Don't Speak (A Modern Fairytale, #5)(73)

You bought me this journal for sketching on the best day of my life: our perfect day at the Elizabethan Gardens. That was the day you told me you were falling in love with me, and though I didn’t say the words, I knew they were true for me too. I said them three days later at my father’s fish shop. You came to tell me that you were going up to Raleigh for a few days the only way you knew how.

My God, what an actor you were! What an actor you are. I can’t stop my tears from falling when I think of those precious days with you, because, whoever you are, you aren’t the Erik I fell in love with. You are a stranger to me. Wholly. Completely. When I think of you now, I call you the Governor’s Son in my mind. I will hate you until the day I die. I promise you that.

But I am not writing to the Governor’s Son; I am writing this to my Erik—to the man I knew. Even though he doesn’t actually exist, I loved him. I still do. It’s likely that I always will.

I write these words to him because, no matter how faithless you were to me, Governor’s Son, I was my truest self with my Erik.

That day in the hospital when I called us a fantasy, I was lying. I was a frightened girl lying to the boy she loved desperately, hoping that by giving up what she loved most in the world, the trade would assuage God’s fury and let her father live.

It worked, to some extent.

My father lived, though in a cruel twist, I still lost him. He never trusted me again and could barely look me in the eyes without shame.

And the Erik I loved turned out to be a fantasy, so I have lost him too.

But I cannot live in a world as brutal and unkind, as faithless and fickle as that of the Governor’s Son. I won’t allow myself to be hardened. I won’t let his poison touch my life. After all, I barely knew him. I can choose to separate him from the Erik I lost.

That Erik, that good, kind, loving, tender man, is preserved in my heart, just as he would be if I had lost him to a tragic accident that terrible Thanksgiving night. That’s the Erik I write to here. To the man I knew . . . because, to me, he was real. And I will write to you, my Erik, until I stop grieving your loss. Hopefully, one day, I will have the courage and strength to love again.

I need you to know that I am pregnant with your child.

I found out yesterday that she’s a girl, and I plan to name her Ava Grace like the little girl we met that day at the Elizabethan Gardens. I saw her on the ultrasound yesterday, and she has ten fingers and ten toes and I can’t wait to see if her hair’s dark like yours or red like mine.

Ava Grace is only one of several major changes in my life. Another is that I now live in Boone, far away from the Outer Banks, in the hills of Appalachia. Thanksgiving was Ms. Sebastian’s last night of work at the Pamlico House. After I left your house, I ran to her, and when she got off work, we drank tea across from each other at her kitchen table. Surrounded by moving boxes, she invited me to leave the Banks and join her in Boone. I had no other options, so I did.

We live in a little house with views of the mountains. It’s near her son, Patrick, who’s got shaggy brown hair and kind eyes and is a professor of English at Appalachian State University. Her spare bedroom is my room, and soon it will be Ava Grace’s nursery too.

I don’t know how I will ever repay Ms. Sebastian’s kindness, but if there is ever a chance, I will take it. She is so much more than a friend, sometimes I imagine my own mother sent her to me as an angel to look after me on this journey. I am so thankful for her.

I called my sister Kyrstin the day after Thanksgiving. She wasn’t surprised to hear that things didn’t work out between me and the Governor’s Son. She wished me luck and said she would tell Daddy that I had run away. Believe it or not, Erik, that lie will be much kinder than the reality that I’m unmarried and expecting your child.

I have a job at Harris Teeter, a really nice grocery store in Boone. After I have the baby, I may try to find another waitressing position. My tips at the Pamlico House were good.

Ava Grace wiggles inside me all the time, and I cry myself to sleep, missing you and mourning your loss and dreaming of your face. Those dreams are brutal, reminding me in such minute detail of the way you touched me, Erik—the way you looked at me and told me you loved me. I miss you so much, it eats me up inside, but you are gone, and the only way I can survive your loss is to imagine you are dead.

My tears are smearing the ink so I will close now.

Merry Christmas, my Erik.

Laire

***

The Second Christmas

Dear Erik,

So much has happened in a year, it’s hard to imagine it’s been that long since I opened the journal and wrote to you, but I will try to fill you in on all that’s happened.

We have a daughter, Ava Grace Cornish, who’s seven months old and the happiest baby you’ve ever seen. And why shouldn’t she be happy? Ms. Sebastian (aka Nana and Judith) dotes on her like the grandmother she lost so long ago, and Uncle Patrick has probably purchased every stuffed animal to be found in Boone. They cover her nursery (my old room) and my room (the spare room, now mine) and Judith’s room (Nana wouldn’t have it any other way), and Ava laughs and laughs when we make them dance and squeak.

She laughs all the time, Erik, and she has your smile.

She has your dark eyes too.

And your beautiful, regal nose.

But she lucked out (!) and got my red hair. You can’t win ’em all!