He made the last turn toward her house. His hands were shaking. Or was it the car that was shaking? Probably both. His '93 Cherokee was getting pretty old now—it drove like it was held together with crazy glue and duct tape. The car hit a small pothole on the old county road and bounced around a bit. He checked the box riding shotgun to make sure it was okay before taking a quick glance at the woods around him. People always say that it's so beautiful when the leaves change color. He didn't see it. All it made him think of was how cold and dead it was going to be for the next few months. He rounded the corner before her house like he had a hundred times before. The moment he had been dreading for days had arrived.
He tried to calm himself as he pulled into her driveway. He put it in park and turned off the engine. She probably saw him pull up, so he decided to wait in the car.
He looked over at the box in the passenger seat. He couldn't resist opening it one more time. He double-checked to make sure it was all there. The cards he'd saved, the movies he forgot to give back, the song he wrote for her, and all the pictures he could find were all accounted for. He held up the picture from his junior prom—Jesus, she was beautiful in that white dress. He set that one down and looked at a few more: the rock festival, Christmas Eve, the camping trip where they stayed up all night and watched the sun come up. They looked so young and happy. He browesed through his senior prom photos. Somehow she didn't look as breathtaking in the black dress she wore that year. He tossed in one more picture he kept taped to the dashboard and put the lid back on the box.
He noticed her coming out the front door. He stepped out of the car just enough to lean on the hood, trying to keep his cool by looking nonchalant. He kept his sunglasses on to keep up the illusion. She came up to him carrying a few VHS tapes and some CDs.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey," he replied. It occurred to him that everything had already been said, so he didn't waste any time with small talk. "I've got your things."
"Yeah, I've got yours, too."
She handed him some action movies and some of his rock albums.
"This one's burned—what happened to the original I gave you?"
"I couldn't find it, sorry."
"It's okay."
He tossed it all into his back seat and grabbed the box.
"Here you go."
"All of this is mine?"
"Yeah." He certainly didn't want any of it anymore.
She set it down on the pavement and looked like she was about to apologize. Instead, she hugged him. He held on for what seemed like an enternity. She let go of him and picked up the box. He waited for her to say something, but she didn't.
"I gotta go," he said.
"Okay."
He got back in the car as she walked away. He started up the motor and backed out. He took one last look and drove off. A few minutes later he turned off the county road onto the hiway. The silence of the afternoon was deafening. He started to lose it.
He wanted to cry. He wanted to turn the car around. He wanted everything to be the way it had been before.
He turned on his CD player and kept driving forward.