Sweet Forty-Two(60)

Send me mail, sometime. Does chivalry mean nothing anymore?

In all seriousness, you’re perfect, and that’s the real reason for me sending this card. Violin Man was a bonus.

Well, that’s not the real reason I’m sending this card. But I’m nervous to tell you the real reason.

With tears flowing freely down my face, I stopped reading for a second, my heart pounding out of my chest. I covered the bottom part of the letter so I wouldn’t read anymore until I was ready. I took a deep breath and read on, nervous, too.

The real reason is ... ugh, I’m so dramatic. Take a deep breath, Rae. Yes, this is my letter so I can talk to myself if I want.

Okay. The real reason for this letter is ... I love you.

It’s too soon and irresponsible and reckless and all of that, but, I don’t care. We have fun, we laugh, and life is just better with you in it. I love you and I think you’re wonderful and I’m going to stop writing now before I write myself into a hole. Or a corner. Or whatever it is writers write themselves into.

I’ll see you this weekend. Because you likely won’t get this letter before then, you won’t think I’m crazy yet. I won’t have the guts to tell you in person until after I know you’ve received this and then we can have that awkward moment where you say, “I got your letter,” and I say, “Soo...” and we stare into each other’s eyes, wondering who will say it again. Or first.

I need to stop this horrendous tangent.

But, not before telling you one more time that I love you.

I love you.

~Rae

I calmly set the letter behind me, sitting on the corner of it to prevent it from blowing away, and then, I stopped breathing.





Georgia

He stopped once at some point during his reading of the letter and looked up, taking a deep breath. I thought it was all okay, that he was getting through it just fine. When he seemed to finish, he tucked the letter behind him and sat very still for a few seconds.

I said nothing.

I took half a step forward, questioning even that, before he crumpled into the fetal position with his face pressing into the splintered wood, and began sobbing.

“Oh, God,” I whispered, running down the uneven planks toward him.

His body was shaking and his wails were so loud I didn’t know if he’d ever hear anything again. Or if I would. Like the EMT in emotional situations I’d been trained to be, I snatched the letter away from the cracks in the wood and tucked it in my back pocket before it could slip away and take him with it.

“Regan ... Regan...” I didn’t come close to matching his volume, but I was hoping a piece of him somewhere would hear me and allow his body to calm down to hear the rest.

He was coughing through thick sobs, the kind that make you feel like you’re drowning from the inside. I looked around, trying to formulate my next move.

There was none. I shifted so I was sitting cross-legged with my knees up against his back so he knew I was there. It no longer mattered what the letter said, though I admit the past two weeks had allowed me to come up with all kinds of creative responses. What mattered was this ... this mutilated soul who reached up behind him mid-sob and grabbed my hand.

For half an hour or more I was folded awkwardly over Regan’s body in a broken hug as he clenched my hand to his chest. Where his heart once was.

Sometime after the sky turned grey and it started to drizzle, Regan seemed to recognize the precipitation from somewhere other than his eyes. He stood without letting me see his face, which I don’t know if he meant to do, but he stood there at the end of the pier with his shoulders sitting unnaturally low.

Who was I becoming that in a matter of a few short weeks I suddenly couldn’t push him away? Not only could I not push him away, but I decided in that moment that if he jumped into the freezing and shallow water below, I’d follow him. Not wanting him to jump, though, I tugged his hand.

“Let’s get inside,” I said as he lifted his head to the sky once more.

When he turned around, I wanted to jump. His face was splotches of red and misery, hazel eyes swollen, and even worse than if they’d been empty, filled with a pain that would have certainly driven a lesser person to their knees had they been staring at him.

He didn’t say anything, but he held his other hand out when his eyes drifted to the card in my hand. I handed it to him and he squeezed his eyes shut, an impossible amount of tears wringing free. Pressing the letter to his chest, he followed slowly behind me as I led us down the pier and into the sand.

“You forgot the cupcakes.” He spoke in a shaky, terminal voice.

I glanced behind us to the pair of cupcakes I’d abandoned on the railing when I’d gone down to the end of the pier.

“I know where I can get more. Let’s get inside before it rains any harder, okay?” I winked and smiled the sweetest smile I could. I had to pull way back in my muscle memory for that kind of smile, but it worked.

He smiled, and chuckled once. A toneless breath of a chuckle that showed me his emotions weren’t all swinging from gallows deep inside him.

He’d cried himself out all the way to his toes, it seemed, as tired footsteps lugged up the stairwell behind me once we were inside our building. Once at the top of the stairs, I hesitated. Deeply rooted instinct told me to open his door for him, close it behind him, and mind my own business for the rest of the day. But, this was Regan. If nothing else, he’d spent the last few weeks showing me that he needed people and he was okay with that need. Despite my discomfort in being needed beyond what I was certain I could give, I knew even deeper in my gut that I couldn’t leave him. Not like this.