Pen to the paper.
Tried it.
Switched to pencils with erasers.
By the time I’d finished a decent page of a letter, I scoffed as I reread it and then crumpled it up to toss into the trashcan by my desk.
Useless.
It was my day off.
And I was inside.
It was a beautiful day… outside. The weather was perfect.
But I wasn’t outside.
I was inside.
Writing stinking letters. And somehow, even as the hours passed and I itched to practically jump out my window and shift, I stayed right where I was. Well, not right exactly where. I paced. And then sat again. Wrote a bit. Threw it in the trash. Paced. Sat. Wrote. Toss. Paced.
But this was a necessary thing. I needed to do this…
So, why was it so hard?
I’d gone through the sharpest of my pencils, reducing their tips to mere nubs, having to sharpen them all over again as I paced, because I couldn’t keep my hands from running through my hair. It was even starting to annoy me, and I was the one doing it.
Once, just once, my dad peeked in to see how I was doing. He took one look at me, at my mess of hair on my head, at the freshly sharpened pencil in hand, my overflowing trashcan full of pages, and nodded a couple of times with his lips pursed. And then he left without a word.
By the time I finished the newest one, I sat back with a sigh. My hand was starting to cramp from overuse. I stretched it out as I looked at the mess of a page.
Despite the ache, I opted to rewrite the final approved letter, neater.
And when that was done, I folded it up. I put it in an envelope and left it on the desk. Outside the window was the setting sun. Reaching down, I picked up the rogue pieces of paper that hadn’t stayed in the trash. I unfurled one, rereading some of what I wrote there. I did the same with the next, and the next.
Then, with my cheeks practically on fire, I shoved them deep down into the trashcan.
Yeah.
I’d written a lot of unbelievably stupid things over the last hours. Some of it didn’t even make sense. At all. No sense.
I pulled the envelope back to me and addressed it, sealed it shut and stood. I was aching in the weirdest ways. Stalking out of my room and to the nearest mail bin, I gave it one final wistful glance and then tossed it in with all the other letters that would be checked and sent out tomorrow morning.
When I returned to my room, I grabbed my trashcan and went outside, still using the front door instead of the easy-access back door that would’ve cut about fifty steps out of my journey to the burn bin. I lit the fire and, one-by-one, tossed those embarrassing papers, full of words that were a bit too much and a bit too messy, into the fire to become illegible ash.
Despite the quick snuffing out of their existence, I could recall almost all of the words as I tossed each one in. I stared into the flames.
Words…
Stupid words…
Those weren’t words that were meant to be written.
Those messy embarrassing words…
They were meant to be said.
I couldn’t write them and give them to her. I had to say them aloud. To her face. In person.
I had to see her again.
Those words… if I could figure out how her heart felt, how it beat, if it beat for me even just a little – then I’d say them to her. Only then.
Because even if I had a True Mate… I didn’t want them.
I wanted her.
I wanted to say those words to Lynn… but only if she loved me back.
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