The shoe box had been at the bottom of my closet for years, following me from my father's house to college, to my first apartment, to the penthouse I'd shared with Lucas, and finally to Paris and back again. I'd never shown it to anyone, never spoken of its contents, never admitted to the sentimentality that had led me to preserve such seemingly trivial mementos. But on a rainy Thursday afternoon, as little Lucas napped and I sorted through old belongings, I found myself removing the lid, exposing the carefully preserved contents to light for the first time in years. Inside lay the physical evidence of a love story-my love story, one-sided though it had been for so long. Movie ticket stubs from films we'd seen with groups of friends, where I'd managed to sit near him. A dried corsage from the Winter Formal we'd co-hosted. The calculus notes he'd borrowed and returned, his handwriting sharp and decisive next to my neater script. And at the bottom, wrapped in tissue paper, a small collection of peppermint candies, their red and white stripes faded with age, the cellophane wrappers crackling when I touched them. I lifted one carefully, remembering the day Lucas had given them to me-the worst day of my young life, wher my mother had finally lost her long battle with cancer, leaving me orphaned at sixteen until my father had reluctantly taken me in. I'd been hiding in a seldom-used stairwell at school, trying to muffle my sobs, when Lucas had found me. He hadn't said much-the teenage Lucas Bailey had never been one for effusive comfort or emotional displays. He'd simply sat beside me on the cold steps, close but not touching, and after a long silence, had reached into his pocket and produced a handful of peppermint.candies. "My grandmother says these help," he'd said awkwardly, holding them out to me. "When you're sad, I mean." It had been such a small gesture, almost comically inadequate in the face of my grief. But the awkward kindness of it, the fact that he'd sought me out at all when we were barely more than lab partners and occasional academic competitors, had touched something in me. I'd taken the candies, our fingers brushing briefly, and managed a watery smile. "Thank you," I'd whispered. He'd nodded, still uncomfortable but determined to help in the only way he knew how. "If you need the chemistry notes from today, I can make copies." Such a Lucas response-practical, slightly detached, yet in his own way, caring. I'd nodded, wiping away tears with the back of my hand. He'd stayed with me for nearly half an hour, neither of us speaking much, just sitting in a silence that somehow made the weight of my grief more bearable. And when the bell rang for the next period, he'd helped me to my feet, awkwardly patted my shoulder, and said simply, "You'll be okay, Autumn. You're strong." I'd eaten one of the candies-the sharp peppermint taste cutting through the fog of grief momentarily-but had saved the rest, tucking them into my pocket like talismans. Later, I'd wrapped them carefully and placed them in my growing collection of Lucas-related mementos, embarrassed by my own sentimentality but unable to throw them away. Now, years later, I held one of those same candies, marveling at how something so small could carry such emotional weight. I'd kept them through every move, every life change, a physical reminder of the moment I'd first glimpsed the compassion beneath Lucas Bailey's carefully maintained facade. "What's that?" I started at the voice, looking up to find Lucas standing in the doorway of my bedroom, little Lucas balanced on his hip. I hadn't heard them come in, lost in memories as I was. "Sorry," he said, noticing my surprise. "Your father let us in. He said you were up here sorting through some boxes." I hastily began returning items to the shoe box, embarrassed to be caught in such a moment of nostalgia. "It's nothing. Just some old things I found." Lucas stepped further into the room, his curiosity evident. "Are those... peppermint candies?" I froze, my hand hovering over the box. "You remember?" 'The day your mother died," he said quietly. "I found you in the stairwell by the science wing." I looked up at him, genuinely surprised. "You actually remember that?" Lucas nodded, shifting our son to his other hip. "Of course I do. It was the first time I'd ever seen you cry. I hac no idea what to do or say." He gave a self-deprecating smile. "So I offered you candy, like an idiot." 'It wasn't idiotic," I said softly. "It was kind. When I needed kindness most." Something shifted in Lucas's expression-surprise, followed by a deeper emotion I couldn't quite identify. 'You kept them? All this time?" I felt heat rise to my cheeks, exposed in a way I hadn't anticipated. "I was sentimental, I guess." 'May I?" he asked, gesturing toward the box. After a moment's hesitation, I nodded. Lucas set our son down on the carpet with a toy to distract him, then came to sit beside me on the bed, peering into the box with undisguised interest. "Is this all...?" "Things related to you? Yes." I admitted, unable to meet his eyes. "Pathetic, isn't it?" "Not pathetic," he said, his voice gentle. "Incredibly touching." He reached into the box, carefully lifting the dried corsage. "From the Winter Formal?" I nodded. "Senior year." Chapter 33 High Schaja! Memoras (IV) "You wore a blue dress," he recalled, surprising me again with his memory. "Dark blue, almost navy. With silver shoes that kept catching the light when you moved." "You remember what I wore?" Lucas smiled. "I remember more than you think, Autumn. Not everything-I won't pretend my memory is perfect. But moments, impressions... they stayed with me, even when I couldn't place them properly." He continued examining the contents of the box, each item eliciting a smile or a comment that revealed how much more he remembered than I'd ever suspected. When he reached the calculus notes, he laughed softly. "You saved me in that class," he admitted. "My ankle was killing me, I was missing practices and scouts, and calculus was the last thing I cared about. But you just showed up at my house every day with your color- coded notes and infinite patience." "You were a terrible patient," I recalled with a smile. "So grumpy and frustrated." "I was a spoiled brat," he corrected. "Used to everything coming easily. The injury was the first time I'd faced something I couldn't overcome with sheer determination." "You overcame it eventually," I pointed out. "You healed. You played again." "Thanks in large part to you," he said, his eyes meeting mine with an intensity that made my heart skip. "You kept me from falling behind, from giving up. You believed I'd recover when I wasn't so sure myself." I shrugged, uncomfortable with his gratitude. "It was just notes and homework." "It was more than that." Lucas set the calculus notes aside, his expression turning serious. "You saw me, Autumn. Not the Lucas Bailey everyone expected me to be, but the scared, angry kid beneath all that confidence. You saw me at my worst, and you stayed anyway." The simple truth of his observation struck me deeply. I had seen him-the real him, beyond the Bailey name and reputation, beyond the academic and athletic accolades. I'd glimpsed his vulnerability and had loved him more for it, not less. "Just like now," I said softly, the parallel suddenly clear. Lucas tilted his head questioningly. "You see me," I explained. "Not just the designer, or the mother of your child, or the woman you married for convenience. You see... me." "I always have," Lucas said. "Even when I was too blind or stubborn to recognize what that meant." Our son chose that moment to grow bored with his toy, crawling over to investigate what had captured his parents' attention. He pulled himself up using the edge of the bed, peering curiously at the open box. "What do you think, buddy?" Lucas asked, lifting him onto his lap. "Should we tell your mom how incredible she is for putting up with your dad all these years?" Little Lucas babbled something that sounded suspiciously like agreement, reaching for one of the peppermir candies with determined fingers. "Not for eating," I said quickly, intercepting his grab. "These are very old." 'I could get you new ones," Lucas offered. "Better ones. Whole bags of them, if they mean something to you." I shook my head, carefully returning the candy to its tissue paper nest. "It wouldn't be the same. These aren't just candies to me. They're... evidence." 'Of what?" 'That you were always capable of kindness. Of seeing beyond yourself. That beneath the perfect Bailey heir was a boy who would sit with a crying girl and offer the only comfort he knew how to give." I looked up at him allowing him to see what I usually kept carefully hidden. "That's the Lucas I fell in love with. The one who gav me peppermint candies when my world was falling apart." Lucas's breath caught audibly. It was the closest I'd come to admitting my feelings for him-not just the past nfatuation he'd learned about, but the deeper, more complex emotions that had evolved through our complicated history. 'Autumn," he said, my name a question and a plea. 'I'm not saying I'm ready," I clarified quickly. "Just that... maybe I'm starting to understand that the man you are now isn't so different from the boy who found me in that stairwell. Just more aware, perhaps. More willin! to acknowledge what you feel." Lucas nodded, hope and caution warring in his expression. "That's all I'm asking for. The chance to show you hat the compassion you glimpsed then is still here-stronger, more conscious, more determined to get it ight this time." Our son squirmed in Lucas's lap, impatient with the serious adult conversation happening around him. Lucas stood, settling the boy on his hip with practiced ease. 'I should get him downstairs," he said. "Your father mentioned something about a new train set he's dying to show off." I nodded, still feeling oddly vulnerable after the unexpected emotional exposure. "Lucas," I called as he reached the door. "Thank you. For remembering. For seeing me then, and now." He smiled, the expression warming his eyes in a way that made my carefully rebuilt walls tremble slightly. 'Always, Autumn. Even when I was too blind to understand what I was seeing." After they left, I remained sitting on the edge of the bed, the shoe box open beside me, its contents a physical timeline of my feelings for Lucas Bailey-from teenage infatuation to adult love, from one-sided longing to something more complex and mutual. 72 High burol Mamones (V) For the first time, I allowed myself to consider the possibility that the changes in Lucas were genuine, that the man who remembered my blue dress and silver shoes, who had kept every detail of our shared past even when he couldn't properly place me in his memories, might truly have recognized something that had been there all along. The thought was both terrifying and exhilarating-the possibility that after all this time, all the misunderstandings and missed connections, we might finally see each other clearly, might find our way to the relationship that had always existed as potential between us. Carefully, I returned the mementos to the box, but instead of putting it back in the closet, I placed it on my bedside table-a reminder not just of the past, but of the possibility of a future I'd long since stopped allowing myself to imagine. A future where the boy who offered peppermint candies to a grieving girl might become the man who loved her as she had always loved him.