Page 87 of Two Sides of Sin

I quickly scribbled my name on the screen, taking the package and the small stack of regular mail he held out, as he looked me up and down. I offered a polite, hurried thank you, shut the door, and locked it behind me.

I stood in the entryway, water dripping from the ends of my hair onto the floor, and carelessly thumbed through the stack of envelopes. Electricity bill. Water bill. A glossy flyer for a local pizza place.

I Froze.

Tucked right between the junk mail and the bills was a thick, cream-coloured envelope. It wasn’t printed. There was no return address stamp. In the centre, my name and apartment number were written in a sharp, elegant, heavily slanted script that looked like it belonged to another time.

My hands started to shake. I dropped the rest of the mail onto the entryway table, ignoring the package and the puddles forming at my feet. I stared at the dark ink on the heavy paper, the memory of a battered field notebook and a promised phone number flashing in my mind.

It was a letter. From him.

Julian.

I didn’t even make it to the living room.

My hands were shaking so badly I almost dropped the letter right into the puddle forming at my feet. I tore the envelope open, practically shredding the thick paper in my desperate rush to get to whatever was inside.

I let the torn envelope flutter to the wet hardwood floor and leaned back against the wall, my knees suddenly too weak to hold my own weight. I slid down the drywall until I was sitting on the floor, pulling the letter closer to the dim light of the entryway.

The handwriting was breathtaking—sharp, precise, and heavily slanted. It looked like the script of a man who belonged to a different century.

I held my breath, my heart hammering a frantic dance inside my body as I began to read the letter.

Sage,

I told you I’d write.

My mind is a wasteland right now, but you are the only thing that remains untouched. I haven’t stopped thinking about our few days together.

The way you felt against me in the quiet of that church, and the way you looked at me when you should have been running.

This place is a nightmare, but I find myself closing my eyes just to see you again. That memory is the only thing keeping my mind quiet. I’ll call you the second I can. Until then, stay safe for me.

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

Always,

Julian

I read it once. Then I read it again, the words blurring as a hot, overwhelming wave of emotion crashed over me.

He hadn’t forgotten me. He hadn’t just kissed me in the adrenaline of a war and pushed me out of his mind.

My eyes dropped to the neatly inked stanza at the bottom of the page, and the breath caught sharp and tight in my throat. Poe. He had recognised the ink on my skin. A dizzying wave of warmth rushed through me, nearly overwhelming in its intensity. Just when I thought he couldn’t get more perfect, he proved he could reach right into the quietest, most guarded corners of my soul. It felt dangerous. It felt entirely too good to be true, like a beautiful mirage conjured just before the world collapsed.

A massive, breathless smile broke across my face. I couldn’t stop it. It was the kind of dizzying, ridiculous smile that physically hurt my cheeks and made me feel like a stupid teenager fawning over my first boyfriend. A swarm of butterflies erupted in my stomach, fluttering so wildly I felt lightheaded.

I scrambled up from the puddle in the hallway, clutching his letter to my chest like it was the only thing keeping me tethered to the earth. I practically ran to my bedroom, shedding the damp towel and throwing on an oversized, worn out, white button down shirt and a pair of soft shorts.

I bypassed the kitchen and went straight to the small, sunlit corner of my living room that I used as my art studio. My hands were still trembling as I pushed aside a half-finished charcoal sketch of a gothic archway and pulled out a fresh sheet of heavy, textured drawing paper and my favourite black ink pen.

I dug into the pocket of my jeans from earlier, pulling out the battered, folded piece of paper he had torn from his field notebook. There it was: his address.