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Chapter 14
Judith’s funeral was held a few days later, and I left after offering a few sticks of incense.
Lucas’s mother grabbed my hand, choked up and unable to speak.
I tapped her hand.
The Krueger family was actually doing fine, it’s just that their fate had run out in the end.
***
After returning home, I was constantly preparing for the opening of the restaurant.
The storefront was not big, but there were quite a lot of things prepared. Fortunately, Neil has been helping me all along, so I saved a lot of worries.
When the first snow of winter fell, I found an iron box while tidying up my house.
When I opened it, I found that it was filled with letters that Lucas had written to me.
Back then, we were only in high school and didn’t have cell phones, so we relied on writing letters to communicate every day.
I paused for a moment and picked up one.
“Helen, let’s go together tomorrow morning. Recently, there’s this woman who keeps bothering me. I told her that I have a girlfriend, but she just doesn’t believe me. It’s so annoying!”
“My mom made ravioli today and they were delicious. How about coming to my house for dinner tomorrow? Today, I was called by the teacher, who talked about our puppy love. She said we were. too young and it was just a temporary excitement, and we would definitely break up in a few days. What a load of crap! We will always be good and stay together forever!”
“Helen, let’s go bury the time capsule together, the one Marcel gave me. It’s perfect since tomorrow is the weekend, let’s go out and have fun together.”
***
I looked at the letter, and suddenly a memory came to mind.
When I was 18 years old, Lucas and I buried a time capsule under the oak tree at school. It had words written on it, as if speaking to our future selves, and we made a promise to come back together to
retrieve it in ten years.
It has been exactly ten years since then.
I can no longer remember what I wrote back then.
I had a bit of indescribable complexity in my heart and planned to dig it out and take a look:
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When I went downstairs, I stopped in my tracks.
Lucas was standing in front of the building, covered in a thick layer of snow.
He seemed to have been standing for a long time.
“What are you here for?” I instinctively furrowed my brows.
Lucas’s lips moved slightly, “Helen, I came to apologize to you. I have thought about it for a long time, and I feel like I still owe you an apology.”
I lowered my head and walked past him, saying, “No need, the best apology you can give me is to never appear in front of me again.”
He grabbed me, with densely bloodshot eyes, and said, “Helen, what do I have to do for you to come
back?”
I originally wanted to shake him off, but suddenly I didn’t know what I was thinking. I took out the letter he wrote to me at that time from my pocket and handed it over.
“Now I am going to dig up the time capsule from the past. Do you want to come with me?”
***
I haven’t come back for ten years, and the changes in the school are not too significant.
The teaching building was repainted and the playground was repaired, but surprisingly, the small shop outside the school was still open, only with a bigger sign.
The two of us went in, and the former boss, who now looked old, had already forgotten us. He happily handed us two cups of hot drinks.
The oak seems to have grown thicker than I remembered, and now it is covered with snow.
Occasionally, the remaining snow would fall from the treetops and be scattered by the wind.
I took the shovel borrowed from the boss and dug down based on memory.
The soil was frozen too hard. Lucas took the shovel and finally managed to dig into it. The smal
stones we used as markers were long gone, and the two of us dug for half a day until we were sweating profusely, finally seeing that iron box.
Lucas took it out carefully, opened it cautiously, and took out the plastic time capsule from inside.
The capsule colors were bright and vibrant, as if they had been buried just yesterday.
The small note inside had just turned yellow.
The handwriting above was still a bit immature.
“The first wish was to marry Helen.”
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The second wish was to always be with Helen.
18–year–old Lucas asked his 28–year–old self across a span of ten years.
Ten years later, Lucas, have my wishes come true? They must have come true!
Here is my handwriting.
“I also wanted to be with Lucas forever!”
