A Thousand Letters(78)

"You don't have to talk about it," she said softly, as if she knew.

I squeezed, holding her to me as I pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

"It's okay. It was a long time ago. Our truck hit an IED and flipped. My friend died, and I knew I couldn't answer you because I was sure, certain in that moment that I would die before I could get home to you. I dug a hole, a deep hole in myself, and I hid there, burying that most precious part of me so it would survive what I went through, all I saw. The only problem was that before long, I'd forgotten where it was buried. I don't think I uncovered it again until I found you again here, now."

Her fingers closed, clutching my shirt.

"But I wrote to you every day. I'd write them over and over again. Admission after admission. Some days, I'd just tell you what I did that day. Some days I'd beg for your forgiveness. And some days, more days than I'd care to admit, my words were angry, hurt, unforgiving. But no matter what I wrote, I couldn't send one back. I needed to be cut off from the rest of the world. From you. It was the only way I could survive everything I'd seen and the only way I could protect you from losing me. You'd already lost me. Better that than to give you hope. And part of me thought that if I didn't respond that you'd stop, that you'd be quiet and leave it alone, all while hoping you'd never stop, riding to every mail pickup with my heart in agony and hope.

"I was in Afghanistan when you finally gave up on me. I'd brought the box with me to every station, the only personal effect I kept with me always. I bought it on my first tour to Afghanistan in a village nearby from a man who'd learned to carve from his father, who learned it from his father and back generations. A few months after I bought it, that village was laid to waste. I always wondered if he'd survived to teach his sons. But I never saw him again."

She took a shuddering breath, and I pulled her closer.

"It wasn't long before the letters didn't fit, and I'd gone through a journal. Then another. So when I came back to the States, I kept only the ones that meant the most. Every time I came home, I switched them out, and every time the ones I kept changed, with the exception of just a few. I have thousands of them in Germany, all worn, the creases soft from folding and unfolding them so many times over the years.

"I volunteered for tour after tour, never wanting to be back here. It's … easier over there. When we come home, we can't forget, can't walk away from war, especially knowing we'll probably be sent back, so I just kept going. At least over there, everyone understood. We were all in the same place, hurting in the same way, pretending we were fine because it was the only way we'd survive.

"By the time the war was over, I'd changed so much, withdrawn into myself. I didn't know how to be the old me, and I wasn't sure who the new me was. I was still angry, so angry. And even at that, I thought about trying to find you. But there was no way to reach out. Not after a thousand letters I'd never answered. Not after ignoring you when you changed your mind and begged me to come home. After your last letter, I … I was sure it was over. I told myself I could move on, that it was time. But it was empty, and so was I."

"This will be my last; my heart can't take any more," she recited from the letter, her voice distant, just as I'd imagined when I'd read it over and over again.

"I hear you. Your silence is deafening, the answer clear. Since I'm sorry will never be enough, I'll only say goodbye."

We lay in silence for a few long minutes, hanging on to each other, the years folding up like a paper fan until the length had been shortened, bringing us back together again.

"I don't deserve your forgiveness," I whispered, and she propped herself up, looking down at me with her face framed by curtains of dark hair.

"I wouldn't have forgiven you if you hadn't changed."

I reached for her face, thumbing her cheek. "How can you be sure I have?"

Her eyes, her bottomless eyes told me only of her faith. "I can see it here." She ran her fingers across my temple. "And here." She touched my lips. "I can feel it here." She laid her hand on my heart. "I know you, even when you don't know yourself. Even when you pushed and pulled me, deep down, I knew how you felt. But I couldn't fix you, couldn't help you because you didn't want help. You wanted to be broken, and you wanted to hurt all of us, to warn us away. It almost worked."

"You believe in those of us who didn't love you the way you've deserved. Why?"

"Because," she said as her lips smiled small, "I knew all that you could be, and I wished for it with all of me."

"I'll spend every breath that I have proving you right." I pulled her down to me, my hands in the curve of her neck, her lips against mine, her breath my own.

So many years I'd missed. So many kisses, so many words from her sweet lips. How happy we could have been all that time — my chest burned at the thought. But I was through looking back to the past when my future was right in front of me, right there in my arms.

There was no urgency, only the long kiss, the kiss that never ended, only flowed from one moment to the next, softly, gently. I broke away after what felt like an eternity or a moment and climbed out of bed, walking around to turn off the lights. Snow fell beyond the window; the ground had been covered in the time since we'd been inside, and the full moon reflected off the crisp white canvas, lighting the room in shades of indigo. I reached over my shoulder, grabbing a fistful of sweater to tug it off. Then my shirt. Then my jeans, leaving me just in my underwear.