Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Mara
My vision blurs before I reach the postscript.
I press the heels of my palms against my eyes like pressure will stop the flood. It doesn’t. The tears slip out anyway. Stupid waterworks.
“Can someone love this much?” My voice cracks, and I sniff, trying to find air. “They were kids. Kids.”
Sixteen and eighteen.
Mila is eight.
Half the age Lina was in this letter.
The thought rushes through me, unexpected and unsettling, like my body isn’t built for holding something this big.
My lungs hitch, then try to catch up. Sam and I were older.
We didn’t have war or oceans or weeks without letters.
We had cracked schedules, mismatched dreams, piles of laundry, and all the ordinary frustrations that come with trying to love someone while still figuring out who we were.
And still . . . losing him shattered me.
“How is it possible to feel that much at sixteen?” I whisper, mostly to myself. “How did she survive losing something like that? Did they break up because they realized they wanted different things?”
I don’t expect an answer, but Alec speaks anyway.
“I’m pretty sure he died.”
I whip my head toward him. “Why are you assuming that?”
He exhales—long, apologetic, like the regret hits him a second too late.
“Alec,” I say, wiping at my face even though it does nothing. “You can’t just drop something like that and expect me not to ask more questions.”
“I know.” He rubs the back of his neck, gaze lowering. “I shouldn’t have said it that way.”
“Then say it the way you meant to.”
He hesitates. Then he looks at me—really looks—eyes darker than the misty evening behind him.
“You’re a lot like her, you know?” He says quietly. “Pretty similar.”
My breath catches. “What does that mean?”
“Curious,” he murmurs. “When she wanted to know about my life with the band, she’d share something first. It was her way of opening the door.”
I swallow. “Something private?”
He nods. “At my age, she assumed I should be married. Or twice divorced.” A humorless huff leaves him. “She wanted to know who broke my heart. So she told me the love of her life died before her seventeenth birthday.”
The words hit me like a slow bruise blooming from the inside.
My mouth trembles.
My eyes burn all over again.
I press my fingers to my lips, as if touching my own skin might keep everything inside from spilling out all at once.
“She was a child,” I whisper. “A child who had to bury her future.”
My voice wobbles. The tears come harder, falling in a way that tells the truth before I can.
Alec shifts—not toward me, exactly, but close enough for me to sense him at my side. His hand twitches once, a quick, involuntary movement, like instinct overruled by restraint.
I stare down at the letter again, my fingers trembling around its softened edges.
“Lina carried this alone,” I say, the realization scraping its way through me. “All these years . . . she never had another version of him. No new memories. No chapters. Just this boy she loved and couldn’t keep.”
My throat closes.
A breath escapes—thin, uneven, and impossible to swallow back down.
“I don’t think I can keep reading these letters,” I confess.
Alec’s hand finds mine.
The touch is light—barely there—but something inside me eases. My lungs find a slower rhythm, like his skin against mine reminds them how to function. It makes no sense. And yet it’s real.
“People think teenagers don’t feel things deeply,” I say, tears sliding fast now. “They’re wrong. God, they’re so wrong.”
He nods once—quiet, certain. “Yeah.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?” My voice breaks apart on the question. “Why didn’t she tell anyone?”
“That’s what the letters are for,” he says in a low voice.
Then, carefully—almost like he’s checking for permission—he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.
“She probably couldn’t carry the loss of him and everything she dreamed about.
Can you imagine wanting a little boy with red hair and then ending up with a niece who looked just like the life she lost? ”
I blink, startled.
That possibility had never crossed my mind.
“You think . . . when I grew older, she decided it was better to keep some distance?” My voice thins. “I was . . .”
“You were what?” he asks gently.
“Sick.” I swallow. “My parents divorced two years before. Mom didn’t have insurance, and I was in and out of hospitals.”
His expression shifts.
“Sorry you went through that,” he says softly.
“She was my favorite aunt,” I continue. “And then she just . . . disappeared. Mom eventually got a settlement from the divorce and handled the bills. But maybe Lina left because she couldn’t handle seeing someone my age sick. Maybe it brought everything back.”
A breath shakes loose from me.
“She must’ve loved him so much. And maybe I reminded her of what she couldn’t have.”
“She did love him,” he says. “You can read it. You feel it in every line. It moves through the page like music.”
I close my eyes.
I press the letter to my chest, tears slipping down my jaw, and breathe—a slow, uneven effort—trying to make room for the girl Lina once was, for the boy she lost, and for the version of myself finally understanding what she carried in silence.
And then my mind drifts—to Sam.
To our last real conversation. The raised voices. Both of us worn down. Him promising he’d be home before midnight. Me hovering too much, him needing space, maybe a break.
Then the call. The way the words “car accident” hung between us, turning everything inside me into fog.
We never wrote letters—never had time for that kind of devotion.
Lina had pages marked with ink and promises.
She had something to hold.
I don’t.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I reach for another envelope.
This one is hers. October 1967.
The paper is thinner, worn at the fold. There’s a faint smudge near the top corner—like someone touched it with damp fingers years ago.
Alec’s hand, still near mine, twitches again.
I look at him.
He doesn’t move away.
I unfold the letter.