Chapter 57
SADIE
I let myself into Joe’s house.
“Joe!” I shout.
“Back here!” he yells gruffly.
I hurry down the hall and find him sitting at his kitchen table reading a newspaper.
“Hi,” I say softly with a smile.
He looks up, studying me intently. “You found her.”
I tilt my head. “What?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead Joe smiles, and Joe never smiles at you unless he means it.
He begins to rise from the chair, and I step over to help him. He waves me off, grabbing for his walker.
“Milo left you something, but he told me I couldn’t give it to you until you were ready.”
I scrunch my brows together, my heart beginning to beat a little more quickly. “What?”
“He left a box for you. You didn’t think that boy was going to give up that easily, did you? He loves you, Sadie.”
The words land heavy, but true.
I follow Joe into Milo’s old bedroom where a box sits on the floor—a note taped to the top with my name in Milo’s handwriting.
“I’ll say this . . .” Joe pauses, blinking hard. “When that boy became mine to raise, I didn’t want to mess it up.” He clears his throat. “So I prayed. Something I rarely do.” His voice drops. “I asked God to send me help, because I wasn’t a good dad before.”
He looks past me, like he’s seeing twenty years ago.
“I took Milo to church. He came home with a grin I hadn’t seen in a long time .
. . and your name on his lips.” Joe’s eyes shine.
“Sadie Summers—you were an answer to a prayer a long time ago.” His jaw tightens.
“Thank you for giving my boy grace and love when I didn’t know how to. ”
Hot tears spill down my cheeks. Joe swipes his with the back of his hand like he’s mad at them.
“I love you, Joe,” I say as I gently wrap my arms around him.
“I love you,” he says before he clears his throat loudly. “Now, I’ll leave you.”
I nod and sink to my knees before the box, wiping my face before grabbing the note.
My hands shake as I open it.
Bookworm,
I have a memory I want to give you. After all, I told you my memory was yours.
You were so enamored with your books, hence the nickname I gave you.
The world could be crumbling away, ripping at its very seams, and you’d have never known.
You were lost in ink and paper, and there was a September day when you sat on the bleachers lost in one of those stories during football practice.
You were so focused. Your cheeks were flushed.
I can still remember the blue shirt you were wearing with yellow flowers on it.
That was the day I realized I wanted to be that ink and paper.
I wanted to be the thing you were so devoted to, so amazed by . . .
That week, after my bluster in biology class, I wrote you the first note. When you answered, I couldn’t believe it. You’d read my words and gave me some of yours.
When I left Dusty Hollow . . . when I left you . . .
The words stopped.
Then I realized a simple truth—writing to you was as much for me as it was for you.
I was scared to send you letters. I didn’t want to cause you more pain, but I wrote anyway. For me. And maybe now, they’re for you.
These are all of them in this box.
I know we can’t go back, but I can promise you that what I said was true when we climbed the water tower. There wasn’t a day you weren’t with me.
My words are yours.
My heart is yours.
Forever.
Hot Shot
I open the box and my breath hitches. Hundreds of folded notes are within. Thousands of words Milo wrote for me.
I grab for one of the smaller letters on top and unfold it. The paper is yellowed and the ink smudged.
Bookworm,
You’d hate this class. Physics is just scientific math, and I know how much you despise solving anything with numbers.
But I still look for the back of your head, for your brown hair tinted red after summer.
I hope for you to appear like magic, to turn around and smile at me.
I hope you’re smiling now. At someone. At something. You deserve happiness.
Hot Shot
I reach for another, desperate for more of him.
Bookworm,
I miss you so much. I went to church today.
It’s been a while, but there was something so familiar about sitting in a pew listening to the hymns I learned by your side.
Everyone always wanted you at the piano.
You do play so well, but do you know how beautiful your voice is?
The way it ebbs and flows with the melody, soft and rich when you close your eyes, lost to the music.
I could listen to you every day for a million lifetimes and never tire of your voice.
Hot Shot
The tears are staining the paper in my hands, leaving streaks down my face. My heart doesn’t ache. It feels ready. It feels open.
I lift another from the box, wiping my eyes before I read it.
Bookworm,
I love you. Even after all these years, I love you.
I was such a fool to leave you, to allow these years to carve a canyon between us.
You always talked about unrequited love—how it was such a tragedy in your books.
I never really understood, but I understand now, and I am more than happy to love you long after my bones have turned to dust, no matter if you love me back.
Some would say we were too young to know such love, but I know I was simply too young to understand the magnitude of it.
Hot Shot
I could read his words forever, his ink seeping into my soul, but it’s not just his words I want.
I want Milo.
He’s the only thing I’m sure about. He matters to me most.
And my dad said you hold tight to that, and the rest of life is just extra.
I laugh, the noise surprising my tears and causing them to halt.
When Milo left Dusty Hollow, when I went to college, when my dad had his accident . . .
I was waiting for Milo to choose me. To come back. To beg for my forgiveness.
It turns out I do love drama. The romantic kind.
But the truth settles over me, simple and undeniable.
I could have chosen Milo.
I could have left what I knew, what was expected of me . . .
I could have shown up at his door with a smile, and his warm grin would have spread out on his face. He wouldn’t have made me beg.
I look back inside the box, and a crisp white paper lies at the bottom of the pile of notes with bold font. I reach for it.
Try Something You’ve Never Done
Choose me—if I’m what you want.
I stand quickly, the box tipping over from my sudden action, Milo’s ink and all the ways he missed me over the last ten years at my feet. I was with him always.
And now I have a plane to catch—and a man to choose.