“I had a girlfriend,” he whispered. “For almost ten years.”
“Tell me about her.” I said gently.
“It’s hard to look back on now. I’ve been running for so long.”
“It clearly hurt you.”
“It fucked me up, Emma,” he snapped.
I ignored his tone, coming to know that Connor wasn’t a gentle person. Crossing my legs in front of me, I took a calming breath, watching the children across the way play on the jungle gym and scream. Every time I see a kid being a kid, it stings just a little more. Knowing I never had that and never would. A sad smile crossed my face, thinking about the life I could have had if I didn’t have a mom that picked drugs over me and a father that left in the middle of the night when he decided being a father wasn’t for him.
“In school, did you ever do that penpal thing?” he asked, breaking the silence.
Turning to face him, I scanned his face, the way his eyes were glazed over slightly, his hair messy from running his hands through it. His shirt tight against his biceps makes me wonder how fast he could throw me around and make me his. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t be thinking about that right now. “Um, yeah. Didn’t last long, really.”
“I can’t say the same.” He shook his head.
“Did you have one for a while?” I wondered.
“Something like that.”
“Connor, please, what happened?”
“In 5th grade, we all got assigned a penpal. Me being me, I thought it was stupid. But it was part of our grade, and despite the way I act, I did care about them, to the point that I refused to fail. That isn’t me. So I took it seriously. I wrote the letter. Two weeks later, one came back. Her name was Clair, the same age as me. She seemed nice. We ended up writing back and forth. Everyone else kind of got bored of it, and since the assignment was over, we didn’t have to write back anymore. We decided we still wanted to talk, so we exchanged addresses and kept going.”
“For how long?” I asked.
“I’m getting there,” he assured me. “I didn’t want anyone to know, so I’d wait for the mail to be delivered every day and run out to get it. If there was a letter from her, I’d hide it, go to my room, read it, and respond. Then sneak it out to the mailbox the next day. This went on until we were sixteen. Only, we had both finally gotten a cellphone and exchanged numbers. That’s… when it changed. We were able to send pictures back and forth. Call each other. All the things you do as a teen. And that’s when I had all those teenage hormones. Clair was beautiful. Took my breath away, even at that age.”
“Did she know?” I interrupted.
“We both admitted we had a crush on each other. That’s when things got even more serious. We called each other boyfriend and girlfriend, but we never told anyone. It’s why my brothers thought I never had one. At 18, we were still dating, or whatever you would call our secret relationship. She brought up us being able to meet now that we’re adults, and I agreed. But things kept getting in the way, and we couldn’t afford to travel.”
“Wait, how old were you when you started the penpal thing?”
“Ten, so we were talking for eight years. Anyway, I got a job and started saving. When I was 20, we both were finally in aplace where we could meet each other. We picked a date, a place, everything. I showed up. She didn’t.”
“She just ghosted you? After ten years of talking?”
“Not exactly.” Connor looked away, closing his eyes, and ran his fingers through his hair again.
“Connor?”
“She killed herself the night before we were supposed to meet. She left a note on the spot.”
I gasped, jerking my head to look at him, but he refused to look at me. Here I was judging him, and he went through that. Probably all alone, too. No one even knew about their relationship.
“What did it say?”
“I never read it.”
“You don’t want to know what she said?”
“No, Emma. I didn’t, and I still don’t. I should have known. Ten fucking years. I should have been there. I should have seen the signs. I could have saved her, and I didn’t. I could have been the person to care for her, but I didn’t notice because I was all about myself and too self-absorbed to notice.” He balled his fists as he glared at me.
“That’s… why you were so mad you didn’t notice I was diabetic.” I whispered.
“We worked together forweeks. I should have seen the Dexcom and made sure you were eating.”
