Free Larkin's Letters by Jax Jillian

darkness. I can’t wait for our next dance.
     
    He couldn’t help but smile as he remembered that day. Ryan had approached that two-story colonial and noticed that the shutters that were once maroon were now forest green, and the garage had been turned into a screened-in porch. The swing his father had made and lassoed to the enormous maple tree in the front yard when he was five was no longer there, and the small flower garden that sat underneath the front bay window that he and his mother would plant together every spring had been replaced by a trio of perfectly square-shaped bushes. He had entered into the four-bedroom house and immediately felt a sense of pensiveness. Not so much because it had brought back fond childhood memories, but because it was different. Nothing about it was the same as when he had walked through the house four years prior after his father’s funeral. The color of the walls in the kitchen had changed from a cream yellow to a dark beige, and the hardwood floor had been replaced with white marble tile outlined with black grout. French doors had replaced the single exterior door that connected the kitchen to the garage—now the screened-in porch— and the hardwood floor in the family room that he and his older brother had helped his father lay when he was in high school had been replaced with white shag carpet. He had quietly made his way through the house, weaving his way around the crowds of people. He couldn’t believe how many people had come to the open house. There were at least a dozen, he had thought, and they all had to have been in their fifties. He remembers overhearing the realtor saying a couple of times to the prospective buyers, “This is the house that Ryan Boone grew up in.” He had chuckled to himself, knowing that the majority of the people there probably had no idea who Ryan Boone was. Even if they had, why in the world would that persuade them to buy the house?
    He had made his way up the stairwell, noticing that the walls that used to boast pictures of him and his brothers throughout their childhood years were no longer there. Instead, there was a white blank wall of nothing. He had entered into only one room—his room—the room he had grown up in. But it really wasn’t his room anymore, and he had been quickly reminded of that as soon as he stepped foot into it. In fact, it wasn’t even a bedroom anymore. It had been renovated into a study with two giant bookshelves against the wall to his right filled with books from the likes of Charles Dickens, George Elliot, Jane Austen, and Stephen King. There was a medium-sized cherry oak desk with a closed laptop against the wall to his left, and there was a small French-style armchair sitting directly underneath the window on the far wall. It was the window that faced Larkin’s bedroom; the window he so often would open at night time before going to sleep to talk with her about the day they had. Their houses were close enough they could easily hear each other without having to yell and wake everyone else up.
    As he had approached the window to look out toward hers, he had sworn he could see a reflection of them dancing together when they were teenagers. She was healthy and happy, young and beautiful, full of life and energy. The reflection had seemed so real to him. He could hear the music as if it was playing in the room he was standing in. He could feel her hand resting on the top of his left shoulder and her left hand intertwined with his right hand as she taught him the correct steps and spins. He could hear her voice: one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three, spin. As he had watched the two of them dancing in the window, he was startled by a strange voice and a strange touch on the back of his elbow. “Can I help you with anything, sir? Do you have any questions about the house?”
    “Uh, no, no. No, thank you.” He had quickly darted out of the bedroom, down the steps, and out of the house. He had walked back to