Letter Twenty-Eight
“Will we talk about it?” I asked you today. “When I get out, will you let me explain?”
The closer I get to freedom, the more I wonder how receptive you’ll be to reading these letters, Casey. But I have to try. No matter what’s happened outside these walls, I have to give you everything. I promised myself.
You don’t know it yet, but every word I’ve written here is a promise I’m making to you.
“Elliot.” You said my name like a warning. “This is meant to be a neutral space, remember?”
My heart knocked against my ribs. “I know. But I just…I’d like to know where we stand.”
“Alright, then. What will you explain, exactly? How you broke my heart? How you were able to do that?” you asked, holding my gaze.
And I saw it so clearly, when you’re usually so good at hiding it: the anger and heartbreak.
Still there. Still simmering beneath the surface.
“I’ve spent the last couple of years trying to sort it out, and maybe that’s the problem.
Maybe the why of it doesn’t really matter anymore.
You did what you did, and we can’t ever go back and change it. ”
My throat tightened. “But I—I want to explain. I have to.”
“Why? Because that worked out so well for you in the past?” A short, bitter laugh. “An explanation isn’t going to fix this, Elliot.”
“You said you’d help me transition back,” I said, feeling as if the concrete floor had been yanked out from under me. “You said we’d figure it out together.”
“Yes.” You glanced away, tugging on the lapels of your jacket. “As friends.”
Friends. No way. In no fucking universe will I ever accept that. Still, I tried to keep the devastation from entering my voice as I said, “Right. I guess I just thought…”
Your gaze snapped back to mine, likely seeing the tears that had leapt to my eyes. “You thought what? There’s still hope?”
“Are you saying there isn’t?” I hadn’t meant to let it show—how deeply your words had gouged me—but it felt like you were slipping away, Casey, making me all the more desperate to reach you, the only way I knew how: with the truth.
You hesitated, just long enough for my hope to curdle into dread. “Even if you were one hundred percent honest with me going forward,” you said, voice rough around the words, “how could I ever trust that you wouldn’t hurt me like that again?”
For so long, I’ve focused on making you understand. On telling you everything—the why, the how, my darkest secrets and thoughts. But I’ve never stopped to wonder if giving you all the missing pieces of me would be enough.
Even though I’ve been brutally honest with you in these letters, maybe they won’t matter. Maybe none of it does.
But I still have to try. I didn’t spend two years of my life writing everything down just to give you up.
After failing to tell John the truth, you spent the rest of the day in your room. Which is where I found you much later that night, when it became apparent you weren’t joining me in mine. You were in bed, curled onto your side, staring vacantly toward the windows.
My heart ached as I slipped under the covers, tucking my body close to yours.
“Go to your room,” you said, staring over my head, keeping your hands to yourself.
“No.”
“I should’ve been able to tell him—for you. I shouldn’t be this pathetic. This weak.”
“He didn’t exactly…make it easy for you to say.”
“Doesn’t matter,” you said, finally pulling back to look at me.
I took your face between my hands. “You know what, though?” I said, swiping my thumbs across your cheeks, rough with stubble. “I’m so proud of you for trying.”
You scowled at me. “Oh, fuck off with that shit.”
I smoothed down the wrinkle between your eyebrows, fighting back a smile. “Has anyone ever told you how positively adorable you are when you’re grumpy?”
You rolled your eyes. “Only my mum—when I was a kid. Stop treating me like a child.”
“Doesn’t feel too great, does it?”
“I want you to be happy,” you said, stroking the inside of my wrist. “I want you to stop punishing yourself for every little thing.”
“Sometimes,” I whispered, “those things aren’t little.”
You looked deep into my eyes. “The consequences of my choices aren’t yours to carry.”
Except they were mine to carry, Casey.
Because my choices had consequences, too.
You shimmied down the bed and pressed your face to my throat. Against my pulse, you whispered, “I failed you.”
“No,” I said against your temple, threading my fingers through your hair. “You’ve never failed me.”
The following week, when you went back to school, I approached my dad in his office. “We can have a party—if that’s what you still want,” I told him from the doorway. “I don’t care when.”
Nic barely glanced up from his laptop. “I don’t know, Elliot,” he said, jaw twitching as he typed away at the keyboard. “We’ll see.”
I don’t know what I’d anticipated—a flash of approval? A quiet thank you? A sigh of relief, maybe? Anything besides indifference.
Then again, maybe Nic was tired of getting his hopes up only for me to shoot them down.
I hovered in the doorway, fingering the old brass doorknob on his office door.
Nic slammed his laptop shut. “Listen,” he said, rising from the desk, then shoving both hands in his pockets. “I appreciate you doing that for Casey the other day—trying to help him tell John the truth.”
A prickle of unease worked its way down my spine. I looked past him, letting my gaze drift over the bookshelves behind his desk. The pictures of me from newborn to five to thirteen. One from my nineteenth birthday at the beach.
Had I really done it for you? Or had I done it out of guilt?
“You’re good for him,” Nic said softly.
I let out a laugh of disbelief. “You can’t actually believe that.”
“I’ve always believed that.”
“But you wanted me to get back with Willoughby.”
“Well, yeah. But mainly because I don’t want the drama between Michael and Casey getting in the way of your future.”
“What future?”
“Your future with Casey, Elliot—your future at the firm. You two could make a great team.”
“Meaning…what? You want us to run the firm together?”
“Yes,” Nic said, as if it were always meant to be this way: shared. Halved with someone more responsible. Never fully mine.
“You don’t think I can handle the firm without him?”
“I know you can handle the firm without him. But I want Casey to have a place there, too, and—together?—you’d kill it. You’re exactly right for each other.”
Was he joking? Had I slipped into some alternate dimension? In this one, was I good?
A quick glance at the photos behind him again—me at eight, the Christmas after the stabbing, clinging to Nic’s side, still needing his reassurance, worried he didn’t love me the same anymore—confirmed nothing had changed. How could he call me broken months ago and good for you now?
How could both things be true at the same time?
Rather than try to make sense of it, I said, “Whatever you think, Dad.” Then quietly slipped from his office and went back up to my room.
In bed that night, you pulled my braid loose the second I rested my head on the pillow beside yours.
In no time, you had your fingers twisted in my hair and your mouth on my shoulder, open kisses that were barely restrained, heat coming off your body and seeping deliciously into mine.
My breath hitched when you found the crook of my neck, your teeth grazing the sensitive skin there.
As your hand drifted down my body and flattened against my stomach, I knew its final destination would leave me gasping for air.
But the conversation with my dad niggled at me. I needed to get it off my chest.
“Wait,” I said, catching your wrist as your fingers slipped down the front of my panties.
You stopped and drew back—not in frustration, but concern. Attentive, as always.
“I need to ask you something.”
You propped your head up. “Okay,” you murmured, thumb lightly brushing my hip. “Ask me.”
“Do you really want a place at the firm? Or are you just…letting my dad talk you into believing that’s what you want?”
“Nic’s giving me an opportunity to build a life here—with you. Of course I want it.”
“A life with me? Or a life of monitoring me?”
Your brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“He’ll have you follow me around Harvard, and after that, the firm. You’ll keep tabs on me there, too. The same way you’ve always done here.”
“It won’t be like that. We’ll be colleagues. We’ll be working together.”
“But the firm’s supposed to be mine.”
“And it will be,” you said.
“Unless my dad decides you’re a better fit—then he’ll give it to you.”
“Elliot, he wants us to be a team.”
“He wants you to keep me in line, Casey, and if you can’t? You’re his backup.”
“It isn’t like that.”
“Then why hasn’t he asked how I feel about it? If I even want to share the firm with someone else?”
That crease of concern deepened between your eyebrows. “Do you?”
“I don’t think it really matters to him.”
“It matters to me. If you don’t want me working at the firm, just say so. I’ll do something else.”
I lifted a brow. “Like what?”
“I could be a music teacher. Or a baker. Or even just your lowly assistant. I’d bring you coffee and tea all day, make sure you’re eating at the right times, calm you down when you’re angry or stressed.
Five days a week, you’d get to order me around.
” You grinned so big my heart melted. “You’d love that. ”
I laughed. “My dad says we’re right for each other.”
“I’ve only been trying to tell you the same thing for months now,” you said, searching my gaze.
“But you don’t want to accept it for some reason.
Or maybe you’re just scared—to fully let me in.
” Your hand slid beneath the hem of my camisole, resting warm and flat over my stomach.
“Show me what you showed Willoughby.” You brushed your lips against my jaw—so softly it barely counted as a kiss—and whispered, “Be vulnerable with me.”
My stomach flipped while you waited, hoping to be trusted.