With Love, Always (Sweet Love Letters)

Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Rebecca

T he brass mailbox is unusually full when I check it after closing. Between the usual catalogs and order forms, I find it. The envelope is heavier than our normal correspondence, my name written in that now-familiar hand. Something about it makes my pulse quicken. I carry it upstairs to my apartment, setting aside the day's mail and my purse before settling at my desk.

The letter feels different somehow. Heavier. Even before I break the seal, something about it makes my hands tremble.

Dear Rebecca,

I've been staring at this paper for hours, trying to find the right way to tell you who I am…

The words blur. Something about the phrasing, the cadence of the sentences, feels achingly familiar in a way I can't quite place.

It's me, Rebecca. It's Cole.

"No." The word escapes like a prayer or a curse. I stand so quickly my chair scrapes against the hardwood floor, the sound harsh in my quiet apartment. Suddenly every letter before this one takes on new meaning, each carefully chosen word now weighted with hidden intent.

When my father's gambling debts came to light...

I pace to the window, letter clutched in my shaking hands. Snow is falling outside, but I barely see it through the roaring in my ears. All this time. All these weeks of opening my heart to a stranger, of sharing thoughts I'd buried so deep I'd almost forgotten them. And it was Cole?

"How dare you," I whisper, but I keep reading, unable to stop even as anger burns behind my eyes.

You were so bright, Rebecca. So full of dreams...

His explanation about his family's struggles, about trying to protect me, is too much. Too late. I want to tear the letter to pieces, want to storm down to that farm and demand to know what kind of game he thinks he's playing.

Instead, I find myself sinking into the window seat, pressing my forehead against the cold glass as his words wash over me.

I see now how wrong I was. How much pain I caused by trying to protect you. You deserved the truth, deserved the chance to make your own choices.

A sob catches in my throat. Because isn't that exactly what I've been doing? Making choices without all the information, building walls without knowing what I was really protecting myself from?

These letters started because I couldn't bear the distance between us when I first came home. Couldn't stand seeing the careful way you hold yourself around me, knowing I put those walls there.

I think about our encounters since his return. At the diner. The general store. The fundraiser. How I've kept him at arm's length while pouring my heart out to someone I thought was a stranger. The irony would be funny if it didn't hurt so much.

But the truth is, every word I've written has been real.

"Has it?" I ask the empty room. But even as anger flows through me, I know the answer. Those letters carried truth in every line. He’d shared his regret, his hope. He’d carefully reached out without pushing too hard. Just like I know my responses have been more honest than anything I've said out loud in years.

The snow falls harder outside my window. Somewhere out there, Cole is probably at the farm, maybe writing another letter, maybe wondering if this confession has destroyed whatever fragile connection we've rebuilt.

I spread the pages across my lap, reading parts again. About his father's debts. His siblings' college funds. The impossible choice he faced at twenty.

"You should have told me," I whisper. "Should have trusted me enough to let me decide."

But he knows that. His letter says as much, admits to every mistake with a rawness that feels like touching an exposed nerve.

I gather the pages, folding them carefully before reaching for my coat. The clock reads just past nine. It’s late, but not too late. Not for this.

Because he's right about one thing. We can't keep hiding behind paper and ink. Can't keep pretending we're strangers when every letter has been bringing us closer to this moment.

I need to see his face when he explains. Need to look in his eyes and understand if the man who wrote these letters is the same one who broke my heart, or if maybe we've both changed enough to start being honest with each other.

The drive to the farm feels both too long and too short. Snow crunches under my boots as I park beside his truck, the old farmhouse looming dark except for a light in what used to be the kitchen. My heart pounds as I climb the familiar porch steps, hand raised to knock.

Time to find out if words on paper can translate to truth face to face.

The porch light flicks on before I can knock. Cole opens the door, still wearing work clothes dusted with sawdust, and freezes when he sees me.

"Rebecca?"

I hold up his letter, watching the recognition dawn in his eyes. "We need to talk."

He steps back, letting me into the warmth of the kitchen. It's different than I remember. The cabinets are a fresh shade of blue-gray, the old linoleum replaced with hardwood. But the copper kettle his grandmother always kept on the stove still sits in its place of honor.

"I was going to tell you," he says quietly.

"When?" I turn to face him, letter crumpling slightly in my grip. "After how many more letters? How many more pieces of my heart did you need before you'd be satisfied?"

"That's not—" He runs a hand through his hair, agitated. "I never meant to hurt you. Not then, and not now."

"But you did." My voice cracks. "You made choices for both of us, Cole. Ten years ago, and again with these letters. You decided I couldn't handle the truth about your family. Decided I couldn't handle knowing who was really writing to me."

"I know." He leans against the counter, shoulders slumped. "I convinced myself I was protecting you. Both times. I'm still making the same mistakes, aren't I?"

Something about his defeated tone pulls at me. I look down at the letter, at all his carefully written explanations. "Your father really lost everything?"

"Everything." The word comes out rough. "The house, Mom's savings, the kids' college funds. He'd been hiding it for years, taking out new loans to cover old ones. By the time it all came out..." He shakes his head. "I had to choose, Rebecca. Stay in the service and send money home, or take the discharge and handle things directly."

"But you didn't have to choose alone." The words burn in my throat. "I would have understood. Would have helped, even."

"You had dreams." He meets my eyes, and the pain there is raw. "College plans, travel ideas. I couldn't watch them disappear under the weight of my family's problems."

"That wasn't your decision to make."

"No." He straightens, taking a step toward me. "It wasn't. I was young and scared and trying so hard to do the right thing that I didn't realize I was making the worst choice possible."

His words from the anonymous letters echo in my head. All this time, he's been trying to tell me the truth, piece by piece.

"Why the letters?" I ask. "Why not just talk to me?"

"Because you look at me like that." He gestures to the careful distance I'm maintaining. "Like you're afraid to let me close. But when we write..." He trails off, searching for words.

"The walls come down," I finish softly.

"Yeah." His voice is hardly more than a whisper. "On paper, we remember how to be honest with each other."

I think about all the things I've shared in those letters. I’d written of my doubts about the shop, my abandoned dreams of writing, my careful reconstruction of a life after he left. "I told you things I've never told anyone."

"I know." He takes another step closer. "Rebecca, I?—"

"Don't." I hold up a hand, stopping him. “I can't."

"I understand." He steps back, giving me space. But his eyes don't leave mine. "For what it's worth, everything I wrote was true. Every response, every shared memory. I started the letters because I couldn't bear how much distance was between us, but they became something real."

"They were real," I admit. "That's what makes this so hard."

Through the kitchen window, snow falls steadily on the apple orchard. How many summers did we spend out there, planning futures we thought were certain? Now here we stand in his grandmother's kitchen, trying to bridge a decade of silence with paper and ink and painful truths.

"I should go." I smooth his letter, setting it on the counter. "I need time to process all of this."

"Rebecca." He says my name like it's something precious. "I never stopped?—"

"Please don't." My voice wavers. "Not tonight. I can't hear that tonight."

He nods, understanding in his eyes. As I turn to leave, his voice stops me at the door.

"Will you write back?"

I pause, hand on the doorknob. "I don't know."