Letter Sixteen
It’s Tuesday, and for the first time ever, you didn’t visit.
When Vera came to tell me you hadn’t shown, I asked to place a call, but it took a few hours before it was my turn to use the phone.
During those hours, I paced and imagined the worst and fought back tears, my whole heart lodged in my throat, because if you hadn’t shown, then something horrible had happened.
And if something horrible had happened, how would I deal?
How long before I broke? How long could a person survive hell when the only thing making hell more bearable was gone?
“Oh, thank God,” you said when the call went through, and I instantly wept with relief. Your voice didn’t sound quite right—low and raspy, duller than normal. “Hey—Elliot, hey. It’s alright. I’m fine. I’ve got the flu. That’s why I couldn’t be there today.”
“I thought something bad might’ve happened to you,” I said, swiping at my face.
“I was afraid of that. Obviously, I would’ve let you know I couldn’t make it today if I were allowed to call you.”
“You told me you don’t get sick,” I accused.
“Yes. Well. It feels a bit like every illness I’ve ever avoided until now has finally caught up with me. Day before yesterday, I thought for sure I was dying.”
“Who’s taking care of you?”
“No one—your dad has it, too. Every now and then, we text to make sure the other one’s still alive. Henriette’s been leaving soups and broths at the back door.” A long pause. “You’ve no idea how badly I missed seeing you today.”
My breath caught. You missed me. “Yeah,” I whispered. “Me, too.”
“Will you ring me again on Christmas Day?”
“I’ll try, but the other girls say it’s a bitch to use the phone on Christmas.”
“In that case, can I tell you something?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Two days ago, when I firmly believed I was dying, I kept drifting back to last Christmas…with you. I could even smell the oranges, which almost definitely means my fever was too high, and I might’ve hallucinated a bit—”
I laughed.
“—but it felt like I was back there again, last Christmas, with your arm around me and your heart beating against my chest. What I told you that night—I’ve never been that open with another person, other than my therapist. I thought, I want her to know everything.
Even the worst thing. I’m done hiding from this girl. ”
There was a pause. One so long I thought I might’ve lost you.
But then you said, “And I should regret it, right? I should regret giving you something I’ve never given to anyone else.
I should regret every moment we’ve shared, not just that one.
But the longer you’re gone, the more I just…
don’t. I don’t regret any of it. And maybe I shouldn’t even be telling you this.
Maybe it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, given everything that’s happened.
Maybe it even makes me foolish. But it’s Christmas, and you’re not here, and for a few hours two days ago, I thought that Christmas might’ve been our last. So I’m telling you, anyway. ”
It took a while before I was able to speak again. “I’m so sorry I hurt you.”
It felt like the only thing I could say. And yet, somehow, still not enough.
The line went silent. “Well, in case I don’t hear from you on Sunday,” you said eventually, voice coming through even raspier than before, “Happy Christmas, Elliot.”
“Happy Christmas to you, too,” I whispered. “I hope you feel better.”
“I will,” you said, “and I’ll be there next Tuesday. You can count on it.”
December arrived—your second one with us—and I remembered pretty quickly that you were one of the few people on this planet who hates snow at Christmas (or anytime, really) when I caught you peering out the window one day, holding your morning cup of coffee and grumbling about it.
“How can you hate the snow?” I asked. “It’s like a postcard.”
Christmas wreaths hanging on the doors. Greenery and bright red bows trailing up the lampposts. Windows with golden-yellow light spilling out of them. All of it, dusted with snow.
“Well, I don’t hate it nearly as much right now,” you said. “But come January, I’m over it.”
We continued going to therapy, often rushing home to thaw by the fire and start on our homework.
Garland watched over us while we huddled on the sofa with steaming cups of tea, the magnolia-and-pinecone garland giving him that cheery quality you preferred, rather than one so formal and stiff.
You helped me study for the SAT, and I hated it, but not nearly as much as I hated coming home one bitterly cold day to find Sienna in my kitchen, sitting at the island with Michael, her legs draped over his lap as they scrolled through their phones.
I stopped mid-stride, blinking at them. “Wait a second. Did I travel back in time?”
What a weird and prophetic thing for me to say, considering what would happen the following Christmas—the one with all the oranges.
Michael rolled his eyes at me.
“You know there are other girls who would gladly go out with you,” I said to him. “And probably all of them are less of a bitch than this one.”
Sienna laughed dryly. “Nice to see you, too, Elliot.”
Nothing kickstarted my rage quite like the sight of that bitch, wearing her cropped red sweater and loose-fitting jeans, her taut midriff on display.
I walked up to Michael and greeted him with a smile, then dragged my thumb down the scar on his top lip.
He glared up at me—and so did she, which only encouraged me to do it again.
If Sienna only knew the things he and I had done together over the summer, she’d turn as red as her sweater. I half-wished I could tell her.
Actually, what I really wanted was to call her out for the way she’d deceived Michael, but I couldn’t do that without spilling your secret. So I was forced to keep all that damning knowledge to myself.
As I pulled my thumb away from Michael’s face, you tossed me a look over the island that said, Cut it out.
“How was therapy today, guys?” Sienna smiled sweetly as she glanced between us. “It’s so cute that the two of you go together.”
I ignored her question and asked one of my own. “Have you ever been to therapy, Sienna?”
That bitch took a swig from one of the water bottles Michael had given her from my fridge. “Nope,” she said with a smug smile.
“Too bad,” I said. “You’re a therapist’s dream.”
She cut her eyes at me. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I mean—”
“Okay.” You tossed an arm over my shoulders and led me away. “Let’s get started on our homework, shall we?”
Later, I deliberately left one of my textbooks downstairs so I could text Michael and ask him to bring it up to me.
“Here.” He handed me the book. When I chucked it on the other side of my bed, he narrowed his gaze.
“What’s she doing here?” I demanded. “Are you back together with her?”
Michael stuffed both hands in his pockets. “We’re just hanging out.”
“Exclusively hanging out?”
He shrugged. “Sort of.”
“What does that mean?”
“What does it matter?”
“I don’t want you seeing her.”
“Are you kidding?”
“I hate her. I want her gone.”
Michael laughed. “So you don’t want to be with me, but you don’t want me with anyone else, either? Is that how it is?”
“I don’t want you with her—just her. She’s no good for you.”
“That’s what you say about all my girlfriends.”
“Except in this case? It’s actually true.”
“Wow,” Michael said, head cocked to the side. “You finally admit it: you terrorized a bunch of perfectly nice girls, Elliot. For the fun of it.”
“Clearly, I’m a bitch, okay? I’ve done some really bitchy things. But with her, I’m right to be a bitch.”
Michael reared back, eyes flashing bright. “You’re right? I’m not ending things with her because you said so—because you think you know what’s good for me. You ripped my heart out, then had the audacity to say you did me a favor.”
“I did do you a favor.” I tossed my arms out. “Obviously.”
“Then why’d you kiss me back at the beach?
” he demanded. “Why’d you fucking come into my room and kiss me back?
Was it pity? Is that what it was? Was it guilt?
Because if you really wanted to do me a favor—if you wanted what’s best for me—you never would’ve spent ten days making me think I finally had you! ”
Chest heaving, he looked close to tears, and it tore me up inside—the guilt of hurting him. The horrible, crushing guilt.
“It wasn’t pity,” I said honestly. “It wasn’t guilt. I felt something when you kissed me, and I wanted to keep kissing you, so I did. And I loved kissing you. I loved being with you at the beach.”
“Then be with me,” he said desperately, taking a step closer to the bed.
“I’m not good for you, either.”
“I disagree.”
“Michael, I sliced my hand open at your parents’ dinner table. Most people would see that as a giant red flag.”
“Most people don’t know you the way I do.”
“Okay, I’m beginning to think you’re the one who needs therapy here. At least I’m self-aware. You’re just delusional.”
“Elliot, you could be perfect for me—if you’d finally stop punishing yourself and move on.”
I shook my head. “You don’t get it.”
“I do get it.”
“You really don’t. You don’t understand.”
“I understand you better than anyone.”
“You don’t understand this.”
“Then make me understand,” he said softly. “Talk to me.”
Why couldn’t I tell him? Why couldn’t I admit how it felt when his dad opened the office door and mine couldn’t look at me? Why couldn’t I say the words out loud?
My dad treated me like a monster when I hurt you, and I think that means I am one. I must be—because he still hasn’t set me free.
And why couldn’t he see it, too? That he deserved so much better than me?
“Or don’t,” Michael said with a sigh. “Let’s drop the whole thing because of something that happened when we were kids.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that.”
“Complicated because of Casey?”
“No.” Yes.
“I saw it, you know—when you first met him? That little spark of attraction? You’re not fooling me.”
“It isn’t like that with us.”
“Yeah, right,” he said, gaze drilling into mine.