All The Letters I’ve Ever Read

by Gray, Ace

  Maybe Courtney is lying. Maybe this is her way of completing Operation Closure or whatever the bullshit. Maybe those letters are Tanners, and maybe I’m not crazy, burning the best thing in my life to ash. Why would he lie to me?

  Why would Courtney?

  The paper still sits balled in my hand where I still sit beside the shadow of Courtney and all she said.

  If Tanner lied, IF, where does that leave me?

  Alone. That’s where it leaves me. And for no good reason. I could have had her, forever, if I just opened my damn mouth. If I didn’t insist on being closed off. If only I could pour out words like Mina.

  I smooth the paper in my hands, focusing on the wrinkles not the words. I try and flatten each one like it may take me back in time and repair us, might smooth our edges. I can’t read the words. Not yet. The guilt is already welling deep in the pit of my stomach. If I read it…

  But aren’t I already lost in it? In her? The whole living room is a testament to how much I miss her. How I wanted to keep her, every last bit of her, with me for as long as I could. Why would Courtney’s words change that? Why would the truth?

  So I start reading.

  To the home I found in your arms,

  You hugged me yesterday. I know that’s not a real important sentence to other people but to me… You’ve hugged me before—when I gave you a hard time about not liking hugs, when my laptop got stolen—but they weren’t like this. They weren’t ones that you initiated, that you held me when you pulled me in tight. They weren’t ones that felt like you wanted me there.

  I’m sitting here 24 hours later trying to etch each detail of you pulling me across my console and into your chest. And in my delusional world, I’m pairing that with little things you did and little things you said—like waiting for me. The way you phrased it to Chris made my heart stop.

  Somedays I can convince myself that I matter to you. That your thoughts drift to me at times without my prompting. Sometimes I can convince myself you’d want me too.

  That’s of course when the guilt sets in. The guilt and the depression and the overcompensation. I want to tell you those days. I want to tell you not to mind me. Not to pay attention to me. To forget I exist.

  Then I think about that hug. That real fucking hug. And I want to say those things to you so that you tell me that’s not possible.

  To the man that makes me crazy,

  I had a vision yesterday. You snuck into someone’s Instagram story and then you snuck into my mind. Like tendrils at first, but then fully formed and so real, just like you usually become. And just after it was you, it was us.

  You told me once about a disc golf course, in the middle of nowhere, that plays from one bend in the river to the next. You showed me shots of you playing there, of the mountains and the trees and the craggy rocks. I’ve been there so it took me back. I remember how vivid the green was, how the mist settled in on moss covered rock. I remember the mountains shoving up through the clouds in the background.

  Perhaps that’s why I can remember us there even though it’s not a memory and there isn’t an us.

  You’d play disc golf. I can’t even throw a frisbee. I’d paddle or float and feel the gentle lap of the river somehow against my skin. The crisp, clean air would fill my lungs and when I exhale, all the worry of the world would float away on the current. I can picture us spending a day like that, together but apart. Tethered in that way we seem to have—or that I seem to have anyway—where I know it’s you across the street or parking lot or in the brewhouse without really having to look. A glance or two down at the river and you’d smile knowing I was there, every single one of my heartbeats would reach up the hill for yours. But not in a crazy way, no frantic need or anxious want, something more along the lines of just because that’s the way it should be. Those perfectly ice blue eyes on me, and my heartbeats wrapped up in yours. I can see you finishing at your leisure and coming down to find me with a gangly but concise walk that is decidedly yours. I can hear your deep voice when you find me, your deep, homey chuckle if you startle me. I can feel you patiently waiting for me to finish, just as you were able to. I can imagine the sensation of your lips, pressed to the back of my head or neck in one singular reminder that you’re there but that there’s no rush because that’s where you’ll stay. Always. I promise you there’s that freedom in the way we could love each other.

  And I know deep down I can promise you that. If I ever got the chance to have you, all the neurosis would fade. My heart would slow down and find its rest. I know you’d love that woman. Fiercely and without question. I know you’d feel the shape of my insides rest against yours the way I do. There would be books and beers and GIFs and rolling eyes and laughter. Your deep and real laughter that I’ve only gotten to see once. Your laughter that is truly a wonder to behold in its loud and deep and brash. There would be softness with only the wind in the trees and the ripple of the water. There would be days like I picture that are nothing and everything and speak so loudly in their simple silence.

  I can tell you that I’d love you in the quiet moments most of all.

  What have I done? I read those words again and wonder what in the ever-loving fuck have I done?

  “Well look at what the cat dragged in,” Jonas says warily, hands on his hips as I walk into the brewhouse.

  I promised I’d be at work today so here I am. My footsteps sound hollow against the tile but they still make a sound. Because I’m showing up. Like I said I would. Even if it kind of sucks.

  “I’m sorry, Jonas,” I say softly.

  “Bullshit.” He goes back to the brewhouse computer, goes back to his work as if I’m not there, as if it doesn’t mean anything.

  “I’m sorry that I put you in a lurch but I’m not sorry I needed time,” I say a little more certain. I have to be certain to make amends.

  “That sounds like a really fancy way to say you’re not sorry.”

  “I know you’re tired. I know how shitty this is with just one of us. I should have been reliable. I should have shown up no matter what. I know that now.” I shove my hands into my pockets. “I wouldn’t have known that if it weren’t for you so all I can say is I’m sorry.”

  He sighs. “Fine. You’re sorry. I forgive you but forgetting isn’t that easy.”

  “Believe me, I know.”

  If there was ever a lesson from all of this, it’s that forgetting isn’t a switch that I can flip on and off. It’s a process and sometimes never happens at all. It became the shape of Mina, without me realizing it. Even though my hands were on her, I was clutching her tight, I didn’t notice.

  “Show me. Show me by showing up.”

  “I will.” I mean it with every fiber of my being.

  “Good.” Jonas finally cracks a smile as he seamlessly goes back to work. “I missed your sulky, sullen ass.”

  I manage a smile too as I start moving in sync with him. “I don’t plan on being sulky and sullen for long. I want to get her back.”

  He lets out a single, loud laugh. “I don’t know that you deserve her.”

  We keep up our brewing dance as if it’s all been choreographed out before. Each with our own tasks, our own roles. It’s easy. Comforting almost.

  “For the record, I know I don’t. I don’t think I ever did. But I’m going to try anyway.”

  “Well at least you know.” He shrugs.

  “Know what?” Aspen asks from the doorway.

  She leans against the metal framing with her arms crossed, the same look of wariness on her face that was on Jonas’ a moment ago.

  “That he doesn’t deserve Mina,” Jonas supplies.

  “Are you going to try and win her back?” Aspen’s voice ticks with excitement before she remembers herself. “Oh yeah, and good, glad you got the memo.” She tries not to crack a smile.

  “I’m going to try and get her back all the same.”

  “How?” Aspen tries to contain her giddiness as she comes to sit on the keg nearest where I’m w
orking. “What’s your plan?”

  “Aspen, it’s the first day that I have help in a week,” Jonas chides.

  “James, please keep working while you tell me your plan.” She puts on a sickly sweet smile.

  “I don’t have a plan.”

  “You need a plan,” she says.

  “He doesn’t need a plan. He has a job, Aspen.”

  “And he has weekends off. Let’s get him a plan.” She claps her hands and I can’t help but smile. “Something devilishly romantic.”

  “What if you write out every reason why you love her and make it a book, bind it and everything. Maybe add some pictures?” Aspen offers over a beer. “A storybook romance.”

  “No.” I shake my head, knowing that it’s not right. “She’s the writer, the one with all the beautiful letters.”

  “So write her some back.”

  “I can’t compare. I shouldn’t even try.”

  “Everyone wants love letters, James.” She rolls her eyes.

  “I know, and I’ll give her the ones that I’ve written but that’s not it. It can’t be my grand gesture—and I know I need one.” I stare into the caramel color of my beer, the one that mimics the notes in Mina’s eyes. “I need something that is handcrafted for Mina not out of a movie.”

  “Well…Mina…let’s see,” she muses. “I know she likes…umm…IPAs?” Her voice turns up in a question at the end, and I chuckle the slightest bit.

  “Yeah, she does, but the real way to her heart are the farmhouse beers, Belgian style sours, full on brett and barrel.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” I think about our beer, the bottle that cracked the door for me to get back in. I have another but it would be just that. A crack.

  Just like the letters.

  “The more I sit here and think, the more I realize I don’t know her. Not really,” Aspen says.

  I smile again. “She’s private even though she’s an open book. Anything that she’s accepted she’ll shout from the rooftops, everything else…” I think about those moments she revealed deeper things to me and how absolutely priceless they were. Are. Have to be again. “She keeps so much of herself close.”

  “Well then, what are the things that only you know?”

  I start to think. She loves spy movies and can quote most James Bond films. She prefers fried chicken to flowers. She has a Pride & Prejudice scarf and cried the first time she read the words but hasn’t ever read the book. She has approximately twenty-three horse shaped Christmas ornaments. She gets a little too sentimentally attached to her backpacks and Hydro flasks. She re-watches the same four shows over and over rather than starting new ones, which one she chooses is based on her mood. Her first car was a 1985 Jetta that no one could open or drive but her.

  She has a birthmark on her upper thigh, near the top of her tattoo, and a matching one halfway down her spine. Her fingers dig into my shoulder blades when I’m doing something right in bed. She goes quiet just before she orgasms.

  “I know a million little things. They’re all the things that make me love her but they’re so small. Nothing monumental. Nothing grand.” I sigh.

  “Hum.” Aspen drums her fingers on the glass in front of her. “This is a quandary. Maybe Mina’s grand, isn’t movie grand, then.”

  I nod absentmindedly, my wheels turning.

  “She just needs grand from you.”

  “I’m not grand either.” I shrug.

  “That’s why you two fit.” She jostles me with her shoulder and we both smile small smiles that fall away.

  “What do I do, Aspen?”

  “Good God, are you two still at it?” Jonas asks as he drops a pile of paperwork on the bar beside us and circles it to pour himself a beer.

  “Of course we’re still at it. If you ever screw up like this, you two better spend hours figuring out a way to fix it.” Aspen throws a bar towel over at him and he starts saying dopey sorrys until they digress into laughter.

  Something about the way she says it sends my mind down a different path. Where did I first screw it up and how do I fix that?

  I could go back to three years ago, when I said she was too much, when I pushed her away because I fell. But did I really screw it up? She was engaged, I couldn’t love her.

  But round two… Round two, I messed everything up except loving her. I shouldn’t have purposed like that, I shouldn’t have wavered when it came to her family, I shouldn’t have doubted. And like a lightbulb flipping on, I know. I know how to fix things. Or at least how to try.

  It involves all three.

  Mina is beautiful tonight. I lean against the wall beside the large window of her restaurant and watch her behind the bar. She’s wearing her hair straight but up in a ponytail, wisps of it fall down and around her face and highlight the curve of her neck. She’s wearing basic black that’s simple, classic, and sexy, reminding me of the curves I know by hand and by heart.

  She’s wearing that look, my look, the one I find so stunning and so full of sorrow.

  I can’t help but raise my hand to the glass like I might be able to reach out, my head sags against the ancient wood of the building. My eyes close as my hand falls away, a few fingers dragging the last little bit. I take one, deep, steadying breath then start walking in the opposite direction.

  Each spot that meant something to Mina and me—good or bad—I stop and stare. I force myself to see us, to see what we went through. To see the flaws in my actions and reactions.

  And I vow to fix them.

  The last spot is barely a blip on the radar and fills whole screen all at once. Courtney’s house, where Mina has been staying. I raise my hand to knock only for it to go whipping out from under me.

  “You. What are you doing here?” She gives me a shocked look. “She could be here,” she adds in a forced whisper.

  “She’s not. She’s at the restaurant.”

  “You went there?” Courtney’s voice gets higher and higher with her surprise.

  “Yes, I went there but not the way you think. I didn’t bother her.” I hold my hands up in surrender. “She can have the house back.”

  “You went to say goodbye?” she screeches again. “You’re not even going to try and win her back?”

  “Of course—” I start but Courtney keeps rolling over me.

  “I don’t know what I really think about you two being together, but I do know it doesn’t matter. She’s in love with you. She deserves a happy ending. Specially after Tanner and feeling unloved and unloveable for three years. Well, it’s actually about six when you really start to look at her and Tanner on the decline.”

  “Courtney—” I try again.

  “The moment you two met you had some crazy connection. Some sort of friendship grew in no man’s land where no one else could split the concrete. You both lit each other up. I’ve never seen Mina happy like she was happy with you. I never saw her live in her own skin like when she was living with you. I never understood it, I don’t think anyone really did, but if there were ever soulmates—”

  “Stop, Courtney!” I shout but just enough to be heard. She stops mid-sentence, her mouth wide open. “I know all this. Even the bit about soulmates.” I sigh when I say the overused and obnoxious word that just so happens to fit the woman I still want to be my wife. “I want her. No, I need her. My heart beats funny without her, I can’t get a full breath in, but winning her back because I’m hurt or I’m uncomfortable isn’t enough. I know that now. I have to win her back because she needs me and I’m working on being a man worth needing.”

  “How do you do that?” She’s still standing dumbfounded in the doorframe.

  “I’m not one hundred percent sure.” My face crinkles and I take a deep breath. “But I think it starts with her dad.”

  “Whoa.” From the way her eyes go wide, I’m pretty sure she heard that whole messy story.

  “Then I’m thinking her brother.”

  “Holy shit.”

  I nod. “My thoug
hts exactly.”

  “James?” Mina’s mom, Luna, asks as she opens the door.

  “Hi, Mrs. McLennan, I know I shouldn’t be here and I’m sorry to bother you but…” Well, I don’t know how to finish that sentence.

  “It’s no bother. Come in.” She gestures and steps back to make way for me. “And call me Luna.”

  “Thank you. Very much.” I manage a small smile as I shove my hands into my pockets. “How are you feeling?”

  “Oh good. It’s going to take more than a little health blip to knock me down. Thank you for asking.” She aimlessly folds a blanket and tosses it over the arm of a nearby recliner. “I have to say, I didn’t expect to see you again.”

  I suck in a deep breath. “I’m not sure what Mina told you. I’m not sure where to start.”

  “Well we talked about a lot,” she answers softly.

  “And you still welcome me into your home?” I stutter step.

  “In the end she said nothing more than how much she loved you and missed you.”

  I swallow a giant knot in my throat.

  “Now her father had a few choice things…” Her voice fades into a hesitant chuckle as we turn for the kitchen. “I have a feeling that you need some tea.”

  “I wouldn’t want to bother—”

  “James, you drove all this way. Sit down, let’s have a cup of tea and a talk.”

  I nod and do as I’m told. Luna goes about her business in the kitchen, each of her movements the ghost of Mina’s. I can’t help my sad smile. Luna waits until the water boils before she hands me a small basket with a variety of tea bags and a mug.

  “That’s usually Mina’s when she’s here.” She nods her chin toward the Eeyore mug in front of me that has his tail as a handle.