16. Mia
Chapter Sixteen
Mia
I don't sleep that night.
Every time I close my eyes, I see his handwriting. His jokes. His apologies. His confusion. The way he kept trying to make sense of silence that wasn't empty at all.
By morning, my pillowcase is damp, my head hurts, and the loft feels too quiet.
I check my phone before I even sit up. Monica still hasn't answered. Nothing. No missed call. No text. No explanation. Just the same silence George had been writing into for weeks, maybe even months.
I lie there staring at the ceiling, one arm thrown over my eyes, trying to convince myself there is still a reasonable way out of this.
There isn't. I drag myself to the kitchen table wearing yesterday's sweatshirt and the kind of messy bun that suggests I have lost control of both my hair and my moral compass.
I grab a blank sheet of paper and a pen, and set them beside their letters. My hand trembles before the pen even touches the page.
Dear George—
No.
Absolutely the fuck not.
Too intimate. Too letter-from-a-widow-in-a-war-movie. I toss the page out and start again.
Hi George,
God. No.
That sounds like I'm about to ask him to like and subscribe. I toss that one too.
Okay, page three.
My name is Mia, and I'm—
I stop.
Wait, what am I? Your ex’s subtenant? The stranger living in your old apartment? The person who opened seventeen private letters and then decided that ruining your day from across the world was somehow her responsibility?
None of those feel like appropriate introductions.
I drop my head into my hands. “Fantastic start.” The apartment stays quiet. Unhelpful. I take a sip of coffee, realize it's cold, and make a face.
The truth. That's all I can give him. Not comfort. Not answers. Not a version of this where I come out looking good. Just the truth. I pull another sheet toward me.
This time, I don't let myself stop after the first line.
George,
You don't know me. My name is Mia, and I'm currently living in the loft apartment you shared with Monica.
I pause.
Okay, that’s neutral. Fact-based, and painfully awkward, but not insane.
I keep going.
I found several letters from you after I moved in. At first, I set them aside because they weren't mine. I contacted Monica and asked what she wanted me to do with them. She told me they could be discarded.
My throat tightens. Okay, this is where it starts getting unforgivable and borderline unlawful.
I am sorry to tell you that I didn't discard them. I kept them. And yesterday, I opened them.
I stop writing, and my hand hovers over the page.
There it is. No softening. No excuse. No, I know this sounds strange, or I had good intentions, or please understand. Just what I did. I read the sentence again. I hate it. So I leave it.
You have every right to be angry about that. I know it was wrong. I won't pretend it wasn't.
I sit back and press my fingers against my eyes. For a second, I almost tear this page too. Then I think of Letter Twenty-Four. Still haven't heard from you. I keep writing.
The reason I'm writing now is because a letter from Monica arrived here after being returned by the postal service. It was addressed to you. It was marked “return to sender” and “undeliverable.”
I tried to contact Monica again. She did not respond.
I opened that letter too.
My chest hurts. I swallow and force myself through the next part.
She ended the relationship in that letter. I am enclosing it because I think you deserve to have the words that were meant for you, even if they are painful.
I stop.
That sounds too cold, way too clean. It sounds like a legal notice, so I add another line.
I am so sorry you are finding out this way.
The words blur a little, but I blink hard to keep going.
I don't know what happened between you and Monica. I only know what I read, and I know that doesn't give me the whole story.
But I also know you kept writing because you did not know she had left. I didn't think it was right to keep this from you.
I still have the letters you sent to her. I didn't want to send them anywhere without knowing what you wanted done with them.
I hope you are safe.
I'm sorry.
—Mia
Well, that was incredibly painful to write, awkward as fuck, and now I’m scared. There is no good sign-off for “Sorry I invaded your privacy,” and for “your girlfriend or fiancée left you.” So that’s all I can say.
I read the whole thing twice.
This is wildly inappropriate. Definitely too much and not enough at the same time. But it is honest. That is the only thing I have to give him.
I fold my letter carefully. Then I pick up Monica's. I slide both pages into a clean envelope. Addressing it feels surreal. I copy the return address from his letters, checking every number twice.
To: George Hale
My handwriting looks strange beneath his name. Like it doesn't belong there. Because it doesn't. The universe should not let strangers have this much impact on each other. But here we are.
I seal the envelope and smooth the flap with shaking fingers. Then I put on my shoes before I can change my mind and go downstairs to the outgoing mail slot in the lobby. I stand in front of it for a full minute.
A woman walks past me carrying a yoga mat and gives me a polite smile. I smile back like I am not holding the emotional equivalent of a grenade. When she disappears into the elevator, I look down at the envelope.
“This is the right thing,” I whisper.
I wish I believed it completely. I slide the envelope into the slot.
It disappears with a soft whisper of paper.
That's it. Back upstairs, I gather George's letters and place them back in the wooden box.
Then I close the lid. For the first time, the box feels less like a secret, and more like evidence.
Off what? Still no clue.
Today at work, I forget an entire sentence halfway through saying something. My coworker blinks at me across the conference table. “Mia?”
“Sorry.” I look down at my notes. “Sorry, I lost my train of thought.”
That happens three more times before noon.
By one, I send my boss an email saying I don't feel well and need to finish the day from home. It isn't a lie. I don't feel well. I feel like I swallowed someone else's heartbreak, and it's sitting beneath my ribs, heavy and impossible to digest.
At home, I check the mailbox.
Empty.
Of course it is. He couldn't possibly have even received the letter yet and sent one back. I know that. Mail takes time. Military mail probably takes even more time.
Still, I check.
The next day, I check again. Then the next. Then the next.
At first, I tell myself it's responsibility. I sent the letter. I should watch for a response. That is normal. Not that anything about this is normal, but I like to keep telling myself that.
By the end of the first week, I stop pretending.
I want him to write back.
That realization is so uncomfortable I almost laugh in the lobby. I want a stranger I hurt to respond to me. I want proof the letter reached him. Proof I didn't just send Monica's goodbye into another void. Proof that somewhere, George Hale is real and alive and holding the truth in his hands.
The thought terrifies me.
So I ignore it.
Badly.
Days have become strange lately.
I go to work, come home, check the mailbox. Get sad when it’s empty. I make dinner, sometimes, or I order takeout, watch some bad TV, read a good book, and do the same the next day.
I text Lyann without telling her the full truth because if I type the sentence I opened all seventeen letters and mailed a breakup letter to a deployed soldier I've never met, I'm pretty sure she'll call me and start yelling.
So I say things like…
Me: Remember the letters? Situation escalated.
Lyann: I knew this was part of a dating show episode.
I don't answer that.
A couple of weeks have passed, and by now, I've decided there will be no reply.
Which is probably good. Healthy, even.
Maybe he got the letter and hated me. Maybe he threw it away. Maybe he never received it. Maybe writing back to the woman who opened his private mail and delivered the worst news of his life is not high on his priority list.
All reasonable possibilities.
I try to accept them, but I do a terrible job.
On the twenty-fourth day, I check the mailbox on my way home from work. There’s a grocery flyer, a credit card offer, and nothing else.
“Okay,” I whisper. Maybe that's it. Maybe this is the answer. No response. That should be a relief. Instead, it feels like a loss I have no right to feel.
I go upstairs and make pasta, and I overcook it. I eat half of it standing at the counter. Then I put the rest in the fridge and go to bed early.
I do not sleep.
On the twenty-seventh day, there is an envelope in the mailbox, and I feel like my soul has left my body.
I pull it out carefully.
The handwriting is the familiar one, the one I know so well by now. Same neat edges. Same controlled lines. But this time, the envelope is addressed to me.
Mia Matthews
My knees go so weak that I need to grab the edge of the mailbox’s wall.
He wrote back.
I feel like the lobby just tilted slightly. Everything goes warm and cold at the same time. It felt like the moment before someone unexpectedly touches you and you jump. I stand there holding the envelope to my chest, pulse racing so fast it feels embarrassing.
Then I remember I am in a public lobby, possibly looking like a woman having an intimate relationship with stationery.
“Get it together, Mia,” I whisper.
I shove the rest of the mail under my arm and hurry upstairs. My hands shake so badly it takes me three tries to unlock the door. Inside, I drop my bag, kick off my shoes, and go straight to the bedroom to sit on the edge of the bed.
For a long second, I just hold the letter.
I don't know what I want it to say. That he's okay? That he forgives me? That he hates me? That he understands? All of those feel impossible because I don’t deserve any of them. Hell, I don’t even deserve a response.
I slide my finger beneath the flap. This time, when the paper opens, it is not a secret I stole. It is something he chose to send.