Chapter 16 The Letter
SIXTEEN
THE LETTER
ARIA
It takes me three weeks to pack up a life.
Not the physical things, those take only a day. Clothes, files, dishes, books that I haven’t touched since the night I had seen Steel again. The small, framed photo of Leah and me from a summer that feels like another lifetime. Those are easy.
It’s the ghosted things that take longer. His voice is in my memory. His hands are on my skin. His chaos in my bloodstream.
Every night, I lie awake and feel the quiet in my new apartment near my parents’ house in Detroit press down like a weight as heavy as the goodbye we tried to survive.
Every morning, I avoid the news. Avoid Mt. Pleasant. Avoid anything with a chrome shine or engine growl.
I haven’t seen Steel since the day I left him in the clubhouse lot. I haven’t driven near Saint Motors. I haven’t breathed his name out loud.
And yet he’s everywhere. In the way I check shadows twice. In the way I jump when the mail slot creaks. In the way I wake up already bracing for danger.
Some loves leave you soft. Steel’s love left me changed.
And something is growing in me now. Something small, something quiet, something I can’t tell him without destroying the part of him still fighting not to become Tama. Something that demands I protect it the way Steel would destroy the world to protect me.
He can never know.
My secret is both a betrayal and a mercy.
In the end, the only thing left to give him was a goodbye he’ll never get to un-read.
So, I sat on the floor of my old house, surrounded by boxes, breath fogging in the cold room, pen shaking in my hand as I wrote what felt like a letter from a ghost.
Steel,
If you’re reading this, it means I’m already gone. I’m not writing to ask you to come for me. I’m not asking you to change. I’m not asking for forgiveness, or answers, or another promise either of us will break.
I’m writing because there are things I never got to say. Things I couldn’t say while looking into your eyes.
You weren’t my mistake. You were my mercy. I just couldn’t survive loving both the man and the President.
You love with your fire, and it’s beautiful until it burns. You protected me with everything you are, even when it cost you pieces you didn’t have left. I don’t want to be the reason those pieces disappear forever.
You told me once that if the Syndicate ever knew what I meant to you, they’d kill me before you could stop the bullet. You were right. But what you didn’t see… is that they were killing you too.
You were becoming him, Steel. Becoming Tama. And I couldn’t watch that happen, not because I don’t love you, but because I do.
Leaving isn’t the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Loving you is.
And here’s the truth I could never say in the dark, the one that terrified me, the one that changes everything and nothing at all. I’m not just leaving because I’m scared. I’m leaving because I’m not leaving alone.
Whatever happens from here, I hope you live. I hope you survive this war, this legacy, and this shadow you’ve spent your whole life running from. I hope you build something better than what your father left you.
You told me love can be a weapon. You were right. But right now, it’s the only thing I have left to give you.
Goodbye, Isaiah.
Aria
Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I still see the ink blurring when a tear hits the page. I didn’t stop writing because stopping meant thinking, and thinking meant breaking. I’ve done enough breaking for a lifetime.
Sometimes, I still see the post office parking lot. Almost empty. Too big. Too quiet.
I remember the late morning sun glinting off the icy pavement, bright enough to sting my eyes.
I had to squint as I stepped out of the car, the wind sliding under my coat, sharp and needling.
There was a faint scent of snow and old exhaust that made everything feel colder. Even though Spring is on its way.
I had the folded letter in my trembling hands. The final goodbye.
Every step toward that blue mailbox felt heavier than the last, like I was walking through a life I hadn’t chosen. By the time I reached it, my breath was shaking so hard I thought I might turn back.
I can still feel the cold edge of the metal slot under my fingertips. My fingers went numb instantly.
“This is it,” I whispered to no one. “After this, there’s no going back.”
I remember hesitating for three breaths, for five heartbeats. For all the moments that could’ve been something else if we’d just had one more chance.
Steel’s face flashed behind my eyes. The way he looked at me in the garage, the way he touched me like he was memorizing the shape of a prayer, the way his eyes burned when I walked away.
I whispered “goodbye” to the letter.
My fingers loosened. And I can still hear it; that soft, final thunk as the envelope fell into the belly of the postbox. It sounded like something tearing loose in my chest.
I closed my eyes. Tears slid down my cheeks, cold enough to sting.
I remember thinking my secret goes with the letter. My love goes with it, too. Everything I couldn’t say is in there, heading toward a man who will read it alone, fists clenched, heart breaking in the space where I used to exist.
I turned before I could change my mind. The wind lifted my hair. The sky shifted clouds overhead. And for just a moment, the storm inside me quieted enough for one full breath.
Steel would read it. Steel would know why I left. He would know I loved him enough to disappear.
But he would never know. I would never let him know that when he opened that envelope, he was reading a goodbye from both of us.
I remember resting a hand over my stomach. A small ache blooming under my ribs, soft and terrible.
“My secret stays with me,” I whispered. “No matter what comes next.”
Then I got into the car, turned the key, and drove away from everything I ever wanted for the sake of a life that deserved to be untouched by war.