What She's Doing Now

Disclaimer: The author retains no rights to any recognizable features to the following story, i.e. lyrics, plotlines, characters, etc. What she does retain rights to is whatever her imagination produces for the public to read at no monetary gain to her or others.

Author's Note: This was done at six in the morning with no sleep and has barely been proofread but I wanted to get it up today. I hope you all enjoy it anyway.

Last time I saw her it was turnin' colder
But that was years ago

Nine years and eighteen days was the exact length of time since he had last seen her. He could have counted the minutes and the seconds in between but that seemed both extreme and exhausting. Therefore, he relegated himself to only counting the days for the simple fact that number was smaller and, in that sense, easier to keep track of.

He remembers the day that she made her exit from their lives as though it were only yesterday when in reality the decade anniversary was fast approaching. They were young—him seventeen and her sixteen—and he deeply immersed in the throes of what first love felt like. Not to mention the fact that his training was becoming more advanced and he had entered his final year of high school, all of which demanded his entire concentration and undivided attention.

Perhaps these were the reasons that caused him to be blindsided that September day when the announcement was made. The day she informed his family that her own family was moving far away from Waverly Place and not even magic could keep her with them.

He can still see the tears in his sister's eyes as she tried to find any way to persuade her best friend into staying. He can still hear his parents' voices as they reasoned with Harper and offered her a bed in which to sleep so she would not have to leave with her more than malicious parents. And he can still feel the chill that had come into the air as summer gave way to autumn, the chill that still gave him goose bumps and caused a shiver down his spine whenever his mind's eye returned to the day in question.

Last I heard she had moved to Boulder
But where she's now, I don't know

Nine years and eighteen days have passed and sometimes, as he walks the streets of his hometown, he swears he can catch a glimpse of her. However, the possibility that it is more than just a figment of his imagination is lower than the chances that it will not snow come December.

For the fact of the matter is, she has long since moved from the treacherous grasp of spiteful parents and has made a life for herself that does not include the Russo clan or Waverly Place. He used to be able to keep track of her movements from the odd e-mail sent to Alex or Zeke but those had ended almost four years before. In the time that he was aware of her whereabouts, he knew that she had graduated early and attended design school in California on a scholarship that more than paid for all that she required.

Design school in California was nice, she would write, but she missed the slower pace that Waverly Place had offered her in her youth. She missed the changing of the seasons and feeling as though she was living the small town life although she was immersed in one of the heaviest populated areas in the world. She could not wait to leave California behind, leave her parents behind because even though she was no longer living with them, they still had their fingers touching her life.

The last letter was sent the old-fashioned way instead of an electronic version and the entire Russo clan felt better for it due to the simple fact that it was a tangible piece of the girl they all missed. In this letter that was written in her tidy scrawl, she included the details of her graduation and her plans for the summer. She informed them that she had signed the lease to her new apartment in Boulder, Colorado of all place and how she regretted not choosing to return to Waverly Place.

The mention of her parents' car accident resulting in their subsequent deaths was a simple PS at the end of the letter along with an enclosed obituary. A simple three lines—It happened last Friday on their way home from dinner. We're having the funeral in a couple days. Don't worry about me because I'm handling everything okay for once in my life—gave them the first indication that her newfound cold and distant nature would inhibit any more letters from arriving.

And since no one has heard any word from the auburn-haired girl who exited at the least expected moment, he has to believe that she still resides in Boulder. But since no one has heard any word, it is hard for him to know for certain since the cowardice that still lingers from his adolescence prevents him from investigating her location.

But there's somethin' 'bout this time of year
Makes me wonder what she's doin' now.

He can usually go through a day without thinking about her, filling his time with books and work and other women who can keep his mind occupied. However, when September rolls around, it makes no difference what or whom he is doing because his mind immediately snaps and locks into viewing her face. And he is kept up at night as he wonders just what she is doing with her life and whom she is doing it with.

He has to wonder if she has found the happiness that eluded her when they were growing up side by side or if she is still searching for it. He has to wonder if she got that picture perfect family that she had been denied having during her formative years or if it is still a daily struggle to keep up falsities so perfected they appear real to any onlooker. He has wonder if she wonders about him and hopes, quite selfishly hopes, she does.

It is this time of year that the questions filter through the walls erected so carefully in his mind. There is the one that involves whether or not she has stayed in Boulder all this time, of course, but there are others as well. Questions like, what did she decide to pursue as a career and did her degree from that design school in California help her any to achieve her dreams? Is she still creating handmade outfits so extremely garish that people bite their tongues until they bleed to keep from making an insult? Does she still have the desire to live in an abandoned Paint a Plate warehouse like the version of future Harper he remembers did? Or has she chucked all chimeras and replaced them with the heartbreak of reality?

The last is a question that he hopes above all else can be answered in the negative for one reason and one reason alone. He misses her eccentricities and the naïveté that went along with them. He wants the girl that only his memory recognizes now but more than that, he wants the adult that she was supposed to grow up to be. He wants the woman with frizzy auburn hair covered with a fish bowl hat that served three nosy teenagers Snickerdoodle cookies made with cinnamon candies.

But what it all comes down to is the fact that he never wonders any of these things the rest of the year. Only in September when the weather turns cold does he silently ask himself these questions and wonder just what the answers would be.

I dialed her old number
but no one knew her name
Hung up the phone and wondered
if she'd ever done the same

The apartment around the corner from his parents' sandwich shop, the one that Harper and her parents had lived in for so many years, has long since been occupied by other families. Families with small children, a newlywed couple just starting out, older couples with their children already grown. Hardly any last longer than the terms of their six-month leases, a few make it to the eighteenth month of residency. But none come close to the duration of Harper's stay with her parents in that same apartment.

Because of this, he knows for a fact that it will be a stranger who answers the phone when he dials her old number. But he cannot stop his hand from lifting the receiver to his ear nor he can he stop his fingers from flying across the keypad. All he can think as he dials a number that only his subconscious remembers is how ironic it would be if it were her voice he heard on the other side of the line.

He is aware that it is insane to call her old number and bother strangers with his deluded fantasy that she would answer. But as he hears the monotonous sounds of the call connecting, he only grips the receiver tighter until his knuckles are white and all he can feel is the cramping sensation beginning to form. And although he has another chance to disconnect when a heavily accented voice that is most definitely not Harper answers, he cannot help himself as he asks for her by name.

"Oy, Harper, you say? Sorry, mate, no Harper here. Perhaps you got the number mixed up," the caller tells him, something he knew before he was even told.

He apologizes to the man and slowly returns the receiver to its cradle. Alex, a psychologist of all things, would calmly tell him that he was suffering from a disillusionment brought on by past regrets and he should try to move on. He should try to realize that time changes people and due to such a length of time of no communication, the chances of Harper ever coming back were slim to none. In her professional opinion, she would tell him that it was insane to dial numbers currently belonging to strangers and he should try taking a vacation if the time of year is what sets him off.

And while he would agree with her assessment that he is going more out of his mind with each passing year, he cannot help but wonder if Harper had ever done the same. He knows that when it came to him, she remembered every miniscule detail like an elephant so he is pretty certain that she most likely remembers his old cell phone number. But he had to change his number after his cell phone was stolen a month after she moved and it would have done no good for her to try and call.

But he still wonders if she did.

I took a walk in the evenin' wind
to clear my head somehow

The shadows of twilight are beginning to play on the walls when he decides to leave the confines of his one bedroom apartment. The wind has begun to pick up, giving the air a slightly more chilled effect that is reminiscent of late October instead of September. He turns the collar of his wool coat up so it covers his neck and ears and tucks his hands in his pocket as he walks down the semi-deserted streets of his hometown.

Besides the chill that the wind delivers, it also delivers another effect that he had not expected upon first setting out. It clears him mind in such a way that all the work and all the women had failed to do during this time of the year. It is like it has caught onto the memories of the past and danced them away much like it does with a stray leaf. He can still hear her voice and see her face in him mind's eye but the face has become blurred and the voice dimmed.

He wonders how a simple walk can be so efficient in clearing his head when nothing else has been capable to do so. He wonders how just how long this euphoric feeling of having a mind devoid of memories from the past will last and he wonders how long it will take for them to set back in. He wonders just how long it will take for the questions to whisper in their repetitive mode in his ear. And he supposes that once he returns to the whitewashed walls of his impersonal place of residence that it will all come back in full force.

But for the first time in nine years and eighteen days, he can revel in having peace of mind for the first September since her departure.