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“Don’t apologize, Diego. That letter was everything.”

“What does it say?” he asks, clearing his throat and uncertainty weaves through his words. At least, I think that’s what it is but what the hell could he be feeling wary about? Is it because I’m such a heinous bitch that he’s nervous to ask me anything personal?

God, that makes me feel like shit.

My heart rate has slowed enough that I can breathe a little easier now and relief rushes through me again. Sucking in a breath, I focus on our conversation and pray that everything else will fade into the background.

“In the first page, she talked about my grandpa passing away and how she could feel that her time was coming. She said that I was her legacy and she was proud of what she was leaving behind. Then, she offered me a last piece of life advice to carry with me. The next two pages were the story of her meeting my grandfather and how they fell in love. It was my very favorite thing when I was a kid and she would tell it to me every single night so when she knew she was dying, she wrote it down so I’d always have it.”

When I finish with my story, my mouth is dry and there is a fluttering in my belly as silence surrounds us again. Waiting for his response is torture.

“Will you tell it to me?”

My brow shoots up as I glance back at him over my shoulder. “Their story?”

“Yeah. I’d love to hear it.”

My teeth sink into my bottom lip as my thoughts race as I turn back to stare at the ground. On the one hand, it’s so personal to me - one of the very few things that slices to the very heart of me and I’ve never shared that letter with anyone else. Literally, not a single soul. But this is Diego and there isn’t that feeling of panic when I think about telling their story to him. It’s all the confirmation I need.

“Okay.”

After taking a breath, I launch into the story, telling him about how Lita met a young man who moved in down the street from her parents’ the summer she turned sixteen. She was instantly infatuated with him and it turned out, the feeling was mutual. She always described him as suave and mysterious but I can still remember the way her voice took on a darker tone when she said that. As a kid, I never understood the look in her eye when she talked about him but when I got older, it all made sense to me and my heart ached for her. They dated for six months and she always described their relationship as tumultuous.

We were oil and water, Isabelle.

Never meant to be together.

She’s been gone for so many years but I can still hear her voice clear as day, saying those words with a clear warning on her face.

During those six months, Lita’s feelings for the boy faded but he only grew more obsessed with her, more possessive and controlling and it scared her. Badly. On her seventeenth birthday, he took her out to the county fair and that was where she first saw Papa. She said even from across the road, their eyes met and their connection was instant - like a bolt of electricity striking her. The boy she was with noticed the way her gaze lingered on Papa and he dragged her back to the car before wrapping his hands around her throat and telling her that he would never let her go.

At this point in the story, if Papa was around, he would cut in and tell me how he just had this feeling that he had to follow her and make sure she was okay. When he saw the boy screaming in her face as he choked her, Papa claimed that he blacked out. Next thing he knew, the boy was lying on the ground, beat to hell. Papa had blood on his hands and Lita was on the ground, clutching her neck and sobbing as she looked up at him. It was unlucky that a cop walked by a moment later and arrested Papa on the spot for assault. The boy was well liked in the community and after a sham of a trial, Papa was sentenced to a year in jail for his “crime”.

Lita wanted to reach out and thank Papa for what he had done for her as well as apologize for the fact that he was locked up but her parents forbid her from speaking to him. Not that she listened. She wrote him a letter, expressing her gratitude and how sorry she was for messing up his life, before handing it off to her best friend to mail for her. I don’t think she ever expected to receive a reply from him but the two started writing to each other almost every day and over the next eleven months, they fell in love. During that time, Lita worked as a waitress in the town diner and squirreled away every penny she made so that when Papa got out, they could run away together. She knew her parents would never approve of the two of them but she didn’t care. They were head over heels in love with each other and as soon as he was a free man, they made a break for it.

She always made sure to tell me that it wasn’t easy and they struggled for a long time but their love never wavered and in the hard times, they both clung to that to get them through. Over the years, they had four kids and they built a beautiful life together - one that I admired more than I ever got a chance to appreciate when they were both alive.

“Wow,” Diego says when I finish the story. “That is one hell of a story.”

I smile, Lita’s words flashing through my mind again. “Yes, it is.”

“Can I ask you something though?” he asks and I sit up, leaning into his body again as I take a deep breath. My pulse is finally back to normal and the panic I felt a moment ago is replaced with comfort as he wraps an arm around me.

“Sure.”

“How do you go from idolizing their love story to someone who doesn’t let anyone get close to her?”

I don’t think he meant it as an insult but the words are like a dagger to my chest and I suck in a breath as pain radiates through me. The truth is, I know how this happened but at the same time… I don’t. I mean, obviously I know the events that led to me becoming like this but when I think back to that little girl who listened to this story every night with stars in her eyes, the woman I am now feels foreign. Who I am now is a betrayal to her but I also don’t know how to be any different.

“Izzy?” he whispers, his voice soft. It drags me out of my thoughts and I shake my head as I stare off into the distance.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Fuck.

I didn’t really mean to bite his head off but that’s how it came out and a heavy silence stretches between us, suffocating me.

“Iz, what happened to you?” His voice is soft, trying to coax the information out of me but I can’t. I grit my teeth and shake my head.