Letter Seven #3
He’d never tell me anything beyond how surprised and happy he’d been when I came out a girl instead of the boy they expected. That holding me for the first time was the single greatest moment of his life.
His life. He was happy.
But what about her? How did she feel?
When I asked, he changed the subject. He shut it down.
“You honestly think it’s her?” I asked, because I needed someone to confirm it again, badly wanting it to be true.
“Yeah,” Michael said, his gaze brushing over my face. Then he added, voice little more than a whisper, “She’s beautiful.”
This funny little feeling blossomed in the pit of my stomach. Did he mean to say that I was beautiful, too?
“But I’m this walking reminder of the woman who left us, and my dad has to look at me every day. That’s got to be hard on him, right?”
“You’re his daughter,” Michael said. “I’m sure he loves you more than he ever loved her.”
I stroked her face. “She doesn’t look like a horrible person here—not like someone who’d abandon her own baby.
Not like someone who’s cold and heartless, like my dad claims. She looks normal.
Except apparently she wasn’t. And I’m not normal, either.
All the bad stuff I’ve done? Stabbing you that time? None of that’s normal.”
“Elliot,” Michael said, brushing a tear from my cheek, “you were a kid. You made a mistake. You went to a bunch of therapy after it—and so did I—but it’s in the past now. You’re not a psychopath, okay?”
My stomach clenched at the hard tone of his voice. I dropped my gaze to the picture again, choking back the lump of regret clawing up my throat.
“There are other pictures here, too. Look,” he said softly, fanning out the photos.
He pointed to one of our moms leaning shoulder to shoulder against a brick wall.
They made an unlikely pair, his mom and mine.
Libby, country-club perfection in her pale pink polo and pleated white miniskirt, with my mom, wearing a leather jacket and baggy black cargo pants, looking like the type of girl who’d break into a country club just to burn it to the ground.
“Wait.” I picked up one of my mom with another girl, both of them standing in a hazy bar of some kind, leaning back against a counter, dressed exactly alike. Tight black t-shirts. Short black skirts. Black aprons like waitresses wear. “Who’s this?”
“I don’t know,” Michael said. “There’s nothing written on the back.”
I studied the picture more closely. The other girl was gorgeous. Dark hair, cut short. Bright eyes. Big smile. Kind face. Something about her struck me as vaguely familiar. “They almost look—they could almost pass for sisters.”
“I thought so, too,” Michael said. “They were coworkers, I guess. Maybe friends.”
Next, I picked up a photo of Nic and John, standing in front of an old Gothic-style chapel.
They were flanked by bright orange maple trees, John’s arm tossed around my dad’s shoulders, both of them laughing on a pretty fall day.
As a teenager, John bore a strong resemblance to Michael.
The dark blonde hair. The stormy blue eyes. The smile.
The last photo I recognized immediately: a picture of my dad at John and Libby’s wedding on the Cape.
Lush green lawn. Slice of glittering ocean in the background.
My dad in a tux, holding baby Michael, his godson.
I knew the photo well. Had studied it in John’s study many times, the picture framed in silver on his bookcase.
In the photo, baby Michael’s giving someone behind the camera a gummy smile.
My dad’s smiling, too, but the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
Only in this version of the photo, the girl who looked like me stood next to my dad, her fingers threaded through his, the barest hint of a smile softening her features.
She’d discarded the black clothes for a sparkly blue dress that made her eyes a shimmery blue, even though they were clearly green in the other pictures.
Which meant her eyes were chameleon, like mine, changing from green to blue to match her surroundings. A trick of the light.
In every picture I’d ever seen of the Harrises’ wedding day, it appeared my dad had been there alone. Holding Michael during the ceremony. Giving a toast at the reception. Posing next to John as his best man.
But my mom had been there, too, taking part in the festivities—as my dad’s date. The picture was proof.
Someone had cropped her out before framing the photo, and that infuriated me.
How careless of them to crop my mother out of their past as cruelly as she’d been cropped from my life.
Things hadn’t ended well for her and my dad, sure, but why hide these photos?
Why prevent me from knowing I looked just like her?
“Can I keep these?” I asked Michael.
His gaze lingered on the photo of my mom. “I should probably take them back.”
“Seriously, Michael?” I clutched the pictures to my chest, ready to fight him. He might’ve been way bigger and stronger than I was, but I had zero reservations about kneeing him in the balls. “I have so little of her. You know that.”
“But she abandoned you, Elliot,” he said, his eyes going dark.
“She’s still my mom,” I whispered. “She’s part of who I am.”
“Fine,” he said with a sigh, rising from the bed. “They’re all yours.”
“Thank you.” I lifted up, too, touching my thumb to the scar on his upper lip.
But when I pulled away, Michael jerked my thumb back, pressed it down hard, and parted his lips. His breath curled around my skin, warm and erratic. And my chest, Casey, it burned.
Michael’s gaze searched mine for a long moment—fierce, probing, desperate—like he wanted to say something. But in the end, he shut his eyes. And his mouth, too. When he released my hand and looked at me again, he whispered, “Merry Christmas, Elliot.”
Then he left, and I didn’t know what to feel, except confused.
I stared after him, then checked the time. In England, it would’ve been close to midnight. So I shot you a text: Merry Christmas to you, too.
You texted back a minute later: Happy Christmas. Did you open my gift?
Sure did, I replied, thinking of the mismatched teapot and cup earrings you’d given me.
The tiny gold studs hadn’t just made me smile, I’d end up wearing them for the next three days.
Knowing you’d spent hours searching for a pair of earrings specific to something we shared together—afternoon tea—made the gift particularly special.
Absolutely love them. Did you open mine?
The bookmarks? Thank you. But now I’ll miss finding the random things you stick inside my books yourself. The pink hearts are my favourite.
I already told you, I sent, biting my bottom lip to keep from smiling. That’s not me.
You replied: Right.
Where’s my picture of you with Rhys? I texted, changing the subject.
You sent me one immediately. You in tartan plaid and a sweater, sitting in a cozy chair, holding your baby nephew. This tiny thing, nestled in the crook of your arm, sleeping. You were grinning wide at the camera, blue eyes twinkling. Your hand looked enormous next to his small body.
Pretty sure I squealed at the picture, feeling all gooey and warm and mushy inside. You know that saying about a girl’s uterus skipping a beat when she sees a cute guy with a baby? That might’ve happened, too.
Grinning huge, I fired off some emojis. Ones with hearts.
Then, because a hundred emotions were tumbling around inside me at once, and I didn’t understand a single one of them, but this: I miss you.
Of course, I couldn’t leave it there, so I tacked a rolling eyes emoji on the end.
I pictured you smiling as you texted me back: I miss you, too.
And because I couldn’t risk my dad finding the photos Michael had given me, I crossed the room to my bookcase, already knowing the perfect place to hide them.
A book.
A fitting one, given the circumstances.
The Secret History.
I shoved the photos in the very middle and replaced the book on my shelf.