Chapter 18 Nate #2
The closet is small and crowded—coats, shoes, the detritus of ten years in one place.
I lift Mr. Darcy off my shoulders—he protests with an indignant meow—and reach up to the top shelf.
The first box is shoes, like she said. The second one is heavier.
I get it down and the lid shifts, revealing a stack of papers and envelopes inside.
I’m about to set it aside when I see my name.
Nate.
Written in Cara’s handwriting on a cream-colored envelope.
My heart stops.
For a long moment, I just stare at it. My name in her looping script. An envelope that’s been opened and resealed, the paper soft at the edges like it’s been handled a thousand times.
I shouldn’t open it. It’s not mine to read. But my hands are already moving, pulling the envelope from the box, and inside—
Inside is a letter I recognize.
Because I wrote it.
Cara,
I don’t know if you’ll read this. You haven’t answered my calls in two months. You haven’t answered anyone’s calls. Theo’s a mess. Lucas pretends he isn’t but I can tell. And me—
I don’t do this. I don’t write letters. I don’t talk about feelings. You know that better than anyone. But I can’t sleep. I can’t think. I need to know what I did wrong.
Was it something I said? Something I didn’t say? I know I’m not good at this. I know I’m not easy to love. I hold everything too tight and I don’t know how to let people in and maybe that’s why you left. Maybe I wasn’t enough. Maybe I was too much. Maybe—
I just need to know if you’re okay. That’s all. I need to know you’re safe and you’re okay and that you didn’t leave because of something I did.
Please, Cara. Just tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it.
I’ll do anything. I’ll be anything. Just come home.
Nate
My hands are shaking.
I remember writing this. Six months after she left, sitting at my kitchen table at three in the morning, drunk enough to be honest. I remember the way the words felt like bleeding, like ripping open my chest and laying everything bare on paper.
I’d never done anything like it before. Haven’t done anything like it since.
I remember sealing it, mailing it, and then spending weeks checking the mailbox for a response that never came.
She never wrote back.
But she kept it. For ten years, she kept it. The paper is worn thin in places, the creases deep from being folded and unfolded again and again. She must have read it hundreds of times.
And underneath my letter—
More envelopes. All with my name on them. All in her handwriting.
My breath catches.
I pull them out with trembling fingers. There are dates on each one. Some are thick, pages and pages. Others are thin, just a few lines. All of them sealed. All of them never sent.
The first is from ten years ago. Right after she would have gotten my letter.
Nate,
I got your letter. I’ve read it a hundred times. I don’t know how to respond because everything I want to say will make me come home, and I can’t come home. Not yet.
You didn’t do anything wrong. You have to believe that. This isn’t about you or Theo or Lucas. This is about me. I don’t know who I am outside of Honeyridge Falls. I don’t know who I am without the three of you telling me I’m enough.
I need to find out. I need to know I can stand on my own before I let myself fall into your arms again.
I love you. I love all of you. That’s why I have to stay away.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
Cara
She never sent it.
My chest is so tight I can barely breathe. She wrote back. She wrote back that same month, and she loved me, and she was scared, and she never sent it.
I pull out the next one. Five years ago.
Nate,
I almost came home today. I had the plane ticket in my hand. I was going to surprise everyone at the Harvest Festival.
But then I thought about how long it’s been. Five years. How do I explain five years of silence? How do I look you in the eye and ask you to forgive me for disappearing?
You’ve probably moved on by now. You probably have someone else. Someone easier. Someone who doesn’t run.
I hope you’re happy. Even if it’s not with me, I hope you’re happy.
I miss you so much it hurts to breathe.
Cara
Five years ago. She almost came home five years ago. She had a plane ticket. And she convinced herself I’d moved on, that I didn’t want her anymore, so she stayed away.
I never moved on. I never even tried.
There’s another from three years ago.
Nate,
I sold my first book today. It’s about a pack. An omega who runs away and three alphas who never stop loving her.
I wrote it about us.
I should tell you. I should call. But it’s been seven years now, and every year the silence gets heavier. How do you break seven years of nothing? What do you even say?
“Sorry I abandoned you, but I wrote a book about it”?
I’m such a coward.
I love you. I never stopped.
Cara
She wrote a book about us. A book about an omega who runs and alphas who wait. I’ve heard Theo read it out loud, mocking the dramatic parts, and I never knew—I never realized—
It was us. It was always us.
And one more. Dated six months ago.
Nate,
I dreamed about you last night. About all of you. We were at Grandma’s kitchen table, like we used to be, and you were laughing—actually laughing—and Theo was stealing cookies off the cooling rack, and Lucas was pretending to scold him, and I was just... there. Like I belonged.
I woke up crying.
Ten years, Nate. I’ve been gone ten years and I still dream about you like I left yesterday.
Sometimes I think about what would have happened if I’d just answered the phone. If I’d sent one of these letters. If I’d been brave enough to come home instead of convincing myself you’d all moved on.
You probably have. You should have. God knows I don’t deserve anything else.
But I can’t stop wondering. Can’t stop wishing I could go back and do it all differently.
I love you. I never stopped.
I don’t think I ever will.
Cara
The pages blur. I blink, and something wet hits the paper.
Oh.
I’m crying.
I don’t cry. I can’t remember the last time I cried. But there are tears on my face now, dripping onto letters that span a decade, written by a woman who loved me enough to leave and never figured out how to come back.
She never stopped.
All this time—the silence, the distance, the years of thinking she forgot about me—she never stopped loving me.
And she was afraid. Just like I’m afraid. Trapped by the same walls I’ve been hiding behind, too scared to reach out because what if it was too late?
“Nate?”
Her voice comes from behind me. Footsteps in the hallway—she must have come to check why I’m taking so long.
“Nate, did you find the—”
She stops. I turn around, and I know what she sees. Me, on my knees in her closet, holding her letters, tears streaming down my face.
Her eyes go wide. Then they drop to the papers in my hands, and all the color drains from her face.
“Oh god.” Her voice breaks. “You found them.”
I can’t speak. My throat is closed up, my hands shaking around paper that’s ten years old and worn soft from being read over and over.
She kept it. She kept my letter. She wrote back and never sent it and she kept it.
“Nate.” Just my name. Barely a whisper.
Something in me snaps.
I’m across the room before I know I’m moving. My hands find her face, her jaw, and I’m kissing her—hard, desperate, ten years of silence breaking open all at once.
She gasps against my mouth and then she’s kissing me back, her fingers fisting in my shirt, pulling me closer. She tastes like salt and coffee and home, and a sound tears out of me—low, rough, something between a growl and a groan.
Her back hits the wall. I crowd into her, one hand sliding into her hair, the other gripping her hip hard enough to bruise.
I can’t get close enough. Can’t stop touching her.
Every wall I’ve built is crumbling and I don’t care, I don’t care, because she never stopped loving me and I never stopped loving her and we wasted ten goddamn years being afraid.
“Nate—” She pulls back just enough to breathe, her eyes wet, her lips swollen. “The letters, I should have sent them, I should have—”
“Don’t.” I press my forehead to hers. “Don’t apologize. Just... don’t.”
Her scent is everywhere. Sweeter than before. Thicker. Want and relief and yes. And underneath it—slick. She’s getting wet for me and my whole body responds, every instinct I’ve been suppressing for weeks roaring to life.
Mine. She’s mine. She was always mine.
“I never stopped.” The words scrape out of me, raw and wrecked. “Not for one day. Not for one fucking second.”
She makes a sound—half sob, half laugh—and pulls me back down to her.
This kiss is different. Slower. Deeper. Her hands slide under my shirt, palms flat against my stomach, and I shudder at the contact. Skin on skin. Finally. Finally.
I want to devour her. Want to drop to my knees and bury my face between her thighs until she screams. Want to knot her so deep she feels me for days.
But more than that—more than the want burning through my veins—I want to do this right.
“Cara.” I pull back, breathing hard. Her eyes are glazed, her chest heaving, and it takes everything I have not to just take. “Tell me to stop.”
“What?”
“Tell me to stop and I will.” My voice is barely human. “But if we keep going, I’m not—” I swallow hard. “I don’t know if I can be gentle. Not right now. Not after—”
She cuts me off by grabbing my shirt and hauling me back to her mouth.
“I don’t want gentle,” she breathes against my lips. “I want you. All of you. The way you used to—”
I growl—actually growl—and lift her off her feet. Her legs wrap around my waist like they belong there. Like the last ten years never happened.
“Bedroom,” I manage, already moving.
I carry her there with my mouth on her neck, her pulse pounding against my lips. She’s making soft, desperate sounds, her fingers digging into my shoulders, her scent so thick and sweet I can barely think.
I kick the door open. Mr. Darcy yowls in protest and bolts off the bed.
I don’t care. I can’t care about anything except the woman in my arms and the way she’s looking at me—like I’m everything, like I’ve always been everything, like ten years of distance couldn’t touch what we have.
I lower her onto the bed and she pulls me down with her, and I go willingly, helplessly, because where else would I go? Where else have I ever wanted to be?
“Nate.” She frames my face with her hands, thumbs brushing away tears I didn’t realize were still falling. “I love you. I never stopped. I need you to know that.”
I turn my head, press a kiss to her palm. The words are stuck in my throat, too big to get out.
So I show her instead.
I’ve got all night. And I’m going to use every second of it.