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Derek drew in a deep breath as he entered the room he suspected was Anne’s bedroom. The walls were painted a pretty green shade that he remembered, five years later, as being her favorite color.
He felt as if he was being a glutton for punishment in picking Anne’s former room instead of picking the guest room where Bob had stashed all of the mirrors from the master bedroom. Of course, he could have picked the pale purple room that was crammed with furniture and, even though he could smell whatever was used to clean the room, the sickly-sweet smell of over-applied perfume still leaked through the lemon scent of cleaning solution.
About three years ago he had attempted to date somebody who appeared to bathe in her body spray and it left him with constant headaches. There was no way that he was going to be able to sleep in that bedroom.
That left what could only be Anne’s room. He could see where she had hung things on her walls, the unfaded patches covering more of the walls than the faded spots. For a moment he could imagine her room practically plastered with her drawings and photos.
Derek wondered if she still used her camera to capture scenes she wanted to sketch out later.
Rising up on the balls of his feet, he lifted himself the three inches he needed to see on to the top shelf in the closet. Curiosity had him wondering if Anne had left anything behind. He had no way of knowing that only two weeks before Anne had taken a step-ladder, climbed to the top, and pulled out a shoe box she had hidden in a corner on the very shelf he was examining.
Seeing nothing, Derek dropped back down to his feet, ignoring the slightly disappointed feeling he felt in not seeing anything left behind. Instead, he returned to where he had put his shirts on the unmade bed and started removing the garbage bags he’d hung over the coat hangers. After a moment’s pause, he just grabbed the hangers, hung everything up still in the trash bags, and ripped the bags down the seams.
While, internally, he felt as if he was wasting the trash bags, just the sheer destruction made him feel a tiny bit better.
He’d have to go work out in the oddly pink home gym that he’d discovered three doors down.
“I must be a glutton for punishment,” he mumbled quietly to himself as he hung up the last of his clothes.
“Finding everything okay,” Sophy asked, poking her head into the doorway. “I wish you had been here yesterday when Anne Elliot stopped by to pick up some books she had left behind.”
Derek let out a breath before he felt calm enough to answer his sister. That was the last name he had ever expected to cross her lips so soon after he had started moving his things into the house.
“What did she want?” he finally managed to ask.
“She had left a box of books in her closet,” Sophy repeated, nodding towards the opened doors where his shirts now hung.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. She seemed as if she wanted to get in and out of the place as quickly as possible.”
“Well,” Derek hedged. “School does start soon.”
“The end of the month.”
“Right,” he agreed, nodding his head needlessly.
“Are you okay?” his sister asked, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes. “You are acting weird.”
“It’s kind of weird being here, honestly,” he admitted.
Nodding her head, Sophy thought she understood. “You are usually still in North Carolina with Ed right about now.”
“Only he didn’t go this year. I’ve been spending time with Father.”
Sophy merely wrinkled her nose. “But you’ve been back and forth.”
“I took up a tutoring position to fill out some of my time. I’m only going to have four classes this semester. The other three that I need are only offered in the Spring semester,” he explained to his sister. “I’ll need to find an extracurricular just to enroll as a full-time student.”
Nodding her head, “That seems like a good idea to get your out of your comfort zone,” Sophy stated.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Do you really think that Ed and I didn’t notice that you weren’t yourself five years ago when your girlfriend of a year ended things that summer?”
Closing his eyes, he was aware that they didn’t know everything. “I was about to be shipped out,” he mumbled. “I asked her to marry me.”
“Derek!”
“What?”
“You were nineteen!”
“Why is that such a big deal? I was going to Italy! I didn’t know when I’d see her again!”
“And she had just graduated from high school!”
But before she said anything else, Sophy noticed that Derek wasn’t really paying attention to her and kept looking around the room. Narrowing her eyes, she abruptly changed the subject. “I invited Anne Elliot to dinner one night. She hesitated about accepting my offer, but...”
Derek interrupted. “It might seem awkward.”
“That’s what Bob said.”
“I need to finish unpacking,” was all he said in response.
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After leaving her brother’s room, Sophy located her husband in the study.
“Can you believe that I found six mirrors in this room!” Bob exclaimed from his place at the bookcase. “There was even a miniature one on this bookcase! And another on the fireplace mantel!”
“It’s difficult to think that level-headed Anne came from Walter Elliot.”
“Well,” Bob looked at his wife, “she came from her mother too.”
After a long moment, she asked, “Bob?”
“Yes, Dear?”
“Do you think that Derek has met Anne before? I know she said she had six years ago, but...” she trailed off, still not completely certain where she was going with her question.
“They have been on the same campus for several years,” he pointed out. “It’s not exactly a small campus.”
“But we know how Derek can disappear if he really wants to.”
“True.”
“Anne reacted weirdly when I mentioned that Derek would be moving in. And Derek acted weird when I pointed out that he was staying in Anne’s room.”
Moving over and wrapping an arm around his wife, Bob reassured her that whatever was meant to happen would happen regardless of her interference. “Don’t interfere,” he advised her. “You know how Derek gets.”
And she did know just how stubborn her brother could get.
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He’d known that Anne Elliot was from this college town. He had, admittedly, applied to this college as a way to tempt himself. The odds of actually ever running into her on campus were slim to none; she was planning on going to School of the Art Institute of Chicago. And still, he applied.
Call himself a glutton for punishment. He’d been doing it all afternoon.
It wasn’t until he went to put the fitted sheet on his mattress that he knew for certain. In lifting the mattress to get a corner on a bit better, he saw the art school’s brochure peeking out from between the mattress and box spring. Exactly where Anne had hidden the last of her teenage dreams. Drawing in a deep breath, he put the brochure to the side and finished making his bed.
