I shake my head once.
She nods, understanding.
Dropping into my chair, I pick up the bowl of granola and yogurt Scott left me and start eating. My coffee has gone cold, but I don’t care. This food is the only thing that seems to comfort me now.
The morning stretches into afternoon, and I move through the day on autopilot, smile glued in place, heart somewhere back on the shaded deck with the man who finally stopped chasing me.
I grab a water from the bar when Emily falls into step beside me.
Touching my shoulder, she holds my gaze. I stare back in confusion. She doesn’t say anything at first. Then?—
“I need to show you something.” She scans around her as though careful about who could be watching.
“What?”
She glances once toward the nearest camera mounted above the corridor junction, then back to me. “Follow me.”
She leads me through the common area and into a narrow gap between the kitchen and the production hallway.
What does she want me to see? The pantry?
I’ve never had a reason to meander over here. But I quickly realize that I probably should have. It’s quiet with the ambient hum of production equipment somewhere behind a thick wall and the distant sound of the ocean.
Emily pulls me into a corner, and I realize then why she has me in this particular spot. This is a blind spot in the cameras.
I open my mouth to speak.
She shakes her head, standing beside me before reaching behind her and clicking off her mic. She gestures for me to do the same.
“Why?” I mouth.
She reaches into the pocket of her shorts, producing an envelope with my name written on the front—in Scott’s handwriting.
My heart pounds in my chest as I click off my mic, too.
What the hell is going on? Why is Emily handing me an envelope with Scott’s handwriting on it? Couldn’t he have handed it to me himself? Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen him since this morning.
“He asked me to give it to you and for you to read it alone.”
Giving me a compassionate smile, she reaches behind her again and clicks her mic back on before walking away.
I stand in the quiet for a moment, looking at my name. The envelope is sealed. And whatever is inside has weight, like there’s more than paper inside.
Why should I open this?
On the one hand, I have every reason not to. This little thing doesn’t erase the past, much less make what happened yesterday go away.
But then there’s the what-if questions that go off in my mind. What if I don’t open it and something happens? What if I do open it and it means nothing?
What if I do open it, and it changes everything?
In the end, curiosity wins and I open the letter.
Inside is a single written page and a picture of a small, one-story starter home with blue shutters. The property looks like it’s on the edge of open land, modest and quiet. The house has a covered porch facing a lake. It looks like somewhere a person could breathe. Somewhere they could build a life.
What is this?
I read the letter:
