Page 3 of Echoes of Us
T he room smelled of dust and cardboard, the sharp tang of packing tape lingering in the air.
Ashley sat cross-legged on the living room floor, surrounded by half-packed boxes and piles of bubble wrap.
The late afternoon sunlight slanted through the windows, casting long shadows across the hardwood as she worked through the seemingly endless task of sorting their things.
Her gaze landed on a box tucked in the corner, its edges yellowed and softened with age. The tape securing it had cracked in places, the label scrawled in a hand she didn’t recognize: Misc. – College.
She hesitated, brushing her hands on her thighs before scooting closer. The box had the feel of something that hadn’t been touched in years, maybe longer. She glanced toward the kitchen, where she could hear the faint clatter of Cole setting up the dinner table.
It wasn’t prying, she told herself, not really. They were moving, after all, and everything needed to be sorted. Still, her fingers hovered over the edge of the tape, guilt flickering faintly in her chest.
“Just a peek,” she murmured as if to absolve herself.
The tape resisted briefly before peeling away with a faint snap.
She lifted the flaps carefully, the musty scent of old paper wafting out to greet her.
Inside, she found a stack of faded notebooks, loose papers, and a scattering of what looked like graded assignments.
Her heart quickened with a strange mix of curiosity and hesitation.
The first thing she pulled out was a slim folder marked Math 201 .
She opened it to find a neatly typed midterm with a bold “A+” scrawled in red at the top.
Of course, she thought, smiling faintly to herself.
Her Mr. Perfect husband naturally excelled in the one subject that would go on to define his career.
She set the paper aside and dug deeper, finding more assignments and score reports.
Most were pristine, with glowing marks and notes in the margins like Excellent work!
and Impressive clarity. She pictured Cole as a student, meticulous and diligent, his sharp gray eyes scanning formulas and proofs with that quiet, unshakable focus he carried even now.
Her smile deepened as she traced her fingers over a paper marked Linear Algebra – A.
But as she moved further through the stack, her brow furrowed.
The grades weren’t all perfect. A handwritten essay on Shakespeare’s Influence on Romanticism bore a jagged red “C” circled at the top.
Notes from the professor–terse, almost exasperated–lined the margins: Needs development. Missing critical analysis.
She pulled out another: Intro to Philosophy – B-.
And another: Psych 101 – D.
Her lips parted, a quiet laugh escaping her. “Cole,” she whispered to herself, shaking her head.
It didn’t make sense–not for the man she knew, who seemed incapable of half-measures.
She thought of the way he approached his lectures at Harvard, the precision of his explanations, the way he jotted down notes like they were etched in stone.
And yet, here he was, fumbling through Intro to Philosophy.
Curiosity sparked deeper, and she dug toward the bottom of the box, flipping through a thin pile of papers that seemed older than the rest. At the very bottom, she found a report card–Yale’s embossed crest at the top.
The first semester grades made her frown. They were scattered, almost chaotic: Calculus – A. History of Art – C. English Composition – F.
Her stomach twisted, not unpleasantly, as she scanned the uneven marks. She traced the list with her finger, wondering at the contrast between the man she’d married and the boy he must have been. It was… endearing, in a way, to picture him as someone who hadn’t always had it together.
She leaned back, the papers still in her hands, and laughed softly. “You were a mess,” she murmured.
Her thoughts drifted to her own college years.
While Cole had been busy stumbling his way through literature and philosophy, she’d been curled up in her dorm, her textbooks spread across the desk and her phone never far from reach.
She could still feel the anticipation that had tied her stomach in knots every time her long-distance boyfriend called, the way her heart raced at the sound of his ringtone.
It was a different kind of fumbling, but fumbling nonetheless.
She glanced back at the pile of papers, noting the steady rise in grades over time, the gradual shift from “C”s and “D”s to rows of “A”s. The man she knew now had emerged somewhere in the middle of those messy semesters, and she found herself wanting to know how.
From the kitchen, Cole’s voice broke her thoughts. “Ash? Everything okay in there?”
She jolted, snapping the folder shut. “Yeah! Just… going through some old boxes.”
“Find anything interesting?”
Her gaze flicked to the report card in her lap, her smile returning. “Nothing I’ll tell you about. Yet.”
“Uh-oh.” His laugh carried into the room, warm and easy.
Ashley reached for the box to push it aside when something at the bottom caught her eye–a corner of Manila peeking out beneath the stack of loose papers. Pausing, she tilted the box slightly, dislodging the pile to reveal a neatly labeled folder.
Her breath hitched. Dale Westwood – Academic Records.
For a moment, she just stared at it, her mind racing.
She’d known Dale had died during Cole’s college years, but she hadn’t realized he’d also been a student at Yale.
Her hand hovered over the folder, torn between the urge to know more and the nagging guilt of prying into something so deeply personal.
Finally, she pulled it free, opening it with careful fingers. Inside was a collection of transcripts and diplomas, each one stamped with Yale’s crest. Her eyes skimmed the documents, her heart sinking as she processed what she was seeing.
Bachelor of Arts – Summa Cum Laude.
Master of Science – Awarded Posthumously.
The transcripts that accompanied the diplomas were immaculate: rows of “A”s without a single blemish, glowing remarks from professors, and accolades for academic excellence.
Ashley ran her fingers lightly over the embossed seal, her stomach twisting. Dale’s name sat there, so formal and distant.
She sank back onto her heels, her mind spinning.
Cole had never mentioned they’d studied at Yale together–or had they?
Dale’s graduation date was a year ahead of Cole’s.
Did they cross paths every day in the same halls, attending the same events?
She tried to picture it: the two of them walking across campus, sharing lectures, books, and friends.
A knot tightened in her chest. She stared at the folder in her lap, a thousand questions bubbling to the surface. She closed it carefully, her fingers lingering on the edge before tucking it back into the box.
“Hey, Ash?” Cole’s voice jolted her from her thoughts.
“Yeah?”
“Dinner’s ready.”
She exhaled, brushing her hands over her dress as she stood.
When she reached the dining table, Cole was already waiting, the flicker of a candle casting warm light across their patchwork chaos.
One corner of the table held a half-empty box of utensils, and another was stacked with mismatched plates waiting to be wrapped.
The scent of roasted vegetables mingled with the faint tang of packing tape that lingered in the air.
Ashley paused in the doorway. The weight of what she’d found lingered like the static of an unfinished conversation. She took a slow breath, letting the pull of the present steady her.
Cole glanced up as she stepped closer, setting a glass of water by her plate with his usual precision. His movements were calm, deliberate, and so perfectly in tune with the man she knew that it almost made her smile.
“Long day?” he asked, pulling out her chair for her.
“Something like that,” she replied, lowering herself into the seat.
The chair creaked softly under her, and the questions in her mind momentarily quieted as Cole sat across from her.
His shirt was wrinkled from a long day, and the sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms smudged faintly with ink–remnants of whatever notes he’d scribbled earlier.
She watched as he reached for his fork, his casual steadiness grounding her in the moment.
“Did I ever tell you about my first–and only–college party?” she asked, breaking the quiet.
Cole glanced up, his gray eyes softening as his lips curved into a faint smile. “No. Let me guess–you spent the entire night organizing the bookshelves.”
She laughed, the sound light but tinged with self-awareness.
“Close. I was such a nerd back then. The first two years of college, I didn’t even consider going to a party.
I was too busy studying and waiting for my long-distance boyfriend to call.
You’d think I was running a hotline with how attached I was to that phone. ”
Cole arched a brow, resting his chin on his hand. “And then?”
“And then,” she said, dragging out the words, “he dumped me at the end of my sophomore year. By text, no less. Sarah finally convinced me to go out and said I needed to ‘see what I’d been missing.’ So, I went.”
Cole’s smirk deepened. “And?”
“It was like stepping into the twilight zone,” she said, shaking her head.
“Picture this: a room full of Harvard students–future surgeons, CEOs, and, I don’t know, Supreme Court judges–completely plastered.
There was this one guy pouring vodka into a fishbowl.
I thought it was a joke until I saw people drinking out of it with straws. ”
Cole laughed, the sound low and genuine.
“And then there was the hallway,” she continued, gesturing animatedly.
“At one point, I found a guy passed out in the bathtub. Two girls were crying over the same guy, and the guy in question? Oh, he was the biggest douchebag I’d ever met.
Football scholarship, wore his varsity jacket indoors like it was his armor, and had the kind of smirk that made you want to shove him out a window. ”
Cole chuckled, leaning back slightly. “Sounds like quite the character.”
“Character? He was insufferable,” she said, laughing.
“Anyway, by 2 a.m., I’d given up on the whole party thing and started walking around with a water bottle, handing it out like a door-to-door salesperson.
That’s when I realized I liked being the person who kept it together when everyone else fell apart.
That’s when I thought… maybe I could actually make something of that. ”
“Not Professor Larkin’s course?” Cole asked, a playful glint in his eyes. “Didn’t you once call her Behavioral Decision-Making class life-changing?”
“Well, yes,” Ashley admitted, her expression softening. “Professor Larkin gave me direction, but it was that party that made me realize I wanted to take care of people. To help them when they didn’t even realize they needed it.”
Her gaze warmed as she reached across the table, her fingers brushing his.
Cole clasped her hand, his thumb tracing small circles over her knuckles. “And you’re good at it,” he said quietly, his voice carrying the weight of sincerity.
Ashley smiled, feeling the warmth spread through her chest. “What about you?”
Cole’s grip on her hand stilled briefly before he leaned back, picking up his fork again. “I wasn’t as interesting as you. No fishbowls or hallway dramas in my story.”
Ashley frowned, tilting her head. “Come on. You’re not getting out of this. What were you like?”
His laugh was soft, almost dismissive. “A boring physics nerd.”
She sat forward, her expression playful but edged with curiosity. “Why won’t you tell me? You know all my embarrassing stories.”
Cole exhaled slowly, setting his fork down with deliberate care. “Because I don’t think you would’ve liked me very much.”
Her brows lifted in surprise, and for a moment, neither of them spoke. Then her lips curved, the curiosity flaring brighter. “Oh, now you have to tell me.”
He shook his head, leaning across the table to kiss her softly. The warmth of his lips silenced her protest and the tension she hadn’t realized she was holding melted away.
When he pulled back, his voice was low, almost teasing. “If you’re done with dinner, I think it’s time for dessert.”
Before she could argue, he stood and rounded the table, lifting her effortlessly into his arms.
“Cole!” she exclaimed, laughing as her arms circled his neck. “I’m pregnant, not incapacitated.”
“Exactly,” he murmured, his lips brushing her temple as he carried her toward the bedroom. “No heavy lifting allowed.”
She laughed again, but it dissolved into a soft sigh as his mouth found hers, the kiss deeper this time, his touch reverent. The questions in her mind faded, replaced by the quiet certainty of the man she’d fallen in love with.