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    The Matchbook: A Short Story
    The Matchbook: A Short Story
    The Matchbook: A Short Story
    Ebook26 pages20 minutes

    The Matchbook: A Short Story

    By Brent Jones

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    About this ebook

    Corbyn Thurber, seventeen, meets the love of his life while passing through the small town of Wakefield—he just doesn’t know it at the time.

    He returns years later in search of the woman he never forgot only to discover she has a dark secret. And tracking her down under the watch of judgmental locals is only half as antagonizing as his sense of self-doubt.

    Told from the perspective of a man haunted by regret, this short story, from the author of 'Fender' and 'The Fifteenth of June', masterfully considers the consequences of a life unexplored.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrent Jones
    Release dateSep 3, 2017
    ISBN9781370026814
    The Matchbook: A Short Story
    Author

    Brent Jones

    Brent Jones is the global manager for land records and cadastre at Esri. His is responsible for strategic industry planning, business development, risk analysis and marketing, focusing on high accuracy GIS, advanced surveying data management, civil engineering, cadastre, land records, and land registration in the developing world. Brent Jones is president-elect for the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) and past president of the Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA). He graduated from the University of Maine with a Bachelor of Science degree in survey engineering (1987).

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      Book preview

      The Matchbook - Brent Jones

      · 1 ·

      I’ve never been the romantic type.

      Oh, sure, I had a few misadventures with women in my late teens and college years. But no one that compared to the woman I met in this town back when I was seventeen. It had been more than just a chance encounter. I was sure of that now.

      I had to see her again, I just had to. I had to know if she felt the same way I did, and if she still thought about me, too.

      The small Wakefield diner where I sat was deserted, except for a truck driver in the booth next to mine. He read a newspaper and shoveled in large mouthfuls of apple pie, his chewing loud enough to compete with the television mounted to the wall—President Clinton addressing the nation on the eleven o’clock news.

      My hands—cold and clammy—trembled as I raised my fourth mug of hot coffee to my lips. I needed to be alert, focused, and the long drive had dulled my senses. She deserved nothing less than my full attention, at least if our reunion were to go as well as I hoped.

      I set down my empty mug with a clatter and wrung my hands together before pulling a matchbook from my pocket. It was pink, faded, worn at the edges, the name Platinum Paradise embossed on its surface in white cursive lettering. I twirled it between my fingers, hoping to steady my frayed nerves.

      A round middle-aged woman in a stained apron approached my table with a pot of coffee in her hand. She nodded toward my empty mug and flashed me a toothless

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