By Eve Briscoe

Three weeks after their mother passed away, Maya and her sister, Jamie, were cleaning out their childhood home when Maya found the letter. The last time Maya had lived there was after graduating college and moving back home. After she went through the clothes stuffed away in her dresser drawers, she opened the door to her small walk-in closet to see the stacked-up cardboard boxes of her college belongings. Maya Denvers bedroom. Maya Denvers kitchen. Maya Denvers bathroom. It took her two full hours to go through all the boxes.
The last box in the pile was labeled “Maya Denvers desk.” On top were pictures of her with her friends. One caught her eye—it was with her college best friend, Ezra. Their arms were wrapped around each other, and they smiled at the camera. Maya smiled as she remembered their laughter filling the air with the click of the camera. Under the photos, concert tickets, the pressed flowers she and her roommate Danielle made the summer after freshman year, letters from the university, and a John Mayer CD, she found a sealed envelope with her name written on it in familiar handwriting. She wondered who it could be from and why she’d never seen it.
Maya slid her finger across the envelope’s seal and pulled out a folded sheet of notebook paper. The paper was a letter written in black ballpoint pen.

October 10, 2007
Dear Denvers,
I know love letters are silly. I remember that day in Chemistry when we talked about the best ways to confess your love to someone, and you said, “I think a love letter is a classic option. Cheesy but classic.” So, here I am writing one of those cheesy but classic letters. Since the day we met last year, when we bumped into each other and our books fell—as classic of a meet cute as there is, I was captivated by your smile and beautiful brown eyes. I could hardly keep my eyes off you, and somehow, you didn’t even notice. I haven’t been able to get you off my mind lately, and every time we study in the library or grab lunch together, all I can think about is holding your hand. I love being your friend, but I’d love to be more. If you’d like to go on a date, I’d like that too. If you just want to keep this friend thing going, I’ll learn to be okay with that too.
Your insufferable friend,
Ezra

It was Ezra’s handwriting; based on the date at the top of the letter, she assumed he wrote it during their sophomore year of college. Ezra, with whom she had spent hours in the library studying. Ezra, who had suffered with her through that dreaded Chemistry class and helped tutor her because he aced every single test. Ezra, who had teased her about her major crush on John Mayer but who also secretly hummed along whenever she played his songs. Ezra, who always beat her in their long-lasting games of Monopoly, who she swore cheated every game. Ezra, who called her by her last name, “Denvers,” because she had always dreamed of traveling to Colorado.
Maya thought back to that first day of chemistry class. Ezra sat down next to her. He asked her if the seat next to her was taken, and she responded, “No, Mr. Romance Movie.” Ezra laughed harder than she expected at her joke. They joked around for a few minutes until the professor entered the classroom. She remembered that most of their classes together started precisely like that.
Her smile faded as curiosity invaded her mind. She wondered why she never received this letter. How long had Ezra felt that way? Why hadn’t Ezra ever confronted her if he never got a response? Why couldn’t her mom be there to hear about the letter and give her advice? She was thinking these things when her sister’s voice intruded:
“Maya, can you help me pack these heavy boxes?”
Maya threw all the papers into the box and placed the envelope on top to return to later.

For the next few days, Maya and Jamie boxed up their and their mother’s things that they wanted to keep. Jamie lived in town and would be staying at the house until the new buyers closed on it. The two sisters embraced each other as the sun began to set before Maya made the three-hour drive back to her apartment in Cleveland.
On Maya’s drive home, memories of the last decade flooded through her mind. The day she moved in and decorated her dorm room at the University of Memphis. The late-night hangouts spent studying or playing card games with her friends. The 2 a.m. runs to Gibson’s Donuts with her roommates on exam weeks. The countless hours spent studying in the library with Ezra. The spring break and summer trips to Chattahoochee River or Myrtle Beach. Graduation—her whole family was there to support her. Marrying Andrew and moving to Cleveland. Then, the quick downfall of that marriage. The call she received the month before that her mom had died of a heart attack. And the love letter she found from Ezra.
After parking, she trudged up the steps of her building with the few boxes she could carry. She set the boxes down and fumbled for her keys in her purse; her fingers trembled as she tried to push her heavy thoughts away. The familiar feeling of loneliness crept over her as she entered her empty apartment building. She remembered the first year of her marriage when she would walk in the door after work, and Andrew would sit on the couch with a loving smile to greet and hug her. Then, as the weeks went by, he’d barely turn his head around when she walked in, or he wouldn’t be home at all. She knew she shouldn’t, but she wished he was there to hold her—if anyone could be there to hold her.
With a sigh, she entered the living room, put her boxes on the coffee table, and sank onto the cream suede couch. The clock on the wall across from her read 10:23 p.m., but she had a feeling she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep anytime soon. Eager to get out into the “real world,” Maya had rushed every minute of college, and she wished she could go back and take it slow. The stack of boxes in front of her stared back at her, and she reached out and took the lid off the box labeled “Maya Denvers desk” and took Ezra’s letter out. The weight of the envelope in her hands reminded her of how lonely she was and how happy she had been in college. She regretted not trying to keep in touch with Ezra.
She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and opened Facebook to search “Ezra Sommer,” but none of the results resembled the Ezra Sommer she remembered. Without much to work with, she opened Google and searched “Ezra Sommer Tennessee,” mentally crossing her fingers that he still lived in the state. The first thing that popped up read “The University of Memphis Director of Pre-Professional Advising – Ezra Sommer.” She tapped on the link. Sure enough, there was the familiar face of an old friend with a few added creases across his face. His smile was the biggest she’d ever seen, his dusty brown waves were swept back, and he wore a navy button-up. She was surprised that he worked at the university since his dream—at least seven years ago—was to be a biomedical engineer, but he looked happy. His office phone number was displayed under his picture, and Maya’s finger hovered over the hyperlink for a minute before she realized how silly it would be to call his work phone at eleven o’clock at night. What would she even say? “Hey, this is Maya Denvers; not sure if you remember me, but we were really good friends in college, and my life sucks right now, and I just found a letter you wrote to me in college, and now I can’t stop thinking about you. Wanna get coffee soon?” But it would be just as silly to say that as it would be to call at that hour. Her eyes grew heavy as defeat coursed through her, and she fell asleep.
The next morning, she reached for her phone to call her mom for advice but remembered no one would answer. She thought about that delicious raspberry jelly-filled donut from Gibson’s and suddenly had an overwhelming craving for it. She thought about how close Gibson’s was to the university—how close Ezra would be. She couldn’t make up for lost time or sit around hanging on to “what ifs,” but she could certainly catch up with an old friend. She ran to her bedroom, grabbed her laptop, and booked a room at the DoubleTree Hilton Hotel in Memphis.

A week later, she packed her car and put the hotel into her GPS—six and a half hours to go. She slipped Ezra’s letter into her purse as a good luck charm for her trip. She brought her old John Mayer Continuum CD and popped it into the disc reader. “Waiting on the World to Change” played first, and Maya smiled as she hummed along to the tune. When “The Heart of Life” came on, she sang all the lyrics. Pain throws your heart to the ground … But I know the heart of life is good. She hoped those words rang true.
With nothing but the open road ahead of her, Maya couldn’t stop herself from imagining what might happen when she got there. Before she knew it, scenarios played out as if she were reading a book or watching a movie. She was convinced that everything would work out in her favor no matter what happened once she got to Memphis.
Her first imagination was something of a fairytale. It wasn’t necessarily a scene of what might happen once she arrived in Memphis after almost a decade. Instead, it was an imagination of what would have happened if she had found Ezra’s letter when he gave it to her and if she had stayed in Memphis. In this version of her imagination, they didn’t fall out of touch after graduation. She imagined that Ezra came over to her apartment to study, and before he left, he subtly slipped the envelope on her desk. In this version, it didn’t get lost with all of her other papers and things, and after a few days, she found it. She slid her finger across the envelope’s seal and read each sentence. Her eyes opened to a new perspective of Ezra—the intelligent, funny, kind, and attractive version of Ezra. The Ezra that she would fall in love with, and two years after finding the letter, they would graduate, he would propose, and they would get married. Ezra would eventually decide to pursue teaching and get a job at The University of Memphis, and she would work from home. She would be happy, and when her mother would pass away nine years later, Ezra would be there to hold and love her. They would spend the rest of their lives together and always be grateful for their time at the university.
A honk from the car behind her pulled her out of her fantasy, and she was faced with the truth that it didn’t happen and could never happen. They had drifted apart all those years ago, but at that moment, driving down the interstate, she believed she had a chance to find him and be friends again. After twenty minutes of singing along to the radio, Maya fell back into her imagination and saw what could happen if she arrived in Memphis, walked into his office, and told him she wanted to catch up. He would be surprised to see her there, and he might even be a little offended that she believed she could waltz back into his life after nine years with no contact, but then he would remember how special their friendship had been. He would ask her to dinner, and they would catch up on the nine years between them. Over the next week, they would go to Gibson’s together before Ezra would have to go to work, and Maya might even go to the university with him and sit in on a few of his lectures. Their past chemistry would bubble back up, and she would eventually go back to Cleveland to empty her apartment and sell it, along with all of the terrible memories it held with Andrew. She would move to Memphis, where she and Ezra would grow closer over the next year, and they would eventually start dating.
She couldn’t help but smile at the possibility of growing happy with Ezra. A blinking red light on her dashboard alerted her that she needed gas, so she pulled over at a rest stop. She filled the tank, grabbed a snack from a vending machine, and returned to the open road. Then, her imagination tried to be realistic. She imagined that he might not want to see her at first. She would walk into his office, but he wouldn’t initially recognize her. When she would tell him who she was, he wouldn’t believe her for a second, and then he would be slightly confused about why she had come to see him after all those years. He might even ask her why she didn’t call first, to which she would respond with, “Well, I thought about it, but it was 11 p.m., and I didn’t want to be a bother.” He would tell her he was busy and to come by another time. She would worry that she had made a huge mistake in coming, but he would reach out to her the next day. He’d tell her he found her email when he did a quick Google search of her, and he would explain that he didn’t mean to shoo her away the day before; she had just caught him by surprise. He wasn’t sure what her intentions were, but he would be okay grabbing a donut together and catching up for a bit. And, like in her last imagination, they would grow close again. She doesn’t move to Memphis, but she and Ezra become best friends again. After six months, she’d ask Ezra if he would want to go on a date—no strings attached, and if he’s not interested, they would continue being friends. But just as he had fallen for her in college, he would fall for her again, and two years later, they’d be getting married in Colorado—her dream vacation spot.
Maya smiled again, yet another possibility of a happy future. A few hours later, she arrived in the city. The clock read 2:13 p.m. She turned her GPS off as the city around her grew familiar. Fifteen minutes later, Maya walked through the door of Gibson’s Donuts and ordered her long-awaited raspberry jelly-filled donut. For a moment, she was the happiest she’d been in weeks. Fifteen minutes later, she parked her car and made her way to the advising office on the University of Memphis campus.
After walking through the building searching for Ezra’s office, feeling like a freshman on the first day of classes, she found a plaque that read “107” and ran her finger down the list of advisors until she read “Ezra Sommer.” She suddenly felt nervous to be standing there. A counselor who appeared to be in her mid-40s and wearing a nametag that read “Dr. Daniels” came out of the room.
“Who ya looking for?”
“Ezra Sommer, is he working today?”
“You just missed him! He’s working tomorrow if you want to come back by or email him.”
She thanked the woman and left. She wasn’t sure what to do. Maybe she’d sleep on it and call tomorrow at a reasonable time to let him know she was in town and ask to meet for coffee. As she walked back to her car, her stomach began to growl, signaling that the donut from earlier was the only thing she’d eaten since breakfast that morning. Once she got to the car, she pulled up her GPS and found that the Mexican restaurant she used to frequent—El Mezcal—was open and only ten minutes away.
The parking lot was almost full when she arrived, but she didn’t want to try to find another restaurant, especially since it was nearing 6:30 and most restaurants would be busy then. There was a colored glass wall that split the restaurant into two sides, one side with the bar and some booths, and the other side solely tables and booths. She had to wait to be seated due to the restaurant being busy, but after about ten minutes, she was led to a booth at the back of the bar side, the scent of sizzling fajitas and salsa filling the air. The restaurant buzzed with chatter and laughter, which matched Maya’s busy mind. She imagined what would happen if he walked into the restaurant and met eyes with her. He’d come over and ask her if the seat across from her was taken, and she’d say no. They’d catch up on all the years between them. There might be a hint of awkward tension at first, but as the night went on, they’d fall into an easy conversation as if there weren’t nine years between them.
Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard a family of four walk into the restaurant. Two young children, a boy and a girl wearing shorts and t-shirts, walked in with their parents. The mother wore a beautiful lavender dress and sandals, and the husband wore semi-professional clothes adorned with a baseball cap. The four of them laughed as they walked up to the counter. The little boy raised his arms to his mom and repeatedly clamped his hands as if to ask her to pick him up. Maya laughed at the gesture. The husband then turned in the wife’s direction, taking his cap off and revealing familiar dusty brown waves. Ezra wasn’t going to lock eyes with her and sit at her booth because he was there, about to eat dinner with his family.
Maya felt her heart begin to race. Music played through the restaurant speakers, and dishes clattered, yet the noises faded from Maya’s mind until she only heard her thoughts. He’s married. He has two children. He’s married. Abort mission, he’s married.
The waitress came by to take Maya’s order, but she asked the waitress to give her a few more minutes. As she watched a waitress lead Ezra and his family to a table on the other side of the restaurant, she watched Ezra slip away from her again.
Maya sat there lost. She’d spent so much time trying to reimagine the past and getting caught up in imagining unrealistic futures for herself. She had neglected herself in doing so, and she never stopped to think about improving her present—on her own. She loved her job and working from home, but besides that, there was nothing she did that she truly loved. She was wasting time in her imagination. She never wanted to settle in Cleveland but did that for Andrew. She never wanted to live in Memphis after college, for that matter, and if she had been meant to stay in touch or fall in love with Ezra, it would’ve happened. She couldn’t rely on other people for her happiness. Instead, she needed to learn to be happy on her own.
She walked out of the restaurant, threw Ezra’s letter in an outside trash can, called the hotel to cancel her reservation, and made the six-and-a-half-hour drive back to Cleveland.

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Eve Briscoe is from Loganville, GA and is 20 years old. She enjoys writing, editing peer work, baking, and spending time with friends and family.