Chapter 13
?
— Indira —
The envelope was waiting in my mailbox when I got home Monday evening, wedged between a credit card offer and a notice about building maintenance. Plain white, no return address, just my name in careful block letters that didn’t match any handwriting I recognized.
I carried it upstairs to my apartment, tossing my bag on the couch before examining it more closely. Something about it felt deliberate—the weight of the paper, the care taken with the address. This wasn’t junk mail.
My stomach dropped before I’d even opened it. Some instinct, maybe, or just the paranoia that came from having spent months trying to disappear. Only a handful of people knew this address. Priya. My employer’s HR department. Vaughn. Emma, Sarah, and a few other Nashville friends.
And apparently, someone else.
I tore it open with hands that weren’t quite steady.
The letter was typed, not handwritten, but signed at the bottom in a familiar scrawl: Jacob.
My heart hammered against my ribs. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t think. Could only stare at that name—not Dutch, but Jacob.
His real name. The name I’d whispered against his skin in the dark, the name that had felt like a secret between us when everyone else called him by his road name.
How dare he? How dare he track me down at home, invade the life I’d built without him?
But even as the anger flared, something else flickered beneath it. Curiosity. And underneath that, something I didn’t want to name.
I sank onto the couch and started reading.
Indira,
I’m not writing this to ask you to come back. I’m not writing to make excuses or explain why I did what I did. I’m writing because you deserved the truth, and I was too much of a coward to give it to you when we were together.
I was raised to believe that women were supposed to accept whatever men dished out and be grateful for it.
My father cheated on my mother for forty years, and she stayed because she thought she had no other choice.
I watched that my whole life and thought it was normal. Thought it was just how things worked.
You were asking for basic respect and fidelity, and I couldn’t give you either because I didn’t understand what they meant.
I thought love was about possession—about having someone who belonged to me.
I didn’t understand that love is about choosing someone, every day, and making sure they never doubt that choice.
I gave you the illusion of commitment. I let you believe you were special to me while I was still fucking other women behind your back. That wasn’t love. That was selfishness dressed up as affection.
When you walked in on me with Crystal, I saw myself through your eyes for the first time. And I hated what I saw.
I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m not asking for anything. I just wanted you to know that you were right to leave. You deserved better than what I gave you, and I’m sorry I didn’t figure that out until it was too late.
I hope you’re happy. I hope Nashville is everything you wanted it to be. I hope you’ve found someone who treats you the way you deserve to be treated.
Jacob
I read the letter once, twice, three times. Then I set it down on the coffee table and stared at it like it might explode.
This wasn’t the Dutch I remembered. The Dutch I’d known would have shown up at my door demanding to talk as soon as Glitch gave him my location, made excuses about club culture and family traditions.
Told me I was overreacting, that I was being dramatic, that this was just how things worked in his world and I needed to accept it. Club business.
That Dutch wouldn’t have admitted he was wrong. Called what he did selfishness. Said I deserved better.
This letter was... different. Honest in a way that made my chest ache. He wasn’t making excuses or asking for forgiveness. He was just acknowledging that I’d been right all along.
When you walked in on me with Crystal, I saw myself through your eyes for the first time.
I could still see it. The image was burned into my memory no matter how hard I’d tried to forget—Dutch bent over Crystal on his desk, her legs wrapped around him, his hands gripping her hips.
The wet sound of skin on skin. The smell of sex that hit me the moment I opened the door.
And his face when he turned and saw me standing there—not guilty, not ashamed, just annoyed. Like I was interrupting something.
I’ve been thinking about this pussy all day.
Those words had haunted me for months. Had he been thinking about Crystal while I was on a plane back from my business trip, excited to surprise him? Had he been counting down the hours until he could fuck her?
This letter suggested something different. Something I couldn’t quite name.
I was too much of a coward to give it to you when we were together.
I picked up the letter again, searching for the manipulation I knew had to be there.
The subtle pressure, the veiled demands, the expectation that I’d come running back now that he’d said the right words.
That was Dutch’s playbook—say whatever it took to get what he wanted, then go right back to doing whatever the hell he pleased.
But there was nothing like that here. No “I’ve changed, give me another chance.” No “I can’t live without you.” No pressure at all. Just an apology and a wish for my happiness.
I hope you’ve found someone who treats you the way you deserve to be treated.
Vaughn’s face flashed through my mind. Sweet, talented Vaughn who made me laugh and looked at me like I was the most interesting woman in the room.
Who texted me good morning every day and asked about my work and remembered the little details I mentioned in passing.
Who had never, not once, made me feel like I was competing for his attention.
We’d spent the weekend together—his gig on Friday night, brunch on Saturday, a lazy Sunday afternoon at my apartment watching movies and making out on the couch like teenagers. It had been easy. Comfortable. The kind of relationship I’d always wanted but never thought I could have.
And yet.
I looked at the letter again, at the familiar scrawl of Jacob’s signature, and felt something twist in my chest. Something I’d spent months trying to bury.
My phone buzzed with a text from Emma: Coffee tomorrow? Need to hear about your weekend with Vaughn.
I typed back a quick Yes and set the phone aside, but I couldn’t stop staring at the letter.
The thing was, Dutch had never been a bad boyfriend. If he had been, leaving would have been easy. I would have walked away and never looked back, the way I’d walked away from mediocre relationships before.
Dutch had built me a reading nook because I’d mentioned once that I wanted one. He’d remembered my coffee order. He’d held me when I cried about my mother without trying to fix anything.
And then he’d destroyed all of it. By making me feel like a fool for ever believing I was special to him.
I gave you the illusion of commitment.
At least now I knew it had been an illusion. At least now I understood that the man I’d fallen in love with had been wearing a mask.
But this letter... this letter felt like something else. Like maybe there was a real person underneath the mask. Someone capable of honesty, of accountability, of genuine remorse.
Or maybe it was just a better mask.
I folded the letter carefully and put it in my nightstand drawer, next to the journal I’d been keeping since I moved to Nashville. I had work in the morning. A presentation to finish. A life to live that didn’t revolve around Dutch.
But I found myself pulling the letter out three more times before I finally fell into a restless sleep, Dutch’s gray eyes haunting my dreams.
?
“You seem distracted,” Emma observed the next evening as we settled into our usual corner booth for coffee and a catch up. “Everything okay? How was the weekend with Vaughn?”
“Define okay,” I said, stirring my latte unnecessarily. “The weekend was great. Vaughn is... he’s really great.”
“But?”
I hesitated. Emma knew about my past—knew I’d left a relationship in Oregon because the guy had cheated on me.
But she didn’t know the details. Didn’t know about the MC, the club girls, the whole world I’d escaped from.
I’d kept that part deliberately vague, not wanting to explain the lifestyle, not wanting to see the judgment in her eyes.
“I got a letter yesterday,” I said finally. “From my ex.”
Emma’s eyebrows shot up. “The one from Oregon? The one you left because—”
“Because he was cheating on me, yes.” I pulled the letter from my purse and slid it across the table. “I need an objective opinion.”
Emma took the letter, her expression shifting from curiosity to protectiveness. I watched her read, saw the way her jaw tightened at certain parts, the way her eyes widened at others. When she finished, she read it again, slower this time.
“Wow,” she said finally.
“That’s it? Wow?”
“I mean... this isn’t what I expected from a guy who cheated on you.” She refolded the letter carefully, handling it like it was something fragile. “It’s actually pretty mature. Self-aware. He’s not making excuses or trying to get you back. He’s just... apologizing.”
“That’s what I thought. Which is why I’m confused.”
“Because?”
“The man I knew wasn’t capable of this kind of self-reflection.
” I took the letter back, running my fingers over the crisp edges.
“He was arrogant, entitled, convinced that his way of life was normal and I was the problem for not accepting it. He came from this whole... culture where men did whatever they wanted and women were expected to put up with it. It was like they lived in a different world with different rules.”
Emma leaned back in her chair, studying me. “You’ve never really told me much about him.”