Because unlike all of the letters before it, this one hadan address. Sayer had written every letter but this one from prison, when hehadn’t known where I’d gone, when he didn’t know how to find me.
But this letter was addressed Caroline Baker with myColorado address.My home address.
This was the letter he’d written when he finally foundme.
Fear stopped the flow of tears, although my cheeksremained wet as I was too focused on the letter to wipe them dry. Pulling itfrom the envelope, I noticed it was on a different kind of paper and writtenwith a different color of ink. Everything about it showed the change in Sayer,no longer the prisoner, no longer wondering what happened to me.
Caroline Baker,
No wonder it took me so long to find you. I didn’texpect you to use something so familiar. Something you’ve used before. AndFrisco of all places? Did you intend that to be a slap in the face? I honestlycan’t tell. I don’t know how to read you anymore.
I don’t know you anymore.
You’ve been gone for five years. Does it feel thatlong to you? It feels longer to me. But maybe that’s because I was the onerotting in a prison cell while you moved on with your life. Maybe you don’tthink about me at all anymore. Maybe in light of your new, life you’veforgotten about me completely.
I wish I could forget. I wish I could forget the wayyou used to look at me, as though I were your very reason for existing. I wishI could forget the way you would smile in that secret way, a thousand hiddenthoughts locked away in your brilliant mind that the rest of us were left onlyto guess. I wish I could forget the way you talked to yourself or nibbled onyour lip or laughed at everything Gus says.
I wish I could forget the Mandarin, Fat Jack’s, thewarehouse when we were kids, and every single time I’ve touched you and wantedto touch you and thought about touching you. The way you feel. The way yousmell. The way you taste. The way you lie with such skill, that even I believedyou. Even I thought you were telling the truth. I wish I could forget you, Six.More than I want my next breath, I want to forget you.
It would be so much easier. I could move on with mylife. I could save the syndicate and tell the FBI to fuck off.
And if I can’t forget you, I wish I could just hateyou. Everything would be so much simpler if I could hate you.
But I can’t do that either. So I’m going to stick todoing what I can do. Which is to give you the life you want. I’m going to makesure the syndicate never bothers you again. I’m going to give the fucking FBIwhat they want so they leave you alone forever. And I’m going to quit thisobsession I have with you. I’m done, Caroline. I’m letting you go. If you canforget me and move on with your life, I can too.
Consider this my resignation from your life forever.Good luck to you, Six.
You’re truly free now. Just like you always wanted.
Sayer
Ihiccuppeda sob and realizedfor the first time that I was crying. His words were knives in my chest,stabbing at the suddenly empty place where my heart used to be. I hadn’texpected something like this. In my best-case scenario, we just never saw eachother again. I didn’t have to hear these words. I didn’t have to face thistruth. I just wanted an ambiguous ending to our tragic love story so I couldfill in the blanks myself.
I bent over, crushing the letter in two fists. Why didit hurt this badly? How did he still have this power over me after all thistime? Why hadn’t it faded? Why hadn’t I moved on?
And what really sucked, I mean, what really hurt morethan anything was that I had been lying to myself this whole time. I had beenthe mark in my own stupid game. I’d been the one conned. Duped. Made to looklike a fool.
“Turn it over.”
I jumped at the sound of Sayer’s voice behind me.Habit made me glance at my purse and the Leighton propped by the door.
Okay, maybe it was more than habit. I didn’t want toface him, not after reading his real thoughts, not after seeing them all incruel, heartbreaking ink.
“Turn it over, Caroline.”
I finally looked at him, starting at his shoes andworking my way up, over low-slung jeans and a navy-blue cardigan over a grayV-neck. Finally, I braved beyond his shoulders. That long corded throat, thesquare jaw, those full, masculine lips, the blue, blue eyes and all that darkhair. Why did he have to look like that? Why couldn’t all ex-boyfriends justturn into toads the second things were over? So many bad decisions could beavoided in the world if women only had to face toads they were in love with andnot the real men that represented their heartbreak and lost hopes and dreamsand wasted orgasms.
Well… maybe we didn’t regret the orgasms.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded, my voice hoarsewith the buckets of shed tears.
He shot a pointed look to the crumpled letter in myhands. “Damn it, woman, turn the paper over.”
Something in his tone convinced me to do it. He hadsounded almost… playful. And he managed to pique my curiosity enough to do ashe said.
The letter was a mess, crumpled and damp from mytears. And yet there was his writing again. He’d continued his thoughts.
“Oh, good,” I whispered to the paper. “Morerejection.”
