Free Finding Carrie by C. E. Snyder Page A

wall of pictures. “Here she is with you at one of the balls that you had for one of your books. Does she look familiar to you at all?” Carrie stepped up to the picture to study it more closely.
    “No, I’m sorry. I don’t think I have ever seen her before,” she said, shaking her head then looking up at Isaac. Isaac looked down toward the floor.
    “It’s okay,” Isaac said. Carrie looked back up at the wall of pictures. She spotted a picture of her. It was just her head. Water was pouring on her. It appeared to her that she was washing her hair and someone had come up to her and taken her picture. She wasn’t smiling, but she was looking at the camera when it was taken.
    “What is that one?” she asked.
    “That is when we took our first trip together. We went camping in the mountains. You were standing under a waterfall, rinsing yourself off. This must have been the third day of our trip. We went caving that day, and you wanted to freshen up before we went in. I couldn’t stop looking at you. You were so beautiful, I took a picture. This trip was the first time that I told you that I loved you,” Isaac explained. He looked down and saw that Carrie was staring at him as if she was very interested in what he was saying. When he didn’t say anymore, she spoke.
    “Tell me more,” she said, looking back up at the pictures. She noticed a picture next to the one of her. This one looked like rock climbers hanging next to each other with all the ropes and equipment in the picture. “Is that us?” She was standing on her toes, pointing to the picture.
    “Yes, that was the same trip. We were climbing up the side of the mountain, to the entrance of a cave.”
    “Were we hanging off it?” she asked, settling back on her heels.
    “We were about fifty yards up,” Isaac said.
    “Wow,” she said, wide-eyed. She looked up to Isaac’s face. “Tell me about the first time you told me you loved me.”
    “Well, we were lying in the tent and we were talking about things like what we wanted to do and things we were afraid off. I turned, and I whispered ‘ Aishite imasu ’ into your ear. You turned your head to me and asked me what I had just said. I told you that it was ‘I love you’ in Japanese. You wanted to know if I meant it, and I said ‘I do very much,’ and I do love you with everything that I am,” Isaac said, stroking his finger down her cheek. Her hand came up, and her fingers traced the line his just made. She looked down. That was when she noticed a scar on the back of her hand that went down past her wrist. She brought it up to study it.
    “How did I get this?” she asked, running her finger across the scar. Isaac took her arm to look at it.
    “You got that on our wedding day. You scraped it on a nail. It’s on the wedding video, if you want to watch it—oh wait.” He stopped and took her hands to lead her back to the picture that hung above the fireplace. “Look, you have it in the picture,” he said, showing the red line down her arm in the picture.
    “Oh, I didn’t notice that before,” Carrie said, looking back down at her scar. Just then, Sierra stood up.
    “I’m hungry,” she announced.
    “Oh, we haven’t eaten since lunch, and it is nearly eight. Go get your sister, and we will decide what to get,” Isaac said to Sierra. “What do you want to eat?” he asked, turning to Carrie.
    “I don’t know. I’m not quite sure I’m hungry.” Just as she said that, her stomach made a grumble.
    “Yes, you are,” Isaac said, laughing. Carrie looked up at him. The girls returned to the living room. Isaac put his hands of the back of the couch. “What do you girls want to eat?” They both looked at one another.
    “Pizza,” they said at the same time.
    “From Nick’s, with pepperoni,” Sabrina said.
    “And mushrooms,” Sierra added.
    “Yuck, I don’t like mushrooms,” Sabrina said with a disgusted look on her face.
    “Oh, Isaac, can we get mushrooms?” Sierra begged,