Chapter 11
JESS
I find the box in Griffin’s closet.
I wasn’t snooping, I was looking for a hoodie because the AC in his house runs cold, and he’d told me to help myself to anything in his room. We’ve been wrapped up in each other for days now, barely leaving his bed except to eat and shower.
Everything feels fragile, precious, and too good to be true. It is too good to be true. I just don’t know it yet.
The box is on the top shelf, half-hidden behind a stack of old jerseys. It has my name on it.
JESS.
Written in his handwriting. Faded but unmistakable.
My hands shake as I pull it down. It’s heavier than I expect. I pull the lid off to find it filled with scraps of paper, photos, and what look like dozens of sealed envelopes.
The first envelope is dated the day after he left.
I should walk away. Just holding it makes my hands shake.
My breath catches. This is a total violation of his privacy.
If we are actually going to start something new I should put this back and ask him about it…
Unfortunately, I’m not that mature and there’s no way in hell I’m not opening it.
Dear Jess,
I know you don’t understand why I’m gone. I know the note I left was pathetic and cruel and everything you didn’t deserve. But I couldn’t tell you the truth. Not then. Not without risking everything you’ve worked for.
Something happened. Something I can’t put in writing yet. All I can say is that I didn’t leave because I stopped loving you. I left because I loved you too much to let them destroy you.
Griffin
What the hell? My heart hammers against my ribs. He was the only person destroying me. I shouldn’t read more. I should put these back and wait for him to explain. But seriously, who could do that? I can’t stop now.
The envelope is on the floor in seconds. It includes copies of emails, internships quietly withdrawn, a residency interview “postponed indefinitely,” and a warning from a department chair advising me to distance myself from the team entirely.
I remember those rejections. I’d always thought those doors closed because of bad timing. Because I wasn’t qualified enough. Because the universe was testing me.
But maybe they closed because of him. Maybe someone was punishing me for being with Griffin. My stomach swirls and I feel sick.
I read letter after letter. My vision blurs with tears. Each one explains a little more. Each one paints a picture I never knew existed. It doesn’t take me long to put the pieces together.
Victoria Ashworth. The Ashworth family owns the Southern Knights Football team.
Victoria is their youngest daughter. In recent years she’s been in and out of prison for drug-related charges.
But you still see her around team events from time to time.
But I vaguely remember her back then and I had no idea she made advances on Griffin at a team party.
When he rejected her, she told her father he’d assaulted her.
She admitted it was a lie almost immediately, but the accusation had been made.
Marshall Ashworth, a man with more money than morals and more connections than both believed that Griffin and Victoria could have a future if I weren’t in the way.
He gave Griffin a choice… Leave Charleston quietly, sign an NDA, and never contact me again. Or standby me while he’d make sure my fledgling physical therapy career never got off the ground.
“I could handle my own reputation being destroyed,” Griffin wrote in one letter. “I couldn’t handle destroying yours. You’d worked so hard. You had so many dreams. I couldn’t let them take that from you because of me.”
I’m sobbing by the time I reach the last letter, dated a few months ago.
The NDA expires in a few months. I’ve been counting the days.
I know you’ve probably moved on by now. You deserve to be happy, even if it’s not with me.
But if there’s any chance, any chance at all, I’m going to find you.
I’m going to tell you everything. And then I’m going to spend the rest of my life proving that I never stopped loving you.
Please forgive me, Sunshine. Please.
“Jess?”
The sound of his voice makes me jump. I turn to see Griffin standing in the doorway. His eyes find the box in my lap, the letters scattered around me, and his face goes pale.
“I found them,” I whisper. “I wasn’t snooping, I swear, I was just looking for a hoodie, and…”
“It’s okay.” He crosses to me slowly, like I’m a wild animal that might bolt. “I was going to show you. I was just waiting until,”
“Until when?” The question comes out sharper than I intended. “Until I was already falling for you again?”
He flinches. The guilt on his face confirms what I already suspected, he was managing this. Managing me. Deciding when I was ready to know the truth about my own life.
“I need to hear it,” I say. “Not from letters you never sent. From you. Out loud. All of it.”
He nods once, like a man bracing for impact.
And then he tells me everything.
The party. The accusation. The threats that followed. It’s all so high school, but the implications have rocked both our lives. Griffin’s voice is steady as he recounts it, but I can see what it costs him. The way his hands shake. The way he won’t quite meet my eyes.
“She cornered me in the hallway. She was drunk and aggressive, it was a whole vibe. When I turned her down, she got angry. The next morning, her father called me into his office. Victoria was there, crying, saying I’d forced myself on her.
Then just a week later she turned it on dime.
Said that I was in love with her. That we were meant to be.
That I put her up to the whole thing because you were standing in our way. ”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?” My chest hollows out. It’s a punch to the gut I didn’t see coming.
“He had photos, Jess. Staged photos of her with torn clothes, smeared makeup. He said if I didn’t disappear, he’d release them to the press. Your name would be dragged through it. Your career would be over before it started.”
“So you just left?” My voice cracks. “Three sentences on a Post-it note? That’s all I was worth?”
“You were worth everything.” He’s on his knees now, reaching for my hands. I pull them back. “That’s why I left. I was twenty-two and terrified and I thought I was protecting you.”
“You thought wrong.”
The words hang between us, as sharp as broken glass.
“I know.” His voice breaks. “I know, and I’m so sorry. If I could go back…”
“Five years.” I stand, needing distance, needing air. The room feels too small. “Five years of thinking I wasn’t enough. Of thinking you just... didn’t want me anymore. Do you have any idea what that did to me?”
“Jess.”
“I watched my father destroy himself chasing my mother when she left him.” The words tumble out before I can stop them.
“He gave up everything, his job, his dignity, his savings, trying to win her back. And she never came. She didn’t want him.
I swore I would never be that pathetic. I would never chase someone who didn’t want me. ”
Griffin goes still. “That’s not what happened.”
“How was I supposed to know that?” I’m crying now, angry tears that burn my cheeks. “You left. You left me alone in that apartment with nothing but three sentences and a fucking Pomeranian!”
“Biscuit, not just a Pomeranian. It was hard to leave him too. I wanted to take him with me.”
“You wanted to take my dog?” My words are a shriek.
“No, I would never have. I'm just saying it was hard all around. I missed him and you and I hadn’t had any media training yet. I didn’t know there were options.”
“I don’t give a shit about your media training. I care that you made a choice about my life without asking me. You decided what I could handle. You decided I was too weak to face it with you.”
“That’s not it.”
“Isn’t it?” I swipe at my tears. I’m furious at myself for crying and even more furious at him for making me cry. “You didn’t trust me. That’s what this comes down to. You didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth, to let me fight beside you. You just… ran.”
He stands slowly, keeping his distance. He’s a smart man. “I didn’t think I was running. I thought I was falling on a grenade.”
“The grenade was our problem. We could have faced it together.”
“I know that now.” His voice is barely above a whisper. “I’ve known it for years. That’s my greatest regret, Jess. Staying felt impossible at the time. But leaving without trusting you with the truth is the thing I may never be able to come back from. I get it.”
I walk to the window because I can’t look at him anymore. Outside, the sun is setting over the marsh. It’s painting everything in shades of gold and rose. It’s peaceful and beautiful and everything I don’t feel.
“The proof was always there,” I say quietly. “The timing. The way everything happened so fast. I knew something was off, but I convinced myself I was making excuses. I convinced myself you just didn’t love me enough to stay.”
“I loved you more than anything.”
“Then why didn’t you fight for us?” I spin to face him, and the words I’ve been holding for five years finally escape. “Why didn’t you trust me enough to fight it together?”
“Because Ashworth had connections everywhere. I believed him when he said he could destroy your career. Because I was young and scared and I thought…” His voice cracks. “I thought I was saving you.”
“You broke me.”
The words land like a blow. Griffin’s face crumples, just for a second, before he pulls himself together.
“I know. I’m so sorry.”
Sorry. Such a small word for such enormous damage.
I think about the past five years. Building my practice from nothing. The pride I took in doing it alone. The walls I built to protect a heart that had already been shattered.
“I built my life without you,” I say. “A good life. A full life.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know if there’s room for you in it anymore.”
The words hang in the air. Griffin’s breath catches, but he doesn’t argue. He doesn’t plead. He just stands there, accepting whatever verdict I deliver.
“I understand,” he says finally. “I’m not asking you to forgive me overnight. I’m just asking for a chance. A real chance, with all the truth between us.”
I don’t answer because I can’t.
I gather the letters, put them back in the box, and walk out of his house without looking back. He didn’t leave because he stopped loving me. He left because he loved me too much.
And I have no idea if that makes it better or worse.