On top of the contents was a folded piece of paper. It was getting worn out from his unfolding and refolding. He lifted it out and read the words, pretending she was standing over his shoulder whispering the words into his ear.
He refolded the paper and set it carefully in the lid. The pictures were next. He handled them carefully, only touching the edges. The first was their graduation picture, the professional one. Mandy in the beautiful red dress that hugged her curves, he in a black suit. Then some friends and family had snapped on that day. There was the picture of them standing in front of the apartment they shared taken on move-in day. There were several photo booth streams of the two of them, laughing and kissing.
He looked at each of them and then set them on top of Mandy's poem.
There were little mementos. Stubs from movies and a concert they attended. Silly notes and a child's Valentines card she'd given him. He pressed the card to his face, wishing it smelled like her. But he'd been unable to capture her scent, since she didn't wear any specific perfume. He pressed it gently against his lips.
There was the letter she sent after she'd broke it off with him. He didn't need to look at it, he had the contents memorized. He could likely reproduce every loop she'd made on that paper from memory.
He touched it with his fingertips, dwelling on the emotional memories locked in there. Before he let himself recall her words, he put everything back in the box as carefully as it had come out.
He set the lid back on and pushed the box back into his bag. He vowed to throw the box out in the morning. The same vow he made every time he felt pathetic after looking at all those old things. At the very least, he needed to stop packing them in his carry-on luggage. It was getting old. Maybe he'd give the box to Mandy, if she agreed to meet him for supper sometime.
He pulled back the hotel sheets and climbed between them, reaching for the remote. There was no need for him to dwell any more on false hopes, like the hope of a second chance romance with Mandy Green.
****
Mandy woke from a dream. There was an ache between her legs that hadn't been there in sometime. She looked at the clock it was 5 AM, which normally would have been fine, but it was Saturday. She didn't want to wake at 5 Am on Saturday morning from an erotic dream. It wasn't the first one she'd had either since Kip had contacted her.