A Thousand Letters(77)

Wade

I closed my eyes, certain I'd open them to find her gone, but there she was with love and forgiveness in her eyes. And my new mission was to earn that forgiveness with everything I did.

I kissed her again, pulling her into me, drinking her in with every breath, every touch. When she broke away, she smiled up at me.

"What do we do now?" she asked with swollen lips.

Within a split second, I had my answer. I smiled back and took her hand. "Come with me."

"I'll follow you anywhere. Where you go, I go."

I couldn't resist another kiss, slipping my hand into her hair before I pressed my lips to hers, transferring all the gratitude and triumph I felt. And then, I hastily packed away my notebook and closed up the box, tucking it under my arm as I took her hand again.

Anticipation crackled between us, popping with wonder. Her hand was in mine, and she was smiling. She was happy, but not as happy as I was — she'd given me everything I wanted, everything I'd been hiding from, the things I thought I'd never had. But all I'd had to do was ask.

"Where are we going?" she asked as we hurried down the sidewalk.

"To my house, is that all right?"

"Perfect," she answered.

We didn't speak along the way, both of us too busy with our thoughts, with our awe and reverence, and before long, I was towing her up the steps of the house and through the door, up the stairs and into my room, closing the door behind me.

She stood in the middle of my bedroom catching her breath, looking around with wide eyes that scanned the walls and furniture.

"It's just like I remembered it," she said half to herself as she unwound her scarf absently, walking to my desk to hang it and her coat on the back of my chair. The cork board still held our photos, my boutonniere from senior prom pinned next to our picture, a poem she'd written me there alongside it. She trailed her fingers across the words. "It feels like a lifetime ago."

I took off my coat too, tossing it on my bed, stepping behind her to hold her around the waist. My chin rested on top of her head, and she covered my arms with hers.

"Feels like yesterday," I said. "Time is a funny thing, isn't it?"

"It is," she answered quietly before turning around in my arms. "I've missed you. Every second of every day."

I brushed her cheek with the backs of my fingers. "I thought I could forget you. I even convinced myself I had, for a time. But it was impossible. You left a mark on my soul I couldn't erase."

The feeling of her body against mine, the weight of her hands on my chest reminded me she was real. And then I kissed her, compiling the sensations blissfully.

"I want to know everything," I said, pressing my lips to her temple. "Everything I missed, everything that's happened."

She chuckled. "So much. Seven years' worth."

"I've got all the time in the world to listen."

She sighed, the sound full of perfect happiness. "Where should I start?"

"From the minute I left."

"That," she said sadly, "was not a very tale-worthy time."

"But I want to know all the same."

She took my hand and led me to my bed, climbing in to lie against the wall, and I lay next to her. Her body curled and molded to mine, our legs wrapping around each other, her arm over my chest and mine under her shoulders, her dark hair fanned out and my hand unable to leave it alone. I slipped silky strands of it between my fingers, lost in the moment with her.

We lay like that for a little while before she spoke.

"You read my letters, so you know a bit."

I nodded and kissed her forehead.

"For almost two years, I floated through life, not knowing if I'd ever recover. I just kept writing letters, an exercise likened to stamping your feet in the cold to keep the blood flowing. It was the only way I could survive, to get the words out and away from me. Except the words were wind. They meant nothing to anyone but me. Or, I thought. I wasn't sure if you'd even gotten them or if you did, if you'd read them."

"I did. I read every one, just not when I should have."

She was quiet for a moment. "I think I'd rather hear what happened to you through all that time. I've missed it all."

"I … Elliot, I don't know how to tell you what it was like."

"Words, strung together, one at a time."

I took a deep breath, her arm riding the rise and fall of my chest. "When I left, I left my soul here, with you." I paused, not sure how to put it but trying to, regardless. "I was empty at first, focused only on basic training. Every day was scheduled, every minute from the time I woke to the second the lights went out, and it seemed the next thing I knew, I was shipped off to Iraq."

Her hand shifted, resting in the hollow of my chest, just above my heart.

"It was … extreme, intense is the only way I know to explain it. You know, during the war, we had ways to call home, ways to keep in touch, but none of us did. I mean that — not the guys with kids or families, no one. It was too hard, knowing that back home, everyone went about not knowing, not seeing the world for what it is, not knowing what we knew. I barely spoke to Dad or the girls, but they wrote, and you wrote. But I couldn't answer. I tried. I was going to. But there was a moment …" I paused. I'd never spoken about it.