The cardboard was worn soft at the corners, the edges bent, an unimpressive thing to look at, and yet it held fifteen years inside it.

I carried it into the kitchen and set it on the table, and I stood there looking at it for a moment.

“There it is,” I said quietly.

“Fifteen years of history.” And standing there looking at it on the kitchen table, out of the closet for the first time in years, I felt an odd mix of dread and something almost like release.

For so long that box had been a thing I hid, a secret shame, as though the returned love inside it were somehow my failure rather than Laura’s.