Left In Your Handbag

It's amazing the things that get left in your handbag. I once carried a thin book , a novella, in my handbag for a month. I took it on a blind, or more accurately short-sighted, date in case he didn't show. He did, and I didn't get round to reading it, so it just stayed there until it came in to use one night in the hospice when my aunt was tired. She wanted to sleep but she didn't want me to leave. I wanted to stay but I didn't want my mind to be free to wander over the fear and pain. One particularly painful day, I noticed a battered envelope that I'd obviously been carrying round for some time. My copy of my aunt's will. I'd slipped it in the handbag unopened when I first received it, not wanting to look at it. I'd known what it said, I'd just been given it for legal reasons, and so it went straight in the bag. It had been there for a couple of weeks by the time I noticed it, going with me everywhere my handbag did, slipped in the bottom and forgotten. I'd wished it was a book again. It was the same with the note from Rich, when I found it again, forced in to the small pocket in the lining. "I think I'll always love you. I think I'll always feel something in my stomach when your name is mentioned or read. I think I'll always hope it's the same for you. I envy people who have that all encompassing love but I'm just not entirely sure it would be right for me. You were maybe the closest I got and you weren't right for me, but a part of me still loves you and will always. Not having one complete love is the price I have to pay for having a part of you there, still making me smile. I may miss what might have been but don't regret the decision I have made." ​ It wasn't what I wanted to see, wanted to read, that night as I rooted in my handbag for my credit card. It had been a good evening and I was relaxed and smiling. It wasn't a good evening to bring back old ghosts. I stopped in my tracks and just stared at it - an internal fight of whether or not to read it was stopping me from acting. It wasn't like I didn't know what it said, but it was as though I need to check. When noise erupted from the others, I thrust it back in to the bag and my card search continued. As I looked up guiltily, I saw everyone's eyes were on mine. There are just some stories that are too complicated to truly tell. ​ --- Excerpt from a new short story soon to be released in our upcoming online e-book /digital products store.

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