“I want you to,” she continues.“I need to hear it.I don’t think I can… absorb it if it’s my voice.”
Callum hesitates.He understands the request instinctively and the danger of it.
“If I read it,” he says carefully, “you need to know I won’t soften it.”
She meets his gaze.“Don’t.”
He takes the envelope from her.The paper is cool beneath his fingers.He breaks the seal slowly, deliberately, as if that might somehow blunt what’s coming.
Keir’s handwriting fills the page.
Callum recognizes it immediately.Tight, slanted, precise.The handwriting of a man who rewrote every sentence twice before allowing it to exist.
He clears his throat.
Isla,
If you’re reading this, then I didn’t make it back.I always believed I would have more time.
Isla’s breath hitches.Callum forces himself to continue.
I’ve written and destroyed this letter more times than I can count.Every version felt inadequate.None of them explained why I stayed away in a way that felt honest enough.
Callum’s chest tightens.
I want you to know first and foremost that I wanted to come see you.Not once.Not occasionally.All the time.
Isla turns away, pressing her hand flat against the window.
I followed your career the only way I was allowed.Reviews.Recordings.Programs I wasn’t supposed to have.I knew when you debuted in Vienna.I knew when you changed your repertoire.I knew when critics finally started using the word “fearless.”
Callum’s voice wavers despite his effort.
You are extraordinary.I don’t say that because you’re brilliant, though you are, but because you built yourself without any of the support you deserved.You found your voice without anyone guiding your hands.
Silence presses thickly around them.
When you turned eighteen, I told your mother I was coming.I believed adulthood changed the rules.She told me it didn’t.
Callum glances up briefly.Isla hasn’t moved.
She told me she had photographs she would release to the press if I showed up.Pictures from my worst years.Pictures I was never proud of.She said she would make sure the world saw exactly who I was.
Isla lets out a sharp, incredulous laugh.
I should have come anyway.I know that now.I tell myself I was protecting you, but the truth is I was afraid.Afraid I’d damage your life.Afraid you’d see me clearly and regret knowing me.
Callum swallows hard.
I imagine playing music with you more times than I can count.You at the piano.Me trying not to embarrass myself.I imagined you rolling your eyes when I missed a beat.
Isla squeezes her eyes shut.
I told myself someday.I told myself I would earn the right.
Callum lowers the letter slightly, breath unsteady, then forces himself to finish.
If I’m gone, then I ran out of time.That is on me.I am so sorry I didn’t stand up to your mother.I am so sorry I chose absence when you deserved presence.I loved you from a distance because I didn’t know how to do it any other way.
