(Three years prior)
I hesitated, only a few seconds, before pressing the tip of the pen to the blank page before me. I wrote those three letters and just stared down at them. At a single word. At his name. It was written there.
I’d… written it so many times. Why did it suddenly feel heavier? Why did it suddenly make me want to cry?
I paused, looking over at the letter he’d sent a few days prior.
His handwriting was scrawled across the page, darkening at one point as if he’d had to grab a new pen part of the way through writing. Or, was it like how I’d sent my last one? I’d spent days only writing a few sentences at a time, having to pause, to walk away…
What do I say now?
What was important enough to write down?
I let my mind wander, and the pen slowly arched back down to the empty canvas laid before it, putting my thoughts into words.
Sentence after sentence flowed out just until I realized what I’d done.
No.
No, no, no.
I can’t.
I dropped the pen, holding up the page in a trembling hand.
I can’t send that.
My vision started to blur as I read back what I’d written.
I crumpled it up, grabbing a new page and shaking my head.
You can’t write that, Jane. You can’t, I told myself, like a mantra in my mind. You can’t just say that.
It wasn’t fair to him…
Or your friendship.
My hand stalled above the trash.
Let go.
Just – let go of it.
I was shaking, the end of the page fluttering as it hovered there.
Tears started to fall down my face, but my hand disobeyed me. I brought the words back, flattening and folding the page up, tucking it into a false bottom in my bottom desk drawer. It fell right onto the pile of them. All crinkled. All folded. There had to be over fifty of them in there, but it was always just the same. The same kind of message.
Of course, it wasn’t always in the same words, but it had the same summary.
That same terrible… terrible summary.
I turned my attention back to the new page in front of me, taking a deep breath. Writing his name down as if it were the simplest thing in the world. After all, it was easier to write his name than write the letter itself.
I told myself what I had to do.
Answer his questions. Ask your own. Put in filler words to make him smile.
But don’t…
Don’t you dare tell him.
Not that.
Not now.
I wrote, smiling a bit as I did, through the sting of pain in my chest. Through the longing to add just a few more words. Just a small sequence of three, over and over again…
No.
I signed my name at the bottom and looked it over.
I folded it up and put it in an envelope.
You did it. Again.
I tried to be proud of myself. I tried to smile.
It was probably a grimace, if I was totally honest with myself. My face felt weird.
All of those unsent words flittered back into my mind. All of those things I’d wished I could say. All of those times, I’d wanted to tell him.
But Lee deserved more. He deserved to be told those things in person. He deserved to be told those words by the person who was supposed to love him.
But you love him, a trembling voice whispered in the back of my mind.
Yeah, so what?
I sighed, looking out the window, resting my chin in my hand.
I love Lee.
But he’ll never know.
He can never know.
It would be wrong of me to step in the way of his future and destiny. He deserved a shot at finding the shifter that fate called for him to find… even if I stopped caring to look for mine in my feelings toward him. Actually, I hadn’t really even started looking. Because… who could ever be Lee, except for Lee himself?
But… that same voice seemed to whisper even quieter, what if you two are True Mates?
I wouldn’t know that until I saw him again. We hadn’t seen each other in person for nearly two and a half years. I was 18, pining over someone who’d turned 15 this year. It was ridiculous. Seriously, and unbelievably so, yet I couldn’t help but anticipate the moment we saw each other again.
Well, anticipate…
And fear it.
After Lynn made that stupid bet, the words feeling cruel to my heart, we never really got a chance to talk…
That is, talk in person.
During the year, I was taking summer classes. And he was in school.
At the time of the reunion the following year, all of us girls took a trip to the beach.
The subsequent year?
He wasn’t at the reunion. I was.
I brushed the tangles out of my hair, feeling the way it tugged on my head as I did. It didn’t hurt anymore.
Would it be the same way with Lee? Would it stop hurting someday?
We called each other a lot, sometimes stretching on for so long that if I closed my eyes it was like he was there with me. It was like I wasn’t really alone. Sometimes we just sat and listened to the other breathe. It was calming. Sometimes he’d start humming. Sometimes… that would put me to sleep. And I’d wake up in the early morning to the phone still on call with him, dying, but with him still there on the other line. He’d be asleep and I’d leave my phone charge and stay on the line with him just to say good morning to the sound of him stirring. He’d sleepily say it back.
I wanted to know what his face looked like when he talked like that. Was he squinting at the morning light? Were his bed sheets a tangled mess around him? Was he smiling faintly? Was his hair a mess?
Has he… grown a lot taller?
What did his face look like now?
Would… would we even recognize each other?
I drew my hair up behind my head and stared at my reflection in the mirror. My reflection looked sad and haunted. I sighed heavily and turned away, back to the desk with the envelope. I ran my finger along the edge of it.
We had sent letters pretty often too. About twice a week. Sometimes more. Usually… more.
Long.
Short.
Random.
“Lee…” I whispered to my empty and silent room. The walls gave me no response.
Things weren’t really like that anymore.
We talked weekly now… kind of. We sent letters. Sometimes, we called each other. But… that wasn’t a main part of our routine now. I never knew what to say. Sometimes, I think he wasn’t sure what to say either. The phone calls just kept getting more and more silent. Shorter and shorter.
He’d say it was nice to hear my voice…
I’d say it was nice to talk again on the phone…
And then, it was over.
And it wouldn’t happen again for weeks.
I tried to ignore the sharp pang of loneliness that shot through me.
We’d been talking less and less.
God, I wanted to talk to him like I used to.
And I hated it.
I hated not telling him how I felt.
How much I loved his smile.
His words…
The fact that he liked writing letters. He even had a carrier bird that sent them sometimes.
He was kind.
Thoughtful.
And, he always seemed to make me feel at home. Safe.
I missed him.
I couldn’t help but think of how this all might end. Him, finding someone. Me, having to smile as my heart got trampled on.
Even as I already knew the outcome…
Even if my heart broke into a million pieces over him, with me having to keep it to myself, part of me knew I’d do it again.
I would, without a single doubt in my mind.
A broken life knowing Lee; it was better than never knowing him at all.
It was alright to smile at his happiness as he smiled at another.
It was alright to love him from afar.
It was alright to because my feelings would never come into play. Nobody would ever need to know… except Kat, who probably already knew the depths of it all. She had seen me open his letters before, seen my excitement with those crazy observational skills she owned. She’d even brought it up before… about twenty times… last week.
When are you going to tell him?
She’d asked me that.
And I’d shook my head, telling her it wouldn’t happen.
And that was the truth.
I couldn’t do that to him.
Or to me.
She had proceeded to flick me on the forehead with a glimmer of a secret in her eyes and said we’d see who’s right. It was like she had some kind of hidden weapon up her sleeves to pull out in order to make me confess how I felt. Ridiculous, yeah, but I always imagined it like a potato gun that shot confetti pieces in the form of a heart or something.
I shook my head at that thought, a small smile forming on my lips. Groaning as I landed on my bed, I closed my eyes, shutting out the world.
Kat was someone I could trust with a secret like that. She was my literal cousin, but we lived in the same household. Her father was the Alpha of the small pack, mine was the Beta. Our mothers… were sisters. We’d grown up practically connected at the hip, having been born only a year apart.
This secret. I could trust her with this one. She’d never tell another soul, and she would be there, as a shoulder for me to lean on, a warm hug when I cried about it later. She wouldn’t be overbearing in asking for details, but would listen quietly to what I had to say. There were no lectures from her, no advice either. Still, she made talking about it comfortable.
She made me realize it was alright to love Lee. I wasn’t hurting anyone. I wasn’t getting in someone’s way. I was just present. Almost like waiting, but not really expecting anything in return.
And that was fine.
Despite what I desperately wanted, it wasn’t something I could control. Two people together made a pair. And if I was the only one wanting something more, then it wouldn’t ever happen between us.
The only way Lee and I would be together was if we both decided, together, to be together.
I glanced over at the outfit I had sitting out for the coming reunion.
We really weren’t kids anymore.
Would things be different between us now?
In one second of seeing each other, we’d know if it was fate or not. Did I want it? Or, was the thought of him choosing me regardless of what fate decreed what I really wanted?
Could I even look him in the eyes after thinking this?
Could I even hide this from him? Was that even possible?
Maybe… maybe this was just some kind of stupid crush. Who could say I even really knew what love was?
I brought my hands up over my eyes and let out a sort of guttural groan.
This was pointless.
The reunion was happening in two weeks. I’d see him then. He’d said… he said he was coming to this one, and well, so was I.
I glared through my fingers to my closet door where there was a nice shirt and a pair of pants hanging up on a hanger.
Why the heck did I already have an outfit out?
And was I really going to wear that? After all this time? I was going to wear that?
Comments (0)
See all