It's been a long time since she has been home, and this is what she was thinking as she walked down the streets. Often, now, she saw his face in the store windows, reflected a million times back at her own at various angles, like a kaleidoscope. Or funhouse mirrors. It was no different here, although he had never set foot in this town. He'd always said he would come with her, that he'd walk the streets of her childhood and that they'd create new, adjacent memories, but, well, that wasn't going to happen now. Now all that was going to create memories with her was his ghost, his frozen face and his beautiful eyes peering at her soul from every store front. (Here's us: me and some mannequin, matching summer hats.) Maybe she'd go snorkeling off the coast. Maybe he'd be there too.
It's been a long time since she has been home, and it hasn't changed a bit. Not on the outside, at least. There was the same liquor store with the burnt out neon sign, the old white van parked in front of the laundromat. The mailbox that was a miniature version of its house. The avocado home with the brown trimming that marked the corner of her street.
She paused in front of the front door, glancing from the lock to her purse, which she realized contained no corresponding key. She rang the bell.
"Oh, baby," cried her mother, swinging the door open as if she had been waiting on the other side all along. "Oh, Cece," she said as she wrapped her arms around her daughter and pulled her close.
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