That’s where he leaves a letter for me.
Every morning.
And he’s been doing it for the past two weeks, ever since I got discharged from the hospital.
Every morning I wake up and rush down the stairs to the front door. I run down the driveway in my pajamas to get to the mailbox and rip it open, and every day I find a gray envelope with my name on it.
Inside that gray envelope, there’s always a white, crisp paper, folded once. On that paper, he writes me a reply.
To one of the letters that I wrote to him over the years.
Which makes me think that before returning those shoeboxes to me, he took the time to read my letters.
But more than that, I think he kept them.
Hekeptsome of my letters so he could reply to them one by one.
Is that stealing, I wonder?
I mean, they were meant for him. They’ve always been meant for him.
So I don’t know.
Neither do I know what his plan is.
Like, is he going to keep writing to me like this? Send a letter every day? Also, why hasn’t he gone back yet?
Because he hasn’t.
Two weeks ago when I sent him away after a dramatic display of rage, I thought he’d leave. He’d go back to California, the place where he belongs. The place he wanted to return to, earlier than planned.
But then he brought back my letters and gave me his pretty chain.
I didn’t want to put it on, you know.
I didn’t want anything to do with it; I was so mad at him. For beating himself up as always, for treating me as a mistake, as an obligation.
I was so,somad.
But I guess I’m weak. I’m a sucker when it comes to him because I did put it on.
I did.
I have it around my neck right now. It sits on my chest – under all my layers of clothing – between the valley of my breasts, stuck to my skin.
Every time I touch it, I feel him.
I hear him too.
I hear his last words before he left.
You’re wrong. BecauseI want…
Now, what doesthatmean? What does he want?
And then there’s Leah.
She cut short her meeting in New York when she heard about what happened with me at St. Mary’s. I was expecting her to lecture me, berate me about my sneaking out and, of course, the letters. Maybe even punish me but she didn’t say anything.
