Next, I take out a Post-it note from when we were roommates:
I can’t believe I’m living with the EDITOR IN CHIEF of The Eyeopener!!!! So proud of you. Invite the staff for dinner next Monday???
I shake my head. “It’s all here.”
“Not everything. I kept the ones that made me smile or laugh.”
Before I can say anything, George gives me another piece of paper. “I like this one, too. I found it when I came home last month.” It’s what I left for him in the mailbox back in June.
I see you everywhere. And it only makes me miss you more.
I shake my head, marveling. “I wish I’d known sooner.”
“Known what?”
“That I could fall in love with you so easily if I let myself.” Then again, maybe I’ve always known that. Maybe that’s what I was afraid of.
He brushes my hair back. “You have no idea how much I hoped you would.”
Mindlessly, I reach for his glasses and start cleaning them.
“I love it when you do that,” he says.
“Really? It doesn’t annoy you that I’m always stealing them away?”
He shakes his head. “It’s this little way you take care of me. It’s nice.”
I will take care of him. I will take care of George the way I’ve always tried to, and I will take care of him in ways I’ve never been able to before. I will give him all the love he’s always deserved. And he will love me in the way only George can. Relentlessly. It feels so obvious to me now. An answer to a question I didn’t know how to ask.
“Then I will clean your dirty, sexy glasses whenever I feel like it,” I say.
His brows pop. “Sexy?”
“Oh yeah,” I tell him. “These are very good.”
“Thank you.”
“Can I read the rest of your letters now?” I ask.
His reply is a kiss to my temple.
I pull one out, a postcard from Vancouver, and start reading. My eyes blur with tears as I devour it, and another, and another. George moves next to me, wrapping his arm around me, and I set my head on his shoulder.
When we were kids, we used to imagine that we were a king and queen and the Big House was our castle. But now I think we could make castles anywhere. I sit in planes and on buses, and I picture you beside me, and the world feels like our kingdom.
In a letter written when he was twenty-five:
I reread Little Women this week. In it, Marmee tells Jo that she and Laurie are too alike to be a good match. They have “hot tempers” and “strong wills” and are “too fond of freedom.” But I think that’s what would have made them great together. I think they would have had a big, loud, epic life together. I think we would, too.
A postcard from São Paulo:
Do you know how many words there are to describe the color purple? I’ve come up with ten, but none of them seems to capture the shade of your eyes, so I’m settling for violet. Frankie, you have the most beautiful violet eyes.
I look up at George. And then I close the distance between us. Suddenly, I feel starved for him again. His body. His skin. His soul inside mine. I climb onto his lap and lower my mouth to his, and he lets out a breath.
“Are you okay?”
He brushes his nose against mine, smiling. “I still can’t believe it,” he says. “It’s going to take a while for it to sink in.”
