Mr. Darcy has abandoned all pretense of cat dignity. He’s currently draped across my shoulders like a furry scarf, purring so loud it’s almost a vibration.
“I still can’t believe this,” Cara says, staring at us. “He bit the last person who tried to pet him.”
“Maybe he knows I’m good with animals.” I adjust Mr. Darcy’s weight on my shoulders. “Comes with the territory. Lot of lost dogs and livestock calls in Honeyridge.”
“You rescue lost dogs?”
“Someone has to.”
“This one is a menace who knocked a full glass of red wine onto my laptop last month.” She narrows her eyes at the cat. “Don’t let him fool you.”
Mr. Darcy blinks at me slowly, the picture of innocence.
“Can you grab the stuff in the hall closet?” she asks, taping shut another box of books. “Top shelf. Should be a few shoe boxes with old papers and things.”
“Sure.”
The closet is small and crowded—coats, shoes, the detritus of ten years in one place. I lift Mr. Darcy off my shoulders—he protests with an indignant meow—and reach up to the top shelf. The first box is shoes, like she said. The second one is heavier. I get it down and the lid shifts, revealing a stack of papers and envelopes inside.
I’m about to set it aside when I see my name.
Nate.
Written in Cara’s handwriting on a cream-colored envelope.
My heart stops.
For a long moment, I just stare at it. My name in her looping script. An envelope that’s been opened and resealed, the paper soft at the edges like it’s been handled a thousand times.
I shouldn’t open it. It’s not mine to read. But my hands are already moving, pulling the envelope from the box, and inside?—
Inside is a letter I recognize.
Because I wrote it.
Cara,
I don’t know if you’ll read this. You haven’t answered my calls in two months. You haven’t answered anyone’s calls. Theo’s a mess. Lucas pretends he isn’t but I can tell. And me?—
I don’t do this. I don’t write letters. I don’t talk about feelings. You know that better than anyone. But I can’t sleep. I can’t think. I need to know what I did wrong.
Was it something I said? Something I didn’t say? I know I’m not good at this. I know I’m not easy to love. I hold everything too tight and I don’t know how to let people in and maybe that’s why you left. Maybe I wasn’t enough. Maybe I was too much. Maybe?—
I just need to know if you’re okay. That’s all. I need to know you’re safe and you’re okay and that you didn’t leave because of something I did.
Please, Cara. Just tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it.
I’ll do anything. I’ll be anything. Just come home.
Nate
My hands are shaking.
I remember writing this. Six months after she left, sitting at my kitchen table at three in the morning, drunk enough to be honest. I remember the way the words felt like bleeding, like ripping open my chest and laying everything bare on paper. I’d never done anything like it before. Haven’t done anything like it since.
I remember sealing it, mailing it, and then spending weeks checking the mailbox for a response that never came.
She never wrote back.
