Page 31 of Lease to Love

Below that, in red ink, Autumn had written:

??? Those aren't words. What does that mean, Sunny?

I could hear her voice perfectly. That dry little tone. The tiny edge of amusement she always had when she was pretending not to understand me.

I'd written underneath:

Freddie from A Different World, but make it bougie.

Her response came next.

Oh... I like it!

I smiled.

The rest of the page was covered in my sketches… Which were doodles with aspirations.

Dress silhouettes. Sleeves. Necklines. Random notes squeezed into whatever empty space I could find.

Along the bottom were neat rows of color swatches.

That was Autumn.

I had ideas.

She had organization.

I had a brain that moved faster than my hand could keep up with. She had handwriting so pretty it looked like it belonged on wedding invitations.

I used to be jealous of her handwriting.

Even asked her to teach me once… I'd lasted about four letters before my hand went rogue again, and she'd laughed and let it go.

“If doctors don't need good handwriting to save lives,” she'd said, shrugging, “you don't need it to make dresses.”

I'd laughed. Then she'd smiled.

“I'll always be able to read it.”

She was the only person who always could.

It's amazing, the things you miss about a person… Not just the big things, like birthdays or holidays or the sound of their voice.

The tiny things you never imagined you'd someday give anything to have back.

I missed her handwriting.

I would have given almost anything for one more note in that perfect, looping cursive.

One more ??? Those aren’t words, Sunny.

Even just that. Even just the question marks.

I'd grown up with one kind of absence already—the kind that had a name and a face in the one photograph Mama kept on her dresser, but no voice, no memory, no presence to miss.

My dad had died before I was born and I'd never known how to feel about that.

Autumn was different.