The envelope glared at me from under the pile of letters I had hidden it under. Since I had gotten it in the mail two days ago I had avoided it like the plaque, but receiving it had opened up the floodgates of memory and thoughts about her kept on replaying again and again in my mind…more so than usual. The front door opened and shook me out of my reverie.

“Oh hey Spence, man was my day long…” my roommate and good friend Ally, a whirlwind masquerading as a compact and adorable Asian girl flew into our tiny apartment. She immediately flipped off her shoes, hauled her groceries over to the kitchen and flew back to the coffee table and plopped herself on the coach next to me, in what seemed to be a blink of an eye.
”Ah mail, lets see if that issue of US weekly came in…” and before I could stop her reached over and grabbed the pile that I had oh so conveniently shoved the mail I was avoiding under.

“Hm…junk mail, bills, more junk mail…hey Spence, you got something in the mail…from L.A and it looks all fancy.” She handed it to me and looked at me expectantly. Crud I couldn’t avoid it now.

“It’s…it’s nothing…” I am a horrible liar.

“Huh? Looks like its some formal invite to me…let me see…oh your high school reunion, are you gonna go?”

“No, I don’t think so…” I managed to sputter out.

“Really why not? Don’t you have family over there? And aren’t you curious about your old high school friends? I mean NY is great and all but you’ve only been here for what 2 years or so? You must miss your roots and all and I’m sure you’d have a blast.” Ally also had a tendency to speak about a mile a minute. At moments it was endearing, but currently I wanted to strangle her.

While it was true that I had family there, it was family that I hadn’t spoken to or been on good terms with since I was 16. And while I still stayed in contact with Aiden and surprisingly,Chelsea, I knew that going back to King High and the possibility of seeing…Ashley…would be too much. I had avoided L.A for the last ten years for a reason…going back to King High…it would bring back a world and time that I had worked very hard at repressing. To a time when I was happier, yeah…no less confusing than now, a time that exciting, warm and full of passion and…love…to a life with Ashley. The problem was that here I was now, living a life without Ashley, and all the painful memories of what happened when and after we broke up also came with it. No it was a better idea that I just not go back. What would be the point? To be coldly rejected by mom again or even better to be berated by Glen for “destroying our family”.