Chris began to question the wisdom of this trip. Not for the first time, to be sure. He tossed and turned in his sleep. At the airport, looking at himself in a bathroom mirror, he began to question again. In the pale light he looked at the lines on his face. Bags under his eyes, graying hair. Overweight. Perhaps not unreasonably so, all things considered, but still. A body weighed down by time.

Somewhere along the way his life went off track. It wasn’t anything too dramatic. More like a car gently drifting off the side of a lonely country road. Chris, asleep at the wheel. Foot slipping off the pedal, coming to a rest in an empty field. He could still see it sometimes, what his parents never seemed to lose sight of. The little boy with big dreams. Or at least dreams. Of writing. It stirred such a feeling in him. It was as if he could see himself, see their hopes for him through their eyes. He could hardly bear it.

Back at the gate, Chris opened his phone. There it was. The message that was his reason for making this trip home. He couldn’t believe it, really. Since he found her online he had longed to reach out, but inhibition and doubt came in the way. Then one day a couple weeks ago he saw the post: she was looking for book donations for her English classroom. He filled out the form to send one, signed: from an old classmate.

Schooldays. There are certain scenes his memory clings to. Blurred at the edges, maybe. But not gone. September. The warmth of the falling sun, the refreshing cool of the crisp, early autumn air. Chris, on the tennis courts. Surrounded by the marching band practice, whistles and the clash of football helmets. He sees the cross-country runners and catches her eyes. A gym shirt, blue shorts, white and blue shoes.

In the orchestra practice room, during those first weeks of high school. Both of them preparing for the blind auditions. A quiet smile. Chris, out for pizza with his parents, while everyone else was at the homecoming dance. He spots her there too. Another moment of eye contact, another shy smile and turn to her friends. Fragments. But enough to carry the torch.

Incredibly, in thirty years Chris couldn’t think of a time he had an actual conversation with Clarissa. That is until a message popped into his phone a couple weeks ago thanking him for the book. An easy, comfortable back and forth followed. It culminated in her saying, let me know if you’re ever in town.

And so Chris arrived at this precipice. He was apparently and all of a sudden living out the start of one of those stories he always told himself he’d get around to writing one day. He had imagined endings, and clung to certain images, for a long time. But with one more glance at his phone, he saw Clarissa’s face again, as it was today. He lingered on her eyes. The blurred edges faded. Chris, his own face loosened, swiped back to his boarding pass, and stepped forward. He turned his phone over, and waited for the beep.