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Linus was briskly walking up to his car to open the trunk when he saw them standing by David’s red Ferrari talking; Sabrina and David. She was back.
Ignoring David, he called, “Hello, Sabrina.”
Her smile dropped, her voice slightly more hesitant than it was a moment before as she answered. “Hello, Linus.”
“S-Sabrina?” David grinned a little as if her name was part of a joke he was a part of but hadn’t yet figured out. What did Sabrina, the girl who once lived here and had gone away somewhere, have to do with anything?
Linus grabbed a large, bow-tied present from the trunk and closed it. “Have a good time in Paris?”
She couldn’t look away from David as she answered him. Maybe if she was looking at David, he wouldn’t see how she was affected. She hadn’t expected to see him so soon. “Yes, thank you.”
David was bewildered, his mind trying to grasp on to the meaning of what he heard. “Sabrina?” Was this the girl he grew up with? This couldn’t be her. She had been quiet, awkward, and gangly, hadn’t she? He tried to remember more clearly but it was hazy. If this was her, she was… she was entirely transformed. She was a woman, and a gorgeous one at that!
Linus gave her an almost-smile as he stepped closer. “You look all grown up.”
David was looking at her for confirmation as he asked once again, “Sabrina?”
“Why does he keep saying that?”
Sabrina couldn’t look at him. She was not ready for this meeting, not here, not like this, and feeling things quickly getting away from her, she backed away. “Umm, I..I need to go find my father. I’ll get my bags later.” She quickly turned to make good her escape. “Thanks for the ride!”
“Wait a minute!” David called to her, but she didn’t stop her retreat, swiftly leaving the two brothers behind. So quick in her departure, she wasn’t near to hear Linus.
“David. No.”
“What are you talking about? I was...” David attempted to obfuscate but Linus wouldn’t let him finish, stern and unyielding.
“NO.”
In her room that evening, Sabrina carefully unpacked her luggage. In short order, her toiletries, clothes, and the gifts she brought found their homes as she re-settled in. Two years away, a lifetime really, but it was still familiar as ever.
Her hands rested gently on her camera bag. Opening it, she reached for the inside pocket to pull out the contents. Carefully tucked away inside, a couple of letters rested; letters written on fine card stock with a distinct hand. Linus, always so straightforward and hard lines when he spoke, was all curves and loops, gentle slopes as his cursive ran across the page.
Her fingers stroked over the words on the first letter he had sent her. It was a ‘Thank You’ note for the Eiffel Tower paperweight she had sent him despite knowing he could easily get his own. It was the first of several letters they exchanged. Although his work was incessant, he never failed to respond to her when she wrote to him and his words painted a picture of him and the part of his world she hadn’t seen from up in her tree.
She had felt comfortable and safe in their letters and the distance between them as she became closer to him. Her crush on David having slowly withered away, her world shifting with her experiences in Paris, feelings she hadn’t meant to grow took root in her heart as she wrote to Linus and he to her. Perhaps those could have slowly withered away too if she stayed away, stopped writing, but having come back… She would face him and she was sure the words she hadn’t written on paper would instead be written on her face. She could hide nothing from him here.