Chapter 32
If he had known?
If he had known?
I feel my heart pounding in my chest. What does he mean if he had known?
He did know. Didn’t he? Now I am questioning everything.
Replaying that day in Mill’s over in my head.
His mom… She said that she told him. That letter…
It was in his handwriting. I had a feeling in my gut that he would never leave me, but I had solid proof.
My heart and my gut and my mind, all at war with each other.
I don’t know what to believe, but that letter was written in his handwriting.
The words he said.
You and I are nothing alike.
I would be miserable.
I don’t want the future that I would be forced to have if I stayed with you.
He even signed it…
– Everett
My world feels like it’s collapsing. What is going on? He knew. He had to.
As my mind is crumbling, trying to recount everything that happened that day, I remember the other note he wrote me that day. The first folded rose that I have been too scared to open.
I practically run to my car and dig through my purse till I find the one I am looking for. The one labeled January 22, 2016.
I lock myself in my car, still able to see Rune and Everett playing catch.
I open his note.
January 22, 2016
Where did you run to, pretty bird?
Why did you run?
I don’t know what's going on. I can’t find you anywhere.
Ski said that my mom came to see you and then you ran.
I can’t breathe without you.
There is a heaviness in my chest without you.
I don’t want to do this without you.
Why did you run from me?
You said you never would.
Don’t run away. Not without me.
Take me with you.
Take me.
I love you.
– Ev
Ev.
Everett.
No. No. I’m your Ev, only ever your Ev.
No. He’d signed his notes Everett before. Hadn’t he? I’m sure of it.
I throw the paper haphazardly on the passenger seat. Then I grab the next one.
January 22, 2017
It’s been a year since you ran from me, pretty bird.
365 agonizing days.
Where are you?
I’ve had Gage searching. Every day. We are looking.
I spent months searching relentlessly, but I couldn’t find you.
I had to move on with my life.
But how could I?
There is no winning without you.
I didn’t want our dream without you.
I’m in pre-med classes now.
Living a future I never wanted.
A future without you.
365 days of fucking hell.
I went back to Mill’s today. Ski misses you. He hasn’t heard from you either.
What did we do to you to make you leave us?
Where did my Leora go?
I love you.
– Ev
I can’t breathe. I’m suffocating. He was looking for me? Of course he was looking for me.
I dial Cole.
“Hey babe, what's up?”
“Cole. I need you to pick Rune up from the baseball fields. Right now. I’m freaking out, and I need…I don’t fucking know, but I need to be alone. Can you come get him, please?”
The panic in her voice is clear. “Are you okay? Yeah, I’m on my way, but LJ, talk to me.”
I hear her keys rattling. Then her door shut. Then her car start. Once I know she is coming, I lose it.
“Cole, I—I don’t—I don’t…" I can’t even form a sentence. “Just… I’ll see you soon.”
I hang up.
I open the third letter.
January 22, 2018
Two years, pretty bird.
I miss you.
Every fucking day, I miss you.
What did I do?
I’m losing hope that I will ever find you.
My life is dull, my light gone.
Ski still says you haven’t contacted him.
I’m sitting here now at Mill’s, watching him make us both Leos.
Nothing is the same without you.
Are you alive?
Are you okay?
Did you move on?
Do you love someone else?
No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.
But I still look. Every day, Gage is searching. I am searching.
My heart races every time I see a mess of dark curls walking down the street.
But it’s not you.
Never you.
I love you.
– Ev
The tears are overflowing now. These letters, they sound like he had no idea why I left. He told me to never contact him, that we were done. That he didn’t want me. That he was choosing Natasha. But did he?
January 22, 2019
Three years, Leo.
I feel so lost without you. Broken.
I’m not the same without you.
My dreams are gone. My hopes and desires. Everything I saw for us. Gone.
Just like you.
Where are you?
Why won’t you come back to me?
What did I do?
Just come home so I can fix it.
Please.
I love you.
– Ev
I’m in a panic now. My hands shake as I try to open the delicate notes without ripping them.
January 22, 2020
Four years.
Four fucking years.
Why?
It doesn’t matter.
I’ll be waiting for you.
I love you.
– Ev
The next.
January 22, 2021
Five years, pretty bird.
Five years, you have been gone from me.
I feel you in the evening breeze as I walk through the city streets. Like we used to walk to Mill’s.
Each morning, I taste you in the cinnamon and honey that I still need in my coffee.
I smell you every time I walk into a coffee shop.
And when I close my eyes before bed, your laughter echoes in my head.
In the early morning, in the moment before I am fully awake,
I feel you.
I taste you.
I smell you.
Then I wake completely from my dream, into my nightmare.
I hope that wherever you are, you don’t feel me, don’t taste me, don’t smell me.
Because this is fucking torture.
I love you.
– Ev
January 22, 2022
Six years.
I’m so fucking angry, Leo.
For the last six years, I have racked my brain.
What did I do?
What didn’t I do?
The only answer I can come up with…
Nothing and everything.
I supported you. I was patient with you. I lifted you up.
You heard me. You saw me. You consumed me.
And then you left me.
Fuck, Leo.
Why did you do this to us?
– Ev
I notice that this is the first note where he didn’t end with I love you. Is this when he fell out of love with me? When his anger overwhelmed his love?
January 22, 2023
Seven years.
I told myself I wasn’t going to write to you anymore.
But today I saw a young girl, around 14, who had cigarette burns on her arms.
And I thought of you.
Actually, something happens every day that makes me think of you.
You haunt me.
Let me go, Leo.
Please.
– Ev
My lungs heave, trying to suck in oxygen through my sobs.
I broke him. I have one more letter. One more, but I don’t know if I can bring myself to read it.
My heart-wings in my chest that once fluttered so vividly for Ev have been clipped.
They feel heavy. With each letter, I feel myself being buried deeper and deeper into his sorrow.
I hold the last letter in my hands, ready to tear it to pieces, but I can’t. I deserve this. I deserve this torture.
January 22, 2024
Eight years, Leo.
I hope you’re happy.
Cause I am numb.
Ski told me I should let you go.
But I told you I never would.
But what do my words and promises matter?
You didn’t believe them.
You didn’t believe in us.
I can’t do this anymore, pretty bird.
—Ev
A knock on my window pulls me from the waves of grief that flooded my lungs.
It’s Cole.
I open the door and practically jump into her arms.
“Jesus, are you okay?”
“No.”
“What do you need from me?” She pulls back and looks me in the eyes. “Talk to me, LJ. What can I do?”
I swallow the lump in my throat, taking a deep breath in to calm myself so I can get words out.
“I need you to take Rune. Take him tonight. I need to be alone. I need to think.”
I’d told her about Everett coming back. To my surprise, she’d been actually for him forming a relationship with Rune. She’d said she knew what it was like growing up without a dad, and even if Ev was late, at least he was here now.
“Okay. I can do that.”
Just like Everett, she doesn’t push me to talk. She just trusts that when I’m ready, I’ll come to her. But I didn’t come to Everett, did I? I ran.
I watch as she goes up to Rune. Something she said must have Everett worried, because his eyes race to meet my own. Then he is stalking toward me. He looks pissed… or scared. Both. I don't know anymore. He has learned to mask his emotions. Where once I could read him so easily, now I am lost.
I take a step back, reach for my door handle. Panic fills his eyes at my retreat.
“Leo! Goddammit!” He begins to jog now. Chasing after me.
I throw myself into the car. I can’t talk to him right now. I can’t. I need to do this on my own.
Before I can shut my door, he catches it, risking his fingers to stop my escape. He pulls the door open, leans down so he is eye level with me, but before he can speak, before he can enchant me with his deep, soothing voice, before he can fix all my worries with his love…
“Phoenix.”
“No. Leo. Don’t do this to me again.” But his actions contradict his words because he lets my door go. And I slam it closed, driving away from him.
Have you ever been driving and then suddenly you arrive at your destination with no memory of actually driving?
Same.
Before I even realize, I am sitting in my parking spot. Hands gripping my steering wheel. My breath coming in hard pants. Then my keys are sliding into my lock, my door opening. It’s like I am blinking through time. One moment I am here—blink—then I’m there—blink—then I’m nowhere.
I run to my room, pull my coffee can out from under my bed, and dump it all over the floor.
I riffle through every. Single. Note. Opening them all, looking for proof that he has signed more than one note Everett.
Looking for proof that I didn’t run from my soulmate for eight years because of five extra letters.
Ev.
Ev.
Ev.
Ev.
Ev.
Ev.
Ev.
Ev.
Ev.
Ev.
Ev.
Ev.
Ev.
Ev.
Ev.
Ev.
Everett.
Forty-nine total he signed Ev. Only one is signed Everett.
I read it again, feeling the memory in my chest, hurting just as much as the first time.
I’m a mess of tears. Sitting on my floor, his love, his notes, his lies surrounding me.
But they weren’t lies, were they?
My door slams open, and I jump. He stands in my doorway, like a fallen angel. Once so perfect, so pure… Now he stands there as a man who broke me, left me…but did he? Or…did I leave him?
“I won’t let you run from me anymore, Leo. I would rather fucking die.”
His eyes fall to the letter in my hand.
“What is that?”
He kneels down and takes it from me.
Then his eyes shoot to mine, fury like I have never seen before. The devil was once an angel. Fallen. Wings clipped. What made this man fall? Me.
“Is this why you left me?”
I nod.
“You believed this?”
I nod.
“When have I ever signed my name Everett to you?”
I look into his eyes.
Betrayed. By who? Me.
“Never.”