"You good, man?" he asks softly.
My jaw aches when I realize how hard I've been clenching it. My fists are balled so tight my knuckles have gone white.
"Yeah," I say, but my voice comes out rough and broken. "Just a rough letter."
"Girl troubles?"
"Something like that."
He studies me for a second, then gives me a look that's almost sad. "Take your own advice, man. Tell her how you feel."
I laugh once, but it comes out empty. "The best thing I can do for her is let her go. She doesn't need an anchor like me dragging her down."
I stare at the letter until the words blur.
Love, Olivia.
That part keeps hitting me like a fist to the ribs. Not because I don't believe her. Because I do. Because she gave me something real and I treated it like something fragile I had no right to touch. I held it in my hands, felt it breathing there between us, and still I let it slip.
My throat tightens. My eyes burn, but I don't let anything fall. I don't get to fall apart. Not when I'm the reason half the damage in my life exists in the first place.
I fold the letter once, then unfold it again, like maybe the crease will change the meaning. Like maybe if I press hard enough, I can force the past to rewrite itself. It doesn't.
I think about that night so clearly it makes my stomach twist. Olivia standing there, looking at me like I was still someone worth believing in. I remember how badly I wanted to reach for her, how badly I wanted to say her name and tell her the truth. To tell her all the ugly, stupid, ruined parts of me that I kept hidden because I was scared she'd look at me the way everyone else eventually did.
So I made the choice for her.
I shoved her away before she could decide for herself. Before she could see how broken I really was. Before she could get trapped under the weight of everything I carry.
That's all I ever do, isn't it? Leave people with versions of me that hurt less because they're smaller. Easier. Safer. The coward's version of love. Keep your distance. Don't say too much. Don't ask to be held. Don't let anyone see how badly you need them.
But Olivia did see.
That's the part that hurts most.
She saw me, and I still let her go.
I drag a hand over my face, rough and useless, and for a second I can almost hear her voice saying my name. Soft. Certain. Like it meant something good. Like I could still be something good if I tried hard enough.
I couldn't even do that.
I think about Diego and the way he never stopped showing up, even when I made it hard. Even when I turned my pain into everybody else's problem. He kept picking me up anyway. Olivia tried too, in her own way. And I repaid both of them by acting like love was something I had to survive instead of something I was supposed to return.
A laugh slips out of me, except it isn't funny at all. It's ugly. Broken.
"Pathetic," I mutter to no one.
Carl shifts in the bunk across from me, but I don't look at him. I can't. If I do, I might have to admit how close I am to losing it.
Because the worst part is this: Olivia didn't write to yell at me or criticize me. She wrote to forgive me.
That should feel like relief.
Instead it feels like punishment.
She's done the one thing I never thought I deserved. She reached across the distance I made, and I'm sitting here holding the proof that I ruined something precious and still, somehow, she was kinder than I was.
I press the letter to my chest before I can stop myself.
