After Hello

"And what comes after hello?" she asked.

"Anything. Everything. Whatever you want," he said. "Just as long as it's not goodbye." 

Remember Tess? She lent me a book that put everything I ever wanted into words.

A huge, bustling city brimming with life

 Freedom. That was what I felt standing there on the corner with a park on one side of me and a cluster of shops on the other, the small bookstore with its open door and rolling carts of books beckoning me across the street. The freedom to go wherever I wanted, do whatever I wanted. I was a single person in a city of millions.

Meeting someone utterly new, completely unknown, and turning them into a profound friend--maybe something more

 I thought back to that moment when I had taken his picture. I smiled, thinking of all that had happened because I had chosen to follow him. Such a simple decision, almost impulsive, but it had changed everything. It had changed me.

A lively adventure filled with whatever happened to cross the path

"What's a 'yes day'?" I asked. 

"It's a day where you find ways to say yes."

"To what?" I looked from Sam to Vanessa.

"To goodness," she said, spreading her arms wide. "To life."

"To things you might otherwise say 'no' to, " Sam added. His eyes flickered up to mine, the brown as warm and dark as my chocolate.

"Like saying yes to a damsel in distress?" I asked with a lift of my lips.

"Exactly." Sam matched my smile, and I felt my heart flutter in my chest.

Learning to see inside my soul and help share the burdens of other souls

 "Art can conceal as well as reveal," she continued. "It takes courage to remove our masks. But it takes greater courage to allow those we care about to remove their own masks when they are with us." Vanessa fanned a row of feathers--all green except for one solitary white one--above the arched eyes. "When we grant others the opportunity to be open and vulnerable, that is when we can see the truth. In them. And in ourselves."

Moving from self-preservation to self-actualization

My hands trembled, both from excitement and from fear. Could I really pull this off? Should I? I wasn't an artist--not really. Not like Vanessa, who ruled her world with magic and muses. Not like Aces, who lived his life with passion and built his own three-dimensional version of reality. Not even like Daniel, who could play music that sounded like the voice of God. 

I was just me. But sitting at that table that had once been a door, I thought being me might be enough. 

Savoring the little things, the humble moments of the day

Sara sat up, rubbing at her eyes with a loosely curled fist like a child might after a nap. A faint pink line creased her cheek from where she had leaned against his shoulder. The pattern matched exactly the black stripe that ran down the sleeve of his hoodie. 

He felt a strange and sudden flash of pride at seeing it. Even though he knew it would fade--it was already fading--for a moment, they were connected, like halves of a whole, and that made him happy. 

And getting another shot at happiness


"I don't want this to be good-bye, either," he said. He pulled out two tattered sugar packets from the bag and held them out to me. His eyes danced with light and life. "So tell me, Sara without an h--what do you want?"

The last time Sam has asked me that question, I hadn't known what to say. This time I did. Aces had given me the answer. "I want my life to be filled with passion."

Sam chuckled under his breath. "That's a tall order."

"But not impossible. Someone once told me that if you don't know what you want, you'll never get it."

"I see. And something tells me that a smart girl like you will find a way to get whatever she wants."

"Hey, I learned from the best."

"True." Sam granted me that point. "But I think there is one lesson left." He bounced the sugar packets on his palm. "Instead of saying good-bye, let's say hello instead."

I lifted a packet from the palm of his hand. "How is this going to become a hello?"

"The same way it became two tickets for Jess, or a coupon for a free manicure. You trade your packet; I'll trade mine. And if we keep them moving, eventually we'll find what we're looking for."

"This little packet will bring me back all the way to New York?"

Sam smiled. "You never know. Maybe my packet will take me all the way to Arizona."

I grinned, catching the spirit of the adventure. "Are you proposing another quest?"

"You game?"

I turned the small packet over in my fingers. "Yeah," I said. "I am."

"Good." He tucked the square of sugar into his pocket. "Then the next time I see you, we'll have a proper hello."

I raised an eyebrow, feeling a matching lift of hope in my chest. "And what comes after hello?"

"Anything. Everything. Whatever you want," he said. "Just so long as it's not good-bye."

All in one day.