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I scoot closer, needing her reassuring presence against me. “You didn’t make me do anything. It wasn’t because of you. You have no power over the choices I make, Charlee, nor how I react to things. This is on me, and me only.”

“But Oli—”

“There is no ‘but.’” I lean a few inches from her lips. I search her eyes, forcing her to see what’s in mine. “You’re not in a better place than me in all of this. Shit happens that we can’t always predict, and not everything goes according to plan. I’ll live. It’s a hard one to swallow, I’ll give you that, but I’ll live. And besides . . .” My thumb strokes her cheek as I graze my lips over hers. “I choose you every time, sweetheart. You over everything else. Forever and always.”

“Come here.” She hooks her fingers behind my neck and pulls me down the last inch left between us until our lips meet and her warmth fills my mouth. I crush my weight on her as I angle my head so I can take her deeper, relishing the way our tongues dance, just as our souls have been intertwined since our pen-pal years.

It’s life-changing and world-bending, and everything in me snaps into existence at the touch of her lips on mine. There’s nothing remotely ordinary about this kiss, not when I feel the last walls of her fortress crumble as her fingers claw at me and pull me even closer, as if she’s trying to make up for the last five years we lost.

“Why did you never send me those letters?” Charlee asks, panting against my mouth. “Why did you never try to explain everything to me?” She kisses me again, unable to stay away too long. “I wondered for so many years what I’d done wrong. Why you never came.”

I rest my forehead against hers, not letting her get an inch away from me. “And how would you have liked me to do that? You weren’t staying at uni anymore, and you weren’t going back. Believe me, I tried to look for you, for a long time. But you were off the grid too, and I couldn’t find you anywhere on social media. I had no way to contact you, Charlee. None.” I let out a bitter laugh. “Which sounds absolutely ludicrous in the times we live in, but we truly committed to the whole letter-only thing, huh?”

She chuckles too, playing with my hair between her fingers. “We did, and that’s what made this so special. But in hindsight, it definitely had its downsides. What about the one I sent after we were supposed to meet? Did you get that one?”

I draw back, frowning. “You sent me another letter?”

“I did.”

I pause, running through the sequence of events in my mind. The months went by, each one slower than the last, but I never received a single letter from Charlee. Actually, come to think of it . . .

“The fucker,” I grunt between my teeth. “That fucking stubborn old French bastard.”

“Who are—oh. No, he wouldn’t have . . . Would he?”

I scoff. “Oh, he would have. I was staying at Matt’s for a while, got my mail redirected there and gave his address directly whenever I could. But now that I think about it, I don’t recall receiving one single piece of mail from my old place. Emile must have kept everything. He’s retired now. Fucking finally.”

Charlee bursts out laughing.

“It’s not funny!”

“A little bit, though,” she heaves between cackles. “Emile really didn’t give two shits. I can’t believe he’s part of the reason why we never heard from each other again. Part of our story, in a sense. Think about it. Had he given you my letter, you would have gotten my address. We could have figured out what had happened, and we probably could have arranged to meet again once our lives calmed down.” She shakes her head, incredulous. “I should be so fucking pissed at the guy, but the whole thing is so ridiculous that I can’t find it in me. Aw, man, I wish I could meet him.”

“Well, that can be arranged,” I mumble. “He still lives in his burrow like a hermit.”

Charlee’s lips stretch upward, and she lays a hand on my arm. “I think we’ll let a few months go by before we do. I wouldn’t want you to lose your shit in his face.”

My heart stumbles on her words, hope blooming in my chest faster than peonies on a hot summer day.

A few months.

“Wise decision. I’ll send him a strongly worded letter instead.”

The sound of her laugh tingles my heart. “You do that.” Her eyes soften. “So that explains quite a bit . . .”

“It does.” I brush her bangs to the side just so I can see all of her beautiful face. “You know, your eyes are the color of where I love to be the most.”

“Where is that?”

“The forest. When I look at you, it feels like I’m there. Everything goes quiet; I breathe easier. I lose myself in those green eyes until I forget where I am. And then you smile, or you say something sassy, and I snap back into the present. Every time I look at you, you whisk me away to my favorite place. It’s you. You’re where I love to be the most.”

I lean down and kiss her gently, her lips like feathers against mine.

When she looks at me, I catch a spark of nervousness before it disappears. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time and never had the guts or the chance to.”

“And what’s that?” I ask.

The air is growing thicker around us, but her body underneath me keeps me grounded and focused. I could stay like this for days. Weeks. I’ll never get used to it.