“Are you hungry?” I asked him as we entered my apartment.
Duh, his look seemed to say.
Once I settled back in, and had Echo fed and loved on, I sent Brooke a text featuring a pic of Echo and me:
CADE
Made it home.
She sent back a heart.
In the following weeks,Brooke and I texted sporadically. I wouldn’t admit out loud just how much real estate she took up in my brain these days.
One day out to brunch I sent her a pic of my English muffin. “Note the jam. Grape for life,” I captioned. She sent me a pic of the Boston skyline, her favorite park, a sunset. We’d occasionally share memes or make callbacks to our old inside jokes. Getting her texts was the best part of my day.
I heard my phone buzz one Saturday morning, and I opened our text thread:
BROOKE
Guess what??
CADE
???
BROOKE
I’m switching units at the hospital.
CADE
Cool! Where ya headed?
BROOKE
NICU
CADE
Sounds perfect for you. Congrats, B
The messages lackedthe emotional depth I felt in our letters, but at least now we had a somewhat-steady stream of contact.
It was something, and I knew I’d hold on to anything when it came to this girl.
My mind often drifted back to our day at the Christmas tree farm, the light snow falling angelically around Brooke as she hopped excitedly around, looking for the perfect tree. The flakes of snow caught in her brown hair and on her cute fluffy hat. In her coat she was a bright spot of red against the white and pine green backdrop—an image so perfectly Brooke. This girl really had no idea how brightly she shone.
One week before Christmas, I carefully wrapped a beautiful package and slipped it into a mailing box, trying my best to time a Christmas arrival. On December 23rd, she sent me a text with a picture of the box.
BROOKE
For me??
CADE
Open it
Inside the intricate wrapping I knew she’d found a huge pack of Comfeet brand ankle socks.
