You weren’t, of course. You were never the joking type.
I suppose that was more my thing.
But I was not joking when I told you that your father is a terrible man. And you didn’t want to believe me. Me! The person who has never lied to you.
I know I asked you to run away with me, but I take it back. You won’t disobey him.
You are your father’s son. I saw it when we argued just now.
We aren’t compatible, and I think you’ve always known that. There was never going to be an US. Never. You know that. I have always been meant for more. And you bore everyone around you.
I doubt you will even find this letter. I doubt you ever planned on meeting me by the dove tree or running away because you’re so straitlaced. But if you did come here and you do find this letter, please forget me.
Because I will have already forgotten you by the time this ink dries.
Dovie
Chapter 32
Ignacio
After he sent word to the Defiant via coded telegram, telling them he’d discovered communication between his father and the ringmaster, Ignacio found himself bone-tired.
Far too much had happened in one day. He’d performed in the Big Top, snuck into the ringmaster’s wagon, and kissed the only girl he’d ever loved. He deserved a break.
But when he stepped into his boxcar, he heard a familiar voice whispering.
“Dovie?” he called out.
Esmeralda whirled around, tears in her eyes. She held a letter in her hand. Not just any letter. The letter she had left for him the night they were supposed to run away together.
She shook the parchment angrily. “What in the devil is this?”
Ignacio blinked with confusion. “What do you mean?”
She shook it harder. “Who wrote this?”
Hurt stirred to life inside him. “Are you mocking me?”
“Do I look like I am?!”
She didn’t. In fact, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen Esmeralda so baffled before. But her confusion made no sense. She had been the one to write every dreadful sentence.
“Look good and hard at the letter, Dovie. That is your handwriting. Those are your words. Or maybe you truly did forget. Maybe I was another fool you swindled. Maybe you never cared a lick about me.”
She sucked in a tormented breath.
But why should she feel tortured whenshehad lefthim?
“Where did you get this?” she asked, scowling down at the page.
“In the hollow of the dove tree where you left it.”
The day after he turned eighteen, he had woken up feeling happier than he’d ever felt before. He and Dovie had spent the early hours of the morning together, kissing and exploring their bodies, and talking about their future. He’d given her his mother’s ring as a promise. As a token of the love that he had for her that felt as vast as the universes above. But when he strolled past Father’s office around sunrise, his father had beckoned himin.
Father held out a silver envelope.
At first, Ignacio thought it was a birthday gift, but the moment he saw the Blackbird seal, he knew what lay inside.
