The Freeze

Coming back home was one of the things that Cynthia never expected. It has been 10 years and all she has done since she left at 18 years old was never think about home and what she left behind.

She looks around the house that she grew up in, where she had a bunch of memories, good and bad. After being there for a few days she wondered what made her leave in the first place. As she walks out to the porch of her house, she sees the frozen lake that was once a beautiful lake where she and her best friend would often go boating.

So much has changed since then, She is no longer the teenager who was in love with her best friend from across the lake. She was a grown woman who moved on from the heartbreak and longing that was her hometown. She thinks back to the times back to the days where everything seemed so easy.

Cynthia and Brett had been best friends from as early as they can remember. She and Brett lived across the lake from each other and often used a boat to travel from each other’s house. However, had the boat they would just pick the other up and then just hang out with each other while boating around the lake. They had never hidden anything from each other. They knew how the other person felt before the other person said anything. She was there when Brett fell in love with his high school girlfriend. She was also there to pick up his heart’s broken pieces when she had broken up with him. He was there when her mom had been diagnosed with breast cancer. He would always try to take her mind off of her mother and the chemo she was going through. He was also there when her mother had passed away from the same breast cancer when it was too much to handle. They had seen a lot of ups and downs that it never occurred to either of them that anything would change.

Until the day it did.

She can remember the day like it was yesterday. She was waiting for Brett to come to pick her up with the boat and she had finally decided to tell him how she felt after all these years. What she had been hiding from everyone else and especially him. But when she looked over at the boat she not only saw him but she saw someone else with him. Not anyone else but the same girlfriend who had broken up with him and left him heartbroken.

She just stood there, stoic, and just looked at Brett and Amelia, the ex-girlfriend. She was also in shock when Brett told her that he and Amelia were apparently back together and giving their relationship another go. This was a very big blow for her, she had no idea how to respond other than nod her head and smile awkwardly and that is exactly what she did.

After that everything else seemed to be going perfectly to the newly reconciled couple so she left them alone. She distanced herself from both of them and concentrated on getting accepted to a college away from their little town. The biggest loss for everyone was their friendship. It seemed like the boat was no longer doing back and forth between either of their houses anymore.

A knock on the back door brought her out of her memory trance. She looked around to see her father standing there. He smiled at her and came to stand next to her and look out at the lake that was frozen over time. He said that the lake reminded him of her and Brett’s relationship. How the lake had started freezing right when she had left the town and never looked back. She did not understand what her father was saying but he didn’t elaborate and she did not ask him to. Before he went back inside he told her that she needs to come back into the house to greet everyone.

The only reason she had come back was that her father wanted her home for his retirement party and she could not say no to him. With a sigh, she went back into the house to mingle with everyone. As the evening went on and she had a few glasses of wine, which she maybe should stop, she felt much more relaxed and happy about being back home. She was wondering why she left in the first place and why did she keep avoiding being back here for this long.

She was talking to one of her dad’s friends when she saw someone coming in from the front door and it seemed like everything just stopped right there. She felt like her heart was caught in her throat. Brett had entered the house with what looked like a 2-year-old holding onto his hand. She was completely surprised, of course, he is married and has a kid. Why wouldn’t he?

Brett was greeting her dad and her dad was kneeling down to hug the little girl, Brett’s daughter. It surprised her that her dad knew that Brett was married and has a daughter and did not tell her about the fact. But Why would he? She shouldn’t care so much, it has been more than 10 years.

As she was going over the monologue, she did not notice Brett coming over to her to say Hi. It felt so surreal that they were in front of each other after all these years. He was very polite and talking to her very normally but she knew he was dying to ask her many questions which she did not know if she was ready to answer.

But he didn’t ask her anything. All he did was ask her how her life was like and talked about his daughter like she was the best thing that ever happened to him. She did not dare ask about his wife. If he wanted her to know he would tell her. Before he left for the night, because his daughter fell asleep, he asked her how long she was in town and that maybe they could go out for coffee before she left. She did not know why but she couldn't help but agree to meet him the next day.

As she waited for him to show up at the coffee shop she was wondering why did she even agree to meet up with him in the first place. She heard the door open and looked up to see him enter. He looked as handsome as always. It brought so many emotions up that she had been pushing down for all these years. He sat down and the conversation seemed to flow as it used to in the past.

He told her about how Amelia and he had a child and how she had died in childbirth, leaving him to take care of a small baby girl. She felt for him, he had gone through so much in such a little time frame. He said dealing with everything was very hard and he really wishes he had his best friend with him. After hearing that she felt really bad for abandoning him because of her feelings. It was not his fault that she fell in love with him and he could not return that love. But moreover, because she could never tell him that she loved him.

In that moment she knew she wanted to be there for him in any way that she can. They decided to take a little walk and pick up Brett’s daughter, Brooke, from daycare. They brought her back home and had a nice night just catching up with each other’s lives. All this time she thought she did the right thing by moving away but after a few days back home she finally realized that she never even left in the first place. Her body was somewhere else but her heart was always in this small town where she called, Home.