Nora’s Mixtapes #19 - #27
NORA
I can't see through my tears. I feel paralysed and can't do anything but hold this letter—the seventy-third letter—and feel the weight of two years of love I was kept from knowing.
While I thought he'd forgotten me, he was choosing me. While I built a life with men who didn't make me feel anything, he was writing love letters I'd never read. While I convinced myself I was better off without him, he was becoming someone who could stand beside me.
My eyes are burning as I gather the letters carefully and stack them like they're sacred texts.
Because they are.
Seventy-three weeks of his heart laid bare on paper. Seventy-three chances at us that Ollie stole and Nate protected me from knowing about.
The CDs are still in the parcel beneath the letters, each one labeled in his careful handwriting:
Nora's Mixtape #19
Nora's Mixtape #20
Through to #27.
I slide the first CD into my laptop with shaking hands and the room fills with sound.
"Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls. Then "Open Your Eyes" by Snow Patrol. “Angel” by Aerosmith. "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" by Oasis.
Songs that bring back summers and moments we shared. I open the track list file on the CD, and my breath catches.
Every song has a note beside it. A specific moment. A memory.
Iris - You said this was your favourite song when we were kids. So it was the first song I learnt to play it on guitar until my fingers bled.
Open Your Eyes - That morning after the storm when we watched the sunrise. You fell asleep on my shoulder.
Angel - The song I was listening to when you pulled me back from the edge, like you always do.
My vision blurs.
I close my eyes and I'm seventeen again.
Sitting in his Mustang with the windows down, summer air rushing past, his hand finding mine across the console. How he'd glance over at me when a song came on, searching my face like my reaction was the only thing that mattered.
Like I was the only thing that mattered.
The music shifts—something slower, sadder, achingly beautiful—and suddenly I see everything.
I see him at the wedding five years ago, lying to my face because he thought that's what would let me be happy.
I see him every three days for seven years, bringing fresh sunflowers to Jake's grave.
Growing them himself at a place I didn't know existed.
I see him building a community center in my father's name and never mentioning it. Never asking for credit or recognition.
I see him loving me quietly, patiently, impossibly, from a distance.
I see him waiting.
Always waiting for me to come back, for me to be ready. For me to choose him the way he's been choosing me all along.
And suddenly, the fog lifts and the confusion evaporates. I know exactly what I need to do.
I reach for my phone and scroll through my contacts until I find Marcus.
He answers on the second ring.
"Nora! Hey girl! Everything okay?"
“Hey, are you with Alex?" I ask, and my voice is rough from crying but steady.
"Yeah, he's right here. Why? What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong."
And I mean it.
For the first time in years, nothing is wrong. Everything funnily enough is finally, perfectly right.
"I need his help breaking a contract."
There's a pause.
Then Marcus's voice comes back, careful. "What kind of contract?"
"The kind that's keeping me in LA when I should be going home."