”

I shrugged. I was up to nothing, like usual. I had an article due the day before and didn’t have another due until Wednesday, and that one was half-written already. “Would you like to meet me for lunch at Dobson’s?” she asked. Then quickly added, “If you want to… don’t let me take you away from other plans.”

“Like what? A nap?” I laughed. She rolled her eyes slightly at this. “I’ll see you at Dobson’s. What time?”

“Eleven thirty – oh, and I actually mean that, not noon,” she told me with a wink.

“You Yankees and your deadlines,” I shook my head, only half teasing her.

“Hey! I resent the term Yankee. Southern born and raised is all I’ll ever be,” she insisted.

“Yeah, tell that to Chicago,” I pointed out. Again, she rolled her eyes before grabbing her purse and a file folder full of what I presume were the legal documents she was revising. Then, she left the house, calling out a ‘goodbye’ as she went.

After she was gone, I went upstairs, bound for the shower. My mama’s house wasn’t all that large and it was rather old. Therefore, it had only one main bathroom upstairs, so, when I arrived there, some steam still lingered from Sydney’s shower. I could smell the sweet smell of her shampoo and though I couldn’t determine the scent (because I was a guy and thus oblivious to those things) it smelled wonderful.

It was then I realized I needed to keep myself in check. After all, Sydney was a guest in my house and though my school-boy-crush-like feelings had returned the moment I saw her, it would have been vastly inappropriate for me to make a pass at her, so to speak anyway, so I wouldn’t do it; I would continue to be the gentleman. At least, that’s what I told myself.

~*~

I arrived at Dobson’s shockingly early. Okay, it was ten minutes early, but for me, the man who was usually ten minutes late, it was shockingly early. Not surprisingly, though, the store was abuzz with whispers about Sydney. “MICHAEL!” Anna Dobson called me over from her spot behind the counter. “Michael is it true you were talking to Sydney Bristow?!”

“Yeah, it is,” I said simply. “She’s meeting me here for lunch.” This, of course, spurred more questions and hushed whispers,

“What is she doing here?”

“How can she show her face after what she did to her father?”

“Probably just wants his money…”

“Has she said anything to you Michael?” Anna asked me.

I shook my head. “Just that she’s been living in Chicago.”

“Chicago… that’s where that Oprah woman’s from, ain’t it?”

“Yes, Mrs. Gregory,” I told the elderly woman nearby.

The gossiping chatter continued for another five minutes, as each ‘explanation’ for why Sydney had returned became progressively more absurd than the previous. I ignored them as I leaned up against the counter, watching the door for Sydney. Finally, when she arrived, the room fell deadly silent. If there was anything these people so desperately needed, it would have been subtlety.

“Hey,” I said, approaching her and attempting to pretend there weren’t half a dozen gawking people behind me. “How was your meeting?”

“Good,” she said, nodding her head. Then, she leaned in close to me and whispered, “They’re talking about me, right?” I gave her a cringe and a shrug, meaning yes. She sighed, shrugging as well. There wasn’t anything we could do to stop it, so it was best to just ignore it.

Sydney walked past me and over to the counter where people immediately began greeting her in a shockingly polite manner, considering how menacing towards her they had been only a moment earlier. That was simply the way it was. Sure, you’d talk about someone poorly behind their back, but never to their face. That would have been rude!

Sydney barely had a moment to order her sandwich, for the town vultures were out in full force, trying to pull any and all information from her that they could. I have to admit, Sydney was doing a pretty good job of answering them in the most non-answer way possible; I was impressed. Then again, I shouldn’t have been. After all, she grew up around these people; she knew how to work them.

Meanwhile, I hung back, trying to stay out of the way of the fire fight of questions and answers. I ate silently, having no choice really; I couldn’t have gotten a word in edgewise even if I wanted to. Sydney and I finally escaped the rumor mill when we purchased our two Dobson’s classics (vanilla ice cream, dripped with chocolate fudge on an ice cream cone) and went outside to eat them.

“I missed this,” Sydney said, gesturing with the ice cream as we walked. “Can’t get these in Chicago.”

“I bet not,” I laughed.

“Mm it’s already running down my arm,” she groaned. Then, she licked the ice cream drip running down her wrist, but in the process, smashed her nose into the bottom of the cone, causing it to be covered with gooey fudge. I laughed loudly at the sight of this, especially since she appeared to be entirely oblivious of it. “What are you laughing at?” she asked finally.

“Oh if your fancy coworkers could see you now,” I said, still laughing. Her brow furrowed and I explained further, “Your nose.”

She touched her nose with the tip of her index finger and then pulled it back to examine it. When she saw the brown goo on it, she laughed loudly. “Oops,” she said, wiping her nose clean. I laughed and continued to eat my ice cream, which was melting rapidly in the extreme heat.

By the time we had each eaten down to the cone, as expected, our hands were covered with sticky melted liquid. This slight unpleasantness was worth it though, for the ice cream, of course. We walked to a public water fountain along the street, one that’s been there for years and one we’d (we being the collective kids in the town) always used to clean up after one of Dobson’s creations. There, we used the water to remove the stickiness from our hands before continuing on our way down Main Street.

“So you got anymore plans for today?” I asked her. She shook her head. “Come on this is your vacation from work – or so I assume – there must be something you want to do.”

“Well actually… there might be something, but I want you to come with me – please?” she added with an innocent smile.

I nodded. “Where?”

“The lot,” she said, grinning. I laughed; I haven’t been there in ages, but I nodded, agreeing to go.

The lot was pretty much what it would seem to be: an empty lot of land with an immense old tree. On one of that tree’s branches hung a tire swing. When we were younger, we’d go out and play in the lot during our lunch breaks at school, since it was right across the street. Some kids would play stick ball while others would kick a soccer ball around. The girls tended to gather around the tire swing, though, watching the action around them. I didn’t know why Sydney wanted to go there, but I was anxious to find out.



Chapter 7

The lot was about a ten minute walk across town in the beating sun. I was really beginning to regret my decision to wear a dark colored shirt by the time we arrived there, but it was really too late to change it. When we arrived, the groundskeeper for the school was putting his lawnmower away in the shed, which meant for once you could actually see the ground of the lot, because it was usually covered in a thick, tall grass. Sydney, who was walking a foot in front of me, looked over her shoulder with a grin before running off towards the tire swing. I jogged after her asking, “What are you doing?”

“Having fun!” she called back over her shoulder. “I haven’t had fun in ages!” When she reached the tire swing, she dove through it so that her stomach was resting on the tire, but the front and back half of her were dangling off either end. I laughed at how crazy she was being, not really understanding why exactly.

“Will you push me please?” she asked. She rolled over so that she was sitting in it and resting her arms on the top of it where the rope was attached. I nodded and walked around behind her. Then, I pressed both my palms against her back, pushing her forward. She swung a few feet and then swung back as I stepped out of the way to avoid being hit.

She turned her head to the side and gave me a look. “That was pathetic.”

I laughed. “Sorry, I’ll do better this time,” I said before walking around behind her, letting her bump into me to slow her down. Then, once she was at a stop, I gently put my hands on her hips, pulling her back a few feet before letting go with a slight push. That time, she swung further and spun around a bit. This caused her to squeal. “Better?” I laughed.

“Much!” she beamed.

I continued to push her a few more times until I feel the need to give up. Maybe I was just incredibly out of shape, or maybe it was just the intense heat, but I was dying. “Seriously, it’s freakin’ hot,” I moaned and leaned up against the tree, seeking some shade, though there was very little.

“Yeah, it is, but it’s nice,” she said. I gave her a look. “It is!” she laughed. “Seriously, it’s never warm in Chicago, well its warm, but not like this. Did you know it snows up there? Seriously, Michael, snow.”

“I’ve heard that,” I said, laughing slightly.

“Have you ever seen snow?” she asked. I shook my head. I’d never seen it, but I don’t really want to either. Even though I’d complain if it was too hot, I was definitely a creature who needed warmth. “It’s not that great… kinda sloppy and gross when it’s down… but it’s pretty when it falls,” she told me.

I nodded and we fell into silence for a few moments. She was kicking her legs, presumably trying to get the tire swing to start moving again, but it only resulted in her spinning in a circle once and then stopping again. “Michael,” she began, but paused for a moment before continuing with, “do you have a girlfriend?”

I was shocked by the randomness of her question for a moment before I recovered with a smirking retort, “Do you?”

“I have many girlfriends, but I’m romantically interested in none of them,” she told me with an ever growing smile, obviously proud of her little joke.

“Good to know,” I said. She tilted her head to the side and looked at me, obviously wanting an answer. I don’t give her one for a minute; I was too busy figuring out her reasoning for asking that particular question. I decided it was probably just conversation so I answered, “No, I don’t.” Okay, so I haven’t dated anyone since college. Not a big deal… right? I was busy taking care of Mama. Plus, it’s not like Liberty had an expansive population of single women.

“I see,” she nodded. With that, she said no more, but began picking at the rope holding up the tire swing. I almost laughed at this. She asked me and that’s it? Nope, not gonna fly. So, I asked her if she had a boyfriend. “Nope,” she responded. “Had one for about a year, but we broke up last month.”

I knew from the tone she used that prying upon that subject would only make her feel worse and probably more uncomfortable. However, it was fairly obvious, even without her saying that her former relationship didn’t end on good terms. “I see,” I began in a cocky tone trying to lighten the now heavy mood. “You came back because you want me.”

She threw her head back and laughed so forcefully that she nearly fell out of the tire swing. I grabbed one of her arms and hoisted her back up into a sitting position, laughing myself. “Are you alright?”

“Fine, but I should get out of this thing before I really hurt myself,” she said before squirming out of the tire and flopping onto the ground, brushing off the seat of her pants. “Come on I wanna show you something… at least, I think. I hope it’s still here,” she said. She grabbed my hands and pulled me towards the opposite end of the lot where a grove of trees began.

About ten feet from where the trees began there was a large old tree stump in the ground. I vaguely remembered this from my youth and realized that was where she was taking me. Atop the stump, the growth lines of the tree that used to stand there were visible. Some of these formed what could be seen as a heart-shaped pattern, at least in some people’s opinion (I never saw it this way, but others did). The girls at Liberty K-12 dubbed this “the love stump”. I don’t know who came up with the concept first, but the idea was that if you stood atop the stump with the person you loved and kissed them up there, you’d have eternal love. To me, it sounded like a load of bull, right up there with those ‘step on a crack; break your mother’s back’ superstitions that I paid no attention to, but I recalled that many girls in my school years took it very seriously.

“When we were in… sixth grade I think,” Sydney began as she knelt down next to the love stump. “Sally James told us all to carve our initials and the initials of the boys we liked into this stump in hopes that they’d ask us out.”

“Serious?” I laughed. I wasn’t surprised in the least. That was absolutely something Sally James would do; she was a firm believer in the mystique of the love stump.

“Mmhmm, check it out,” she said, gesturing towards the stump. I knelt down beside her and looked towards the area she was gesturing. Though it had faded over the years, some outlines of the carvings were still there. Not surprising to me, the majority of the male initials were either ‘MV’ or ‘JP’; MV being myself and JP being James Powers, my best friend.

“Great,” I grumbled. “Now I find out all these people liked me. I could have dated them all!”

She laughed. “Simmer down there,” she told me. “They liked you in sixth grade.”

I shrugged and turned back to the stump, searching for a ‘SB’ and the initials beside it. I spotted them very low on the stump and beside them I see ‘MV’. Honestly, I couldn’t decide if I was surprised or not. On one hand, she was in sixth grade at the time and obviously wasn’t the only one who liked me, but on the other hand, she didn’t have to show me this unless…. well, maybe I was reading too much into that.

I looked up at her and saw she was smiling. Then, just as casually as ever, she kissed my cheek, stood up and walked away. I crouched there, stunned. Sure, I was reading too much into letters carved onto an old rotting tree trunk, obviously I would read far too much into that incident.

“Come on Michael!” she called. “I’ll push you on the swing!”



Chapter 8

Not surprisingly, Sydney had difficulty pushing me on the tire swing, but that was alright. I was never really interested in swinging anyway, so we left the lot and made our way back down Main Street towards my house. It was Sydney who reached out and took my hand as we walked, not that I minded, but, naturally, it caused my brain to over think this gesture. I really needed to quit that.

As we walked, we passed by people staring and whispering about us in a not very subtle manner. Seriously, people in Liberty needed to learn tact, but I guess it was to be expected. By tomorrow morning they’d probably be asking us when we’d be getting married – yep, that’s how things worked.

When we arrived back at my house, Sydney insisted upon making dinner for us both as a ‘thank you’ for letting her stay with me. We argued back and forth for a few minutes as I insisted to her that it was unnecessary, but in the end I gave in. She rummaged through my refrigerator and cabinets until she found something she wanted to make. I offered to help her, but she firmly refused, forcing me to sit down at the kitchen table to talk to her while she cooked.

“I’m impressed,” I said to her when I saw her dicing celery like a pro. Usually I’d hack at it until it was barely recognizable, but somehow, she managed to cut it up into perfectly even pieces.

“Mm,” she smiled at me. “I enjoy cooking… of course that’s probably because I never have time to do it. If I was cookin’ for a house fulla kids every night I’m sure I’d get damn sick of it.”

I laughed slightly at her tone before asking, “You don’t want children?”

“I didn’t say that,” she said. “I just said I didn’t wanna cook for a house fulla them every night.”

“My mistake,” I said.

“I doubt I could play the hostess like your mama did, puttin’ up with all us kids all summer long. Then again, I don’t think anyone would have enjoyed it as much as her; she always seemed to love us being there,” she said, looking over her shoulder with a smile.

I nodded. This was definitely the case. Mama only complained about the kids hangin’ around if they broke somethin’. “She did love it. Actually, I think she was sad when we all went away.”

“Speakin’ of goin’ away – you’re still here. I’da pegged you long gone by now,” she said. She stopped cutting and turned around, looking curious for my answer.

I shrugged and took a sip of the lemonade in front of me. “Couldn’t leave her, especially not after she got sick.”

“Sick?”

“Her diabetes,” I told her. “She wouldn’t see a doctor and… well…”

She nodded, giving me an almost sympathetic look. Not sympathetic in a pitiful way though, sympathetic in the way that she wished things were different, just like me. “I’m sure she’s sorely missed ‘round these parts,” she said.

I cracked a small smile at this. There hadn’t been one time I left my house without runnin’ into one of Mama’s old friends tellin’ me how much they missed her bein’ around. “She definitely is,” I sighed.

Sydney turned back around and finished cutting the celery before adding it to the pot she was cooking in. Then, she cut up half an onion and added it as well before she said, “My daddy’s the one who taught me how to cook.”

“Really?” I asked, intrigued. I never pegged her father as a master chef.

“Mm,” she nodded. “It’s how he got my mama to marry him; he wooed her with his great fried chicken – or so I hear, mind you.” I laughed and smiled at this.

As we ate, we continued to reminisce about our parents. It wasn’t sad, like it could have been; it was happy. We were laughing and sharing stories about their quirks and how we missed them or, in most cases, how we didn’t. Once we were done, I helped her put away the leftovers and wash the plates. We then retired to the porch, where the day was finally beginning to cool down as the sun began to set. Sydney sat down in my mama’s favorite rocking chair while I took my place on the nearby bench at the end closest to her.

Our conversation flowed for hours as if we had never been apart, talking about anything and everything. I was surprised then how easy it was to talk to her, but now, I’m not, for I know better. It was the beginning of the something my summer would become.

“Ohh I can’t wait to see the stars,” she sighed, leaning forward a bit on the rocker to crane her neck out over the porch roof to catch a glimpse at the sky. It wasn’t dark enough to see the stars quite yet, but it soon would be. “It’s been ages since I’ve seen them. Can’t really see ‘em in Chicago because of the city lights… but even if I could, they wouldn’t be the same.”

I nodded knowingly. Out here the stars are like no other. Ain’t nothing like smog or big city bright lights to get in the way of the pure earthly miracle, as my grandmother used to call it. All that that you can see for miles is a black sea spotted with white dots, sprinkled with the sounds of the cricket’s music in the background. It truly is a sight.

We had been sitting in a comfortable silence for about ten minutes, watching the pink colors in the sky slowly fade to grey before I got up and went inside, returning with an old radio. I flicked it on and set it down on the floor in between us. The music emanating from it wasn’t crystal clear, but it never is in these parts. We’re a bit too far out in the boonies to receive any good radio signals, but this would do. When a familiar tune began to play, a broad grin grew across my face and I turned to Sydney. Her grin was matching mine as the theme song of these parts played.

“I haven’t heard this in ages!” she laughed.

“You gotta sing along then!” I encouraged. She shook her head furiously. “Yes you do! You gotta Syd, you gotta – YES,” I continued when she shook her head once more. “I’ll kick ya out if ya don’t sing along!”

“You wouldn’t!” she gasped.

“Okay, I wouldn’t. But you need to sing along – I’ll sing with ya,” I said. I began to sing the end of the first verse rather poorly and Sydney began to laugh. I am horrible singer - really, truly terrible - but at least I can amuse her. When the chorus of ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ begins to play, my voice faded out, but I was surprised to hear Sydney’s voice pick up right where I left off.

As you may imagine, I hadn’t heard her sing before, and I doubt many have. Usually, when a person doesn’t talk, they sure won’t be singin’. Now, imagine my surprise when a sweet, perfectly southern voice came out of Sydney’s lips, singing perfectly in tune with the radio.

At the end of the chorus, her voice faded out and, even though the porch was only lit by a tiny lamp above us, I saw blush creeping into her cheeks. “Oh my god!” I exclaimed with a laugh. “Girl you can sing!” I told her. Of course, ‘sing’ was pronounced more like ‘saaang’ in my enthusiasm and emphasis.

“No, no I can’t,” she insisted with her head shaking.

“You can too!” I told her. She shook her head; I nodded. Then, she laughed. “You can and I’m very impressed.”

“Well thank you,” she smiled. I smiled back.

In another five minutes, the sky was painted black and Sydney got off her chair and walked out into the yard to get a better look. I followed her and stood nearby her as she dropped her head far back so she could look at the sky. “It’s gorgeous,” she sighed.

“Yeah, it is,” I agreed, but I wasn’t looking at the sky; I was looking at her.

To this day I don’t know what made me do it, but out of nowhere I walked over to her and placed my arm gently around her back. Then, when she looked up at me, I leaned in and kissed her, gently. That was it, real simple, really soft, and really sweet; my first kiss with Sydney Bristow.

When I pulled back, I didn’t know what to expect, but I found that she was smiling at me. And then, just as simply as I had done, she kissed me once more before walking towards the house. At the porch steps she paused and took one last long look at the sky, as though trying to memorize exactly the way it looked. Then, she continued into the house calling, “Goodnight Michael,” over her shoulder.

It really was a good night.



Chapter 9

The next morning I awoke feeling like I was on cloud nine. No, actually cloud nine paled in comparison to what I was feeling; I was on cloud twenty-seven if such a thing existed. After all, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the world, at least how I saw it. The sun was shining, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and Sydney Bristow was sleeping peacefully down the hall from me after our very first kiss. I was convinced that kiss would be the beginning of a relationship between us that would amount to something; something big.

In my love-haze, I failed to think about the fact that we didn’t really know each other all that well (at least, not in our adult lives) or even the fact that she lived in Chicago and I in Liberty. I was too focused on how much I wanted to wrap her up in my arms and kiss her again. So, you see, I was deliriously happy and maybe just plain delirious when I awoke that morning. However, before nightfall my world and feelings would be flipped upside down and turned the complete other way around.

After showering, I practically floated down to the kitchen, where I began preparing a full southern breakfast. I was never graced with amazingly good cooking talents despite my mother’s endless (or so it seemed) coaxing. I could make a few simple mediocre dishes – enough to survive – but my real specialty, if you could say I had one, was breakfast. This was most likely because it was my favorite meal of the day and thus had more incentive to learn how to cook it well.

I cracked half a dozen eggs into a skillet and mixed them around before adding some bacon and tossing some biscuits in the oven. As I was doing this, I heard the shower water crank on upstairs with a slight squeak, meaning my meal would be done in perfect timing for Sydney to come downstairs.

“Mm what is that?” she asked, when she came downstairs fifteen minutes later. Her hair was soaking wet and dangling all around her shoulder, but she was looking just as beautiful as ever.

“Eggs, bacon, hash browns and biscuits,” I told her with a grin.

“Oh god, a heart attack on a plate!” she scrunched up her nose.

“I don’t understand you, Yankee,” I told her, teasing. Having a heart attack from eating such food items was an incomprehensible concept ‘round these parts. Our grandparents ate this way and lived until they were old and grey, so therefore, we should too.

She laughed and shook her head. “I ain’t no Yankee and I suppose it won’t hurt just this once…,” she said, eyeing the plate full of the slightly greasy breakfast concoction in my hand.

“Exactly,” I said, putting the plate on the table and gesturing for her to sit. She did and picked up a fork, taking a stab at the eggs and hash browns together before popping it in her mouth.

“Really, really good,” she mumbled.

“Good,” I laughed before filling up a plate for myself and taking a seat across from her at the table.

“So,” Sydney said, pausing to take a long drink of her glass of water, “I saw your mama’s garden out there… what happened to it?”

“Oh,” I said, looking out the kitchen window towards the garden, which wasn’t really a garden anymore. “When she got sick she couldn’t keep up with it anymore and I’m afraid my thumbs aren’t very green so…,” I shrugged. Mama used to keep the most beautiful garden in all of Liberty. It was like a child to her; in fact, she may have liked it more than me. She’d spend hours out there, tending to each and every flower or plant, making sure it had everything it needed to grow perfectly. The dedication she had to it showed in the beautiful colors and warmth that emanated from that garden. Every time I looked out there, I’d miss her a little bit more.

“Mm yeah, I don’t know if I’d be any good at gardening either,” she sighed.

I nodded and continued to eat my breakfast for a few more minutes before asking, “So, um, did you have any plans for today?”

She smiled at me. “Hanging out with you… unless you have something better to do or somethin’,” she said rather evasively, looking down at her plate.

“Nothing would be better than hanging out with you,” I assured her.

She smiled. “Seriously, when do you work? I’m beginning to think you don’t even have a real job.”

“Now you sound like my mama,” I told her, laughing. She laughed as well. “No, I’m ahead on assignments and I don’t have another due until Wednesday, plenty of time.”

She nodded her head and then we finished our breakfast in silence. As we were washing the dishes, Sydney walked around behind me, placing her hand gently across my back as she did so. This sent chills up my spine; the good kind. I turned and smiled at her; she smiled back.

After breakfast, we went for a walk, hand in hand, down to the stream. It was a cooler day (cooler meaning only 80 degrees instead of the normal 90 plus). Sydney kicked off her shoes and walked along with her bare feet in the grass, sighing at how much she missed that feeling. I’ve never been one who enjoyed the barefoot in the grass feeling. Probably because when I was younger I had a very nasty experience when I stepped on a beehive… yeah, that was ugly. Ever since then I learned to wear shoes and be extremely careful where I stepped.

After strolling along the stream, sharing more stories about our time apart, we return to my house, where we sat on the porch. As we sat there, her head drifted over and rested against my shoulder as she gave a quiet sigh. Taking this as a welcoming sign, I worked up my nerve, leaned down and kissed her once more. She kissed me back and our kiss grew more passionate than the one we had had the night before.

When we broke apart, I kept my eyes closed tightly, waiting for my heart to regulate its beating as I listened to Sydney’s heavy breathing. Seemingly simultaneously, we opened our eyes and looked at each other. I saw reflecting back at me something that appeared to be uncertainty and a little bit of fear. I was confused by this, so I leaned in to give her another kiss, but she pulled away.

“Michael wait,” she said. Her tone wasn’t good and I looked at her, concerned. “I’m sorry,” she sighed heavily, looking away from me and clasping her hands in her lap. “But… I have to tell you something. I have to be fair to you and… it’s really not fair but…”

“Sydney,” I begin, my heart rate speeding up but for an entirely different reason. “What are you talking about?”

She turns and looks at me with her eyes pooling with tears. “Michael,” she said, her voice hoarse. “I’m dying.”

And those words would echo in my head for days, weeks afterward.



Chapter 10

I’m convinced I didn’t breathe for a full minute after those words left her lips. I stared at her blankly, thinking I had heard her wrong. Dying? How could she be dying? She was only twenty-seven years old and therefore could not be dying. “Ho- Wha- Ah- I-,” I stammered for another few moments.

“Michael I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry,” she shook her head. “This is my fault, I should have been honest with you but… but I didn’t know what to say and… and-”

“Wait,” I cut her off once I finally regained my ability to speak properly. “You’re dying?!?! You’re really dying?!” I asked, utterly horrified.

She nodded slowly. “I have a brain tumor; it’s inoperable. That’s why I didn’t come to my daddy’s funeral. I was in the hospital Michael,” she told me.

“What… no!” I exclaimed. This couldn’t be happening. She was there, sitting right in front of me and she looked fine – beautiful, perfect. She couldn’t have been dying.

“I’m sorry Michael, but it’s true. The tumor is right here, beside my brainstem,” she said, gesturing towards the base of her skull with one of her hands. “The doctors… they gave me until the end of the summer.”

“No…,” I shook my head, almost feeling overwhelmed by the gravity of her news and the emotions I was feeling because of it. She simply looked at me; I don’t think she knew what else to say. “I… I need to go… walk…,” I managed before I stood up and walked off towards the stream, not looking back.

~*~

I wasn’t sure how long I walked, probably an hour or more. I just kept walking and walking, trying to get away from something that wasn’t really there. I couldn’t go back to my house, because going back made it real. It couldn’t be real. Sydney couldn’t be dying. We were about to start on our relationship, a real relationship between us. We were kissing and there was something good in those kisses, something I hadn’t felt for a long time. But then… I didn’t even know.

Finally, I turned around and started walking back to my house, fearing I’d end up in the next state if I didn’t. I was slower going back, knowing what I had to face when I returned and not quite sure that I could do it. When my house finally came into view, I noticed that Sydney was no longer on the front porch. Immediately, my eyes turned towards the spot where her rental car was parked. I half expected it to be gone, but it wasn’t and I was thankful for that.

I walked inside and slowly made my way though the house, looking for her. I found her stretched out on the couch, her arm under her head as a pillow, sound asleep. I took a minute to watch her there, wondering what was going through her mind during those times. Was she scared? Did it hurt? Is that why she slept a lot? Did she get headaches? Could she feel the tumor growing in her head?

I shook my head, realizing my thoughts and unanswerable questions would drive me more insane then I already was. I slipped from the room and made my way upstairs to shower, for my long walk had left me drenched in sweat. When I returned downstairs clean and freshly dressed, Sydney was awake and making tea in the kitchen. “Hey,” I breathed as I leaned up against kitchen counter.

She looked over at me and I noticed her eyes were full of remorse. “I’m sorry Michael. This is all my fault I-”

I held up my hand to stop her apologies. They were unnecessary. After all, how could she possibly be to blame for a brain tumor? I took a deep breath, ready to ask her the question that had been nagging me for my entire walk; the one I had to know the answer to. “Why did you come back here Sydney?”

“I came back here to finalize my father’s estate so I could add it to my will,” she told me. “That’s the truth Michael, I swear it. I didn’t even know you were still here in Liberty – I didn’t. I ran into you on the street there and… I don’t know, something happened. Sometimes things just happen and you don’t plan on them and they’re good but… but I felt so bad, knowing that I was leading you on. I’m sorry Michael. It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t have let….,” she paused and sighed.

“I should have told you the truth up front, but I didn’t want those damn people in the town to hear about it and treat me like I was a piece of glass. I’ve already got enough sympathy in my life. I don’t need it from strangers,” she said, almost shouting.

She must have noted the taken aback look on my face, for she sighed again and softened the expression on her face. “I’m sorry Michael, I didn’t mean to… what I mean is, I didn’t want to hurt you, that wasn’t my intention and I’m sorry,” she said solemnly.

“You didn’t hurt me,” I assured her. Well, not yet anyway. Frankly, that situation was just screaming with ways for me to be hurt in the future. Sydney looked wary at my statement and so I continued, “You didn’t really, I’m just… Well, I was wondering why you came here that’s all.

She nodded and took a sip of her tea. We fell silent for a few minutes before I asked, “So… how’d you find out?”

“About eight months ago,” she sighed and sat down at the kitchen table, “I started having really bad headaches. A month or so went by and I finally went to the doctor, who put me on migraine medication. Then, the headaches stopped, so I thought I was fine. Next, my arm started feeling strange, so I went off the migraine medication, thinking it was a side effect. After that, I started having blurred vision, so I went back to the doctors.

“They did one of those head scans, forget the name of it, but they found the tumor back by my brainstem. At that time, it was about the size of a golf ball. They scheduled me for a biopsy surgery and found that it wasn’t cancerous, but it was still growing. The doctors tried various treatment opportunities to shrink it, but nothing worked. The only way to get rid of it was to remove it, but the doctors said I probably only had a one in ten thousand chance of surviving the surgery because of where the tumor was located,” she paused to take another sip of her tea. Then, she was quiet for a few minutes as she drummed her fingers lightly against the cup.

“I asked them how long I had if I didn’t have the surgery and they told me that I’d probably have until the end of the summer and I said okay. If I was going to die anyway I was at least going to enjoy my summer. So, I went back to work and pretended like nothing had changed.

“Only a day before my father died, I passed out at work and they rushed me to the hospital. The tumor had shifted and it was pressing on something in my brain. I was stuck in the hospital for almost a week before they released me; after all, there was nothing I could do. I didn’t find out until then that my father had died. Apparently, they didn’t want to upset me,” she said with a slightly bitter snap.

“After that incident I had to tell everyone… and because I thought that maybe it could happen again, I quit my job and…,” she let her voice drift off.

“Broke up with your boyfriend?” I added cautiously.

A smile crept across her face as she kept her eyes locked on her teacup. “No,” she said softly. “He broke up with me the moment he found out about the tumor. He couldn’t deal with a sick person, he told me.”

I let out a small gasp at this. What a complete and total asshole. Who would break up with someone who was dying? “I’m sorry,” I told her sincerely.

“’sokay… he was a jerk anyway,” she said softly. I nodded; couldn’t really disagree with that. Silence hung in the air for a solid few minutes after that comment. Sydney sat at the table, sipping her tea; I stood by the counter, not knowing what to say.

Finally, she got out of her chair and walked over to me, cramming her hands in her back pants pockets. “So… here’s the thing,” she began. “It was unfair to me to continue to string you along without telling you the truth, so I did, but now… now it’s up to you what happens next. I can leave tomorrow and go back to Chicago and that’ll be it; I’ll just disappear. Or, I can stick around here for a while longer. I have nothing to go back to in Chicago, so there’s no sense in me goin’ back if there’s somethin’ for me here. But know this – if I stay, I don’t want to hear one word about the fact that I’m dying,” she said in a firm, but serious tone.

I opened my mouth to protest, but she stopped me. “No, Michael I’m serious. I’m the one that’s dying so I get to choose how I’m going to live my life and I choose not to live it any differently. I don’t want anyone here to know the truth. So, if I stay, I don’t want to hear one word about it and no subtle things either - like calling it ‘that thing’. Pretend I never told you, ignore it, do whatever you have to, because if you start talkin’ about it, I’ll be on the next plane to Chicago. So… it’s up to you,” she said.

Up to me?! How could she give me such a choice? What was I supposed to do? Tell her to go back to Chicago, unwanted and unloved to die alone? Of course not. I couldn’t do that – not to her, not to anyone. So, I sighed and took a step forward, pulling her into one of the tightest hugs I had ever given anyone. Then, into her ear as I was holding her I whispered, “I want you to stay.”

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Chapters 11 - 20 + Epilogue