“I called you a cab,” she said. “I can bring your stuff by later.”
“Grace,” I said, but I started to cry again.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I know.”
42
I walked out onto the street where there was already a taxi waiting for me. And I hopped inside. As the guy took off toward my father’s neighborhood, I came back to myself a little, and I remembered that I hadn’t finished my blog entry. I had left it half-done on the computer. I knew it would be there for me when I came back. It wasn’t a big deal. But I had this itch of unfinished business. Finally, it hit me that it wasn’t the blog I was thinking about.
I pulled out my phone and broke every rule I had set up. I texted Daniel.
There’s one last thing we need to do.
I waited a few minutes and then his reply came back.
What’s that?
I wrote back immediately.
Take him off-line. I know you have the passwords. It’s time.
There was a significant pause this time. So I wrote again.
All the accounts you wrote me from. They shouldn’t be there anymore. They aren’t ours.
I know. But it just seems like the end of something.
It’s not the end. You said so yourself.
There was another pause then a new message.
You got the letter.
I did.
I realized something after I sent it.
What?
You never answered the question yourself. On that first day.
That’s true.
I waited. He sent no follow up. He was waiting for me.
My answer has changed since then.
Still nothing from him. I wrote:
I have been in love twice.
It came so easily from my fingertips that I immediately suspected it wasn’t true. But when the tears came back, I knew that it probably was. He wrote:
You owe me a letter, Tess Fowler.
Then:
I’ll leave the FB page for a memorial. Everything else will be gone by tonight.
