22 Cookies- Adam Walters

I don't really know how we're going to go about this, so I might as well introduce myself in this first post from me because you're going to be hearing from me throughout the summer.

My name is Adam Walters, I grew up in Las Vegas, served my mission in Sweden, and want to go into writing for older young adults (high school to college age). I'm a senior and if everything goes as planned and nothing too drastic happens I'll be graduating in December. After that I'll be going to a graduate program (hopefully). I've been married for a year and a half to my best friend while growing up, and currently the only kid in my life is her pet cat Sam.

To kick this off, here's my response to the writing prompt about cookies. I'm horrible with titles so here it is:

22 Cookies.

Twenty-two cookies. That’s all it was. One cookie on my desk every morning for twenty-two days. I thought that they were the leftovers from my roommates, that they were being nice, or even giving me the last cookie from their personal stash during the night. I am a night person. I am always the last one to fall asleep out of the five guys that I share rent with, but that means that I am the last one to wake up. Somewhere in between the 3:00 bedtime and the 10:30 alarm clock the cookie would appear on my desk.

After seven cookies I asked my roommates who was giving me the chocolate chip cookies. Mark, Seth, Brenton, Spencer, and Robert all said no. Mark lived in the library, Seth was flirting his way through the apartment complex, Brenton was addicted to a TV show and had managed to get to the fifth season in only two weeks, Spencer was Spencer and there was no chance for him, and Robert was too opposed to me to ever consider doing something nice for me. Even with the knock down of each roommate, I gave them the honorary question, and each said no.

Nine days in, and the cookies changed; I started to get Oreos. There was no more home made cookies until days numbers 13-20, and then I got swapped back to store bought for the last two days. After twenty-two days, and twenty-two cookies, it had become a morning ritual. My alarm clock would ring and make me want to punch a hole through the wall, but then I would move my hand eight inches to the right and find my morning pick me up. Some people stick with coffee, others have their morning Coke, but I had my morning cookie. That morning cookie was the beginning of a good day. That cookie would swap my mood from wanting to pro-wrestle body slam the first person I saw off of the balcony, to only wanting to trip anyone I saw with a rolling backpack or Heelies; but that’s normal even for the best of my days, there’s nothing that can fix a hatred that deep.

Twenty-two cookies, and then one note with one picture.

Twenty two cookies from her? I didn’t understand how she could do it. There was the obvious problem of distance. She was two time zones away. She couldn’t just drop by my place and place a cookie on my desk every morning. Then came the question of the logistics. 22 cookies, most of them fresh and home made, delivered nightly, through my apartment without any of the other guys noticing.

Then there was the hand written note. It was a loopy handwriting that I could identify without looking at the picture. It was simple note. In a sad moment of manhood after reading it I might have shed a small, microscopic, completely unnoticeable, hardly worth mentioning tear when I read it.

I love you.

Three simple words that could pack so much power. Three words and I was transported to going out with her, eating dinner with her, and seeing her smiling face and hearing what I thought was a perfect voice every night before I went to sleep. Three words. I had heard them before, but on that little yellow sticky note on the picture of her it was the first time that I had felt them in a long time. Girlfriends had told me those words before, there was even the man love between roommates, but that sticky note was the first time since I was away from home that I knew someone meant it.

I had to call her. It had been too long since I had heard from her. We went our different ways when I left her at home; but we left on a good note so at least I could call her. She knew the day that we started our relationship that I couldn’t be with her forever. College does that to people, it breaks you up from people that you grew up with. Even though there were a few tears shed when I left, we could do exactly what I was going to do.

I got my cell phone out and hit her speed dial; two.

I was listening to the phone ring when Spencer came into the apartment. “What are you getting all teary eyed about?”

I didn’t answer, I just waited for the ring tone to cut and for me to hear her voice. “Thanks for the cookies Mom.”