My hands shook as I pulled out my phone and scrolled down toTyler. I hesitated, my thumb hovering over the call button. Tyler had always been the solid one. The protector. The older brother who had everything figured out. I knew it was late, but I also knew Tyler, and he’d drop anything to answer my call. Especially knowing I wasn’t the type to reach out, yet here I was doing it twice in one day. Technically it was past midnight, so it wasn’t exactly the same day.
He didn’t know I had been in love. He didn’t know I had lost her. He definitely didn’t know I had been carrying this letter around like it might explode. A letter from a ghost I’d been too scared to open. No one knew, other than Emma now.
I inhaled once, then pressedCall.
The phone rang twice before Tyler’s voice came on, concerned and tired. “You in jail again?” he asked with a laugh.
“Are you going to answer the phone like that every time?” I rolled my eyes.
“Probably. Hey, how’d the date go? Sean sent a message saying he saw you two at the hospital. Everything okay?”
“Yeah, her blood sugar dropped again. She’s okay. She’s sleeping.”
“Wait, you’re still with her?”
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
I closed my eyes, exhaling through my nose. “Uh. You got a minute? I know it’s late.”
“Yeah, everything okay?”
“No,” I said quietly. “Not really.”
He paused on the other end, then there was the rustling sound of him moving. “Talk to me.”
“I need to tell you something… and I don’t know how to say it without it sounding completely insane.”
“I’m listening.”
I swallowed the lump rising in my throat. “Do you remember when I was ten… I used to always check the mail? Made sure no one else did?”
“Yeah,” Tyler said slowly. “I always thought you were just being a weird little kid.”
“I wasn’t. I was talking to someone. A penpal.”
“A girl?”
I nodded, even though Tyler couldn’t see me. “Her name was Clair.”
“And she was like… your girlfriend or something?”
“Something like that.”
“I never knew you dated anyone.”
“That’s because I never told anyone. We kept it between us. For ten years. I don’t even know why. Maybe because it felt too good. Too safe. Like, if the world knew, it would ruin it. They wouldn’t understand how I loved someone I had never met.”
Tyler was quiet on the other end, letting me know to keep going.
“We talked in secret. Fell in love in secret. And then… when we were twenty…” my voice cracked. “She killed herself.”
“Connor…”
“It was the day I had gone out there to meet her for the first time. Remember when I went on that random-ass vacation by myself? That’s when. I showed up at the spot we agreed on, and she wasn’t there. She left me a letter. I came home and… closed myself off. I sat on my bed. I held it in my hands. And then I… I couldn’t open it.”
“You’ve never read it?” Tyler asked gently.
