Chapter 9
RAUL
…present day
Sitting in my cell, the letter feels heavier than it should. Olivia's letter. The one I've been staring at for so long that the paper almost feels like it's staring back. It still carries the faintest trace of her scent, and that alone has been enough to keep me from opening it.
Every time I reach for it, my chest locks up. Every time I get close, I tuck it away like I'm afraid the truth inside will cut me open for good. God, I'm pathetic. It's just a letter. Her words are already there, waiting for me. All I have to do is read them.
I finally peel it open, slow enough to feel every second of it.
Time goes still.
I take a breath and don't even realize I'm holding it until I'm halfway through the first line.
Raul,
Your dad told me where you were and how to reach you.
I wish you'd felt comfortable enough to tell me what was happening.
I wish I didn't have to find out this way.
I wish things between us were okay. I wish we hadn't left that night the way we did.
But I'm done wishing. I'm sorry, and I hope you can forgive me.
I really meant it when I said I loved you.
Love, Olivia
I read the last line again and again until the words stop feeling like words and start feeling like a wound. My chest tightens so hard it's almost painful. She wrote me. She really wrote me. And somehow that hurts more than if she hadn't.
Because now I know I did this. I pushed her far enough away that she had to write me like I was already gone.
I don't deserve her love. I don't deserve the tenderness in her apology, or the fact that she still offered me forgiveness when I gave her nothing but damage. She should be with someone whole. Someone steady. Someone who doesn't leave wreckage in every room he walks into.
Olivia deserves the world. She deserved better than the chaos I brought into her life, better than the silence, better than being made to wonder what she meant to me while I was busy tearing everything apart.
I loved her enough to ruin her peace. That's what I keep coming back to. I loved her enough to know I had to let her go.
Because I hurt everyone I love. That's the truth I can't outrun. Diego. My dad. Aunt Val. Everyone who's ever tried to hold me up ends up carrying more than they should. I wasn't going to do that to Olivia. I couldn't be the weight she had to drag behind her.
Someone had to take the fall, and I made damn sure it was me.
The last time I saw her, I knew I had to push her away. I told myself it was mercy. I told myself I was saving her. But reading her letter makes it feel less like mercy and more like cowardice.
A throat clears beside me.
Carl.
"You good, man?" he asks softly.
My jaw aches when I realize how hard I've been clenching it. My fists are balled so tight my knuckles have gone white.
"Yeah," I say, but my voice comes out rough and broken. "Just a rough letter."
"Girl troubles?"
"Something like that."
He studies me for a second, then gives me a look that's almost sad. "Take your own advice, man. Tell her how you feel."
I laugh once, but it comes out empty. "The best thing I can do for her is let her go. She doesn't need an anchor like me dragging her down."
I stare at the letter until the words blur.
Love, Olivia.
That part keeps hitting me like a fist to the ribs. Not because I don't believe her. Because I do. Because she gave me something real and I treated it like something fragile I had no right to touch. I held it in my hands, felt it breathing there between us, and still I let it slip.
My throat tightens. My eyes burn, but I don't let anything fall. I don't get to fall apart. Not when I'm the reason half the damage in my life exists in the first place.
I fold the letter once, then unfold it again, like maybe the crease will change the meaning. Like maybe if I press hard enough, I can force the past to rewrite itself. It doesn't.
I think about that night so clearly it makes my stomach twist. Olivia standing there, looking at me like I was still someone worth believing in.
I remember how badly I wanted to reach for her, how badly I wanted to say her name and tell her the truth.
To tell her all the ugly, stupid, ruined parts of me that I kept hidden because I was scared she'd look at me the way everyone else eventually did.
So I made the choice for her.
I shoved her away before she could decide for herself. Before she could see how broken I really was. Before she could get trapped under the weight of everything I carry.
That's all I ever do, isn't it? Leave people with versions of me that hurt less because they're smaller. Easier. Safer. The coward's version of love. Keep your distance. Don't say too much. Don't ask to be held. Don't let anyone see how badly you need them.
But Olivia did see.
That's the part that hurts most.
She saw me, and I still let her go.
I drag a hand over my face, rough and useless, and for a second I can almost hear her voice saying my name. Soft. Certain. Like it meant something good. Like I could still be something good if I tried hard enough.
I couldn't even do that.
I think about Diego and the way he never stopped showing up, even when I made it hard.
Even when I turned my pain into everybody else's problem.
He kept picking me up anyway. Olivia tried too, in her own way.
And I repaid both of them by acting like love was something I had to survive instead of something I was supposed to return.
A laugh slips out of me, except it isn't funny at all. It's ugly. Broken.
"Pathetic," I mutter to no one.
Carl shifts in the bunk across from me, but I don't look at him. I can't. If I do, I might have to admit how close I am to losing it.
Because the worst part is this: Olivia didn't write to yell at me or criticize me. She wrote to forgive me.
That should feel like relief.
Instead it feels like punishment.
She's done the one thing I never thought I deserved. She reached across the distance I made, and I'm sitting here holding the proof that I ruined something precious and still, somehow, she was kinder than I was.
I press the letter to my chest before I can stop myself.
I don't deserve this. I don't deserve her. I don't deserve the way my heart still reacts to her name like it's the only thing that ever made sense.
And that's what breaks me.
Not the fact that she loved me.
The fact that I knew it was real and still chose fear over it.