Dear Jess,
I know you don’t understand why I’m gone. I know the note I left was pathetic and cruel and everything you didn’t deserve. But I couldn’t tell you the truth. Not then. Not without risking everything you’ve worked for.
Something happened. Something I can’t put in writing yet. All I can say is that I didn’t leave because I stopped loving you. I left because I loved you too much to let them destroy you.
Griffin
What the hell? My heart hammers against my ribs. He was the only person destroying me. I shouldn’t read more. I should put these back and wait for him to explain. But seriously, who could do that? I can’t stop now.
The envelope is on the floor in seconds. It includes copies of emails, internships quietly withdrawn, a residency interview “postponed indefinitely,” and a warning from a department chair advising me to distance myself from the team entirely.
I remember those rejections. I’d always thought those doors closed because of bad timing. Because I wasn’t qualified enough. Because the universe was testing me.
But maybe they closed because of him. Maybe someone was punishing me for being with Griffin. My stomach swirls and I feel sick.
I read letter after letter. My vision blurs with tears. Each one explains a little more. Each one paints a picture I never knew existed. It doesn’t take me long to put the pieces together.
Victoria Ashworth. The Ashworth family owns the Southern Knights Football team. Victoria is their youngest daughter. In recent years she’s been in and out of prison for drug-related charges. But you still see her around team events from time to time. But I vaguely remember her back then and I had no idea she made advances on Griffin at a team party.
When he rejected her, she told her father he’d assaulted her. She admitted it was a lie almost immediately, but the accusationhad been made. Marshall Ashworth, a man with more money than morals and more connections than both believed that Griffin and Victoria could have a future if I weren’t in the way.
He gave Griffin a choice… Leave Charleston quietly, sign an NDA, and never contact me again. Or standby me while he’d make sure my fledgling physical therapy career never got off the ground.
“I could handle my own reputation being destroyed,” Griffin wrote in one letter. “I couldn’t handle destroying yours. You’d worked so hard. You had so many dreams. I couldn’t let them take that from you because of me.”
I’m sobbing by the time I reach the last letter, dated a few months ago.
The NDA expires in a few months. I’ve been counting the days. I know you’ve probably moved on by now. You deserve to be happy, even if it’s not with me. But if there’s any chance, any chance at all, I’m going to find you. I’m going to tell you everything. And then I’m going to spend the rest of my life proving that I never stopped loving you.
Please forgive me, Sunshine. Please.
“Jess?”
The sound of his voice makes me jump. I turn to see Griffin standing in the doorway. His eyes find the box in my lap, the letters scattered around me, and his face goes pale.
“I found them,” I whisper. “I wasn’t snooping, I swear, I was just looking for a hoodie, and…”
“It’s okay.” He crosses to me slowly, like I’m a wild animal that might bolt. “I was going to show you. I was just waiting until,”
“Until when?” The question comes out sharper than I intended. “Until I was already falling for you again?”
He flinches. The guilt on his face confirms what I already suspected, he was managing this. Managing me. Deciding when I was ready to know the truth about my own life.
“I need to hear it,” I say. “Not from letters you never sent. From you. Out loud. All of it.”
He nods once, like a man bracing for impact.
And then he tells me everything.
The party. The accusation. The threats that followed. It’s all so high school, but the implications have rocked both our lives. Griffin’s voice is steady as he recounts it, but I can see what it costs him. The way his hands shake. The way he won’t quite meet my eyes.
“She cornered me in the hallway. She was drunk and aggressive, it was a whole vibe. When I turned her down, she got angry. The next morning, her father called me into his office. Victoria was there, crying, saying I’d forced myself on her. Then just a week later she turned it on dime. Said that I was in love with her. That we were meant to be. That I put her up to the whole thing because you were standing in our way.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?” My chest hollows out. It’s a punch to the gut I didn’t see coming.
“He had photos, Jess. Staged photos of her with torn clothes, smeared makeup. He said if I didn’t disappear, he’d release them to the press. Your name would be dragged through it. Your career would be over before it started.”
“So you just left?” My voice cracks. “Three sentences on a Post-it note? That’s all I was worth?”
