I hope you’re happy, wherever you are. I hope whatever you left us for was worth it.
I hope someday I stop caring whether it was.
Nate
I never sent it.
Stood outside the post office at two in the morning. Envelope in my hand. Stared at the mail slot for twenty minutes.
Couldn’t drop it in.
What was the point? She wasn’t answering calls. Wasn’t responding to texts. A letter wasn’t going to change anything.
So I kept it. Shoved it in this box with everything else I couldn’t throw away.
Ten years. And I still can’t throw it away.
I refold the letter. Put it back. Close the lid.
Eighteen-year-old me was pathetic. Writing letters at two in the morning. Calling forty-seven times. Waiting and hoping and believing she’d come back.
I’m not that kid anymore. I won’t be that kid again. I refuse to be the guy who falls apart because some omega decided he wasn’t worth staying for.
I shove the box back on the shelf. Bury it under the sweatshirts. Go take a shower.
The hot water helps. Washes away the last traces of her scent. Clears my head.
By the time I get out, I almost feel like a functional human being.
Almost.
Three in the morning.
I’m lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. Haven’t slept. Probably won’t.
Every time I close my eyes, I see her. Standing in the bakery. Looking at me with those eyes. Starting to ask a question she never got to finish.
Can we?—
Can we what? Talk? There’s nothing to say. Catch up? I don’t want to catch up. Pretend the last ten years didn’t happen? Not possible.
That’s supposed to be the end of it.
A knock on my door. Soft, but I hear it.
“Go away, Theo.”
The door opens anyway. Because of course it does.
“How’d you know it was me?” Theo’s silhouette appears in the doorway, backlit by the hall light.
“Lucas sleeps like the dead. And he wouldn’t barge in without knocking.”
“Fair.” Theo leans against the doorframe. He’s in sweatpants and a t-shirt, hair sticking up on one side. “Can’t sleep?”
“What gave it away?”
“The fact that you’ve been stomping around for the last hour.” He crosses his arms. “Also, I heard about the bakery.”
