Page 18 of A Wedding in Tuscany

‘What is all this?’ she asks, surveying the detritus of my morning’s task. I’ve been rifling through my boxes?the ones that contain everything from my Year 1 reports to dried (and crumbling) roses from my high school boyfriend to movie ticket stubs from the 90s.

‘I’m looking for a letter.’

‘From who?’

‘From me.’

‘Right.’ She leans against the doorframe and gives me a funny look.

‘It’s this letter I wrote to my future self when I was around nineteen. You know, “Dear Future Sarah … This is who I want to be when I grow up … blah, blah, blah …”.’

‘Ahh.’

‘It was during the first year of uni?for a creative writing class,’ I add, ever-so-slightly defensive. I go back to rooting through a box filled with journals, letters (from other people), and greeting cards that date back to my first birthday.

‘So why are you looking for it now?’

‘Well, I’d totally forgotten about it, then last night I woke up around two?like, wide awake?’ I snap my fingers for emphasis ‘?and I remembered it. Hang on, shouldn’t you go? You’ll be late for class.’

‘Eh, wasn’t really feeling it anyway.’ She comes into the room and makes some space on the bed so she can sit. ‘So, this letter?’

‘Yeah, well, you know how Josh has planned this whole trip to Tuscany for my birthday?’

‘I’m familiar, yes. I was there yesterday when he told you.’

‘Right. So, it’s forty.’ I leave the word hanging in the air, my eyes boring into hers. There’s a flicker of a frown?she’s confused. ‘Well, I think my subconscious was chewing on that while I was asleep, so I woke up, remembered the letter and now I want to find it so I can see where I thought I’d be by now. You know, in life.’

‘You’re exactly where you should be, Sarah,’ she says patiently.

‘I know that?in here,’ I say, tapping on the side of my head. ‘It’s just that … look, this might sound weird but yesterday, when I heard that number?in relation to me?I felt this …’ I wave may hands as though I can pluck the word from the air.

‘Slight twinge?’

‘More like a tsunami of panic.’

She blinks at me. ‘Well, shit.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Kudos, ’cause you hid it well,’ she says.

‘I often do.’ I reply quietly.

‘Mmm,’ she murmurs. ‘So, why panic do you think?’

I thumb through a glitter-covered journal, flecks of pink littering the carpet. ‘I can’t tell if it’s fear of what’s to come or that I’ve missed something I should have done.’

‘You know how I feel about that word.’

I stop searching. ‘Should?’ I ask rhetorically. ‘Yeah, I know. It’s a badword.’ I abandon the glittery journal and pick up the next one.

‘“Shoulds” come from other people’s expectations of us,’ she says. This is one of her well-established philosophies and not the first time she’s uttered those exact words. ‘So, even though you wrote this letter, it’s not from you. Young Sarah is someone else?remember that.’

‘That may be too existential for me, Lins.’

She shrugs. ‘Eh, I tried.’

Just then, I come across a folded A4 sheet, the creases still sharp and the paper almost pristine. ‘Booyah.’