This is my first time penning one of the various ideas that sometimes run through my head, I hope you enjoy it and can give me some feedback! Thanks.
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He was about to leave for the checkout when he saw that distinctive honey coloured hair. It was all he could do not to jump the woman wearing overalls and picking her jelly (plum or grape?), and he looked at her more carefully. She was slimmer than he remembered, having last saw her on their summer vacation trip, and her features seemed sharper, but when she turned the corner for the next aisle, he knew it could only be her.
He belted to the next aisle where she had gone and yelled, "Caro!"
The woman turned, a startled look on her face, and when she realised who he was, her face split into a smile and she replied, "Ben! It's been so long, how are you?!"
"Ah, I've been alright, just came back. Didn't expect to see you though, I thought you were in London?" A thought suddenly hit Ben: what if the reason Carol wasn't in London was because she was married? By the looks of her overalls, she looked like someone's housewife. It seemed his daunting revelation was untrue though, when she replied.
"Yeah I'm still there, just came back for a little while to visit my parents before starting with my job. They needed some help renovating our house, it's so old! You know what the houses here are like," Carol said, sticking her tongue out at him.
"Haha, yeah I remember that time I nearly died running on your porch and the plank came loose," Ben joked. "D'you want to get a hot chocolate sometime, and catch up more?"
"That'd be awesome! Got time this Saturday?"
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Ben laid down in his bed and put his arms behind his head. He was thinking about those sweet high school years that he'd been together with Carol and a few others, although Carol was the only girl in their group. She had seemed more like a guy then, catching on to all of their sexual innuendoes and little "guy jokes". They had messed around a little but broken it off before anything serious happened, and it wasn't awkward between them because they shared the same group of friends. Anyway, Carol just wasn't the type to change because of something like that. Now that Ben had met her again after so many years, she seemed much more feminine and lovely than he had ever remembered. He sighed and wondered whether their relationship would always remain a friendship, or if it would move on to something bigger as he drifted into slumber.
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They met several times in the month that Carol and Ben were home, then they both had to return to their daily lives, Carol in London, and Ben in a different city. Sometimes they would talk online, but it was always small chat, or comment on each other's photos and online profiles. Another year passed and the two of them were back home again for Christmas celebrations.
Carol was the same as Ben had last saw her, willowy and beautiful, but on this particular night her eyes were pink and the skin around them puffy.
"I can't believe he did that, after two years!" She wailed at Ben as his hands looked for something to do. He hugged her gently and patted her on the back. "I thought he was, you know, the one... Damn him and his stupid..." and Carol followed with some choice swear words.
Ben still held her in his arms as her sobs were reduced to muffled spasms of breathing, and although he knew how wrong it was, he was already thinking about how this could be the perfect catalyst for getting the two of them together. But when Carol lifted her face from his sweater, all such thoughts evaporated from his mind because she looked so vulnerable and sweet.
"Don't worry about that douche, let's get two tubs of ice cream and some chocolate lava cakes, they're so darn good!" He said, trying to cheer her up. She nodded and wiped her watery eyes, then sighed and stood up.
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