All The Letters I’ve Ever Read

by Gray, Ace

  For my part I can’t breathe. This is it. This is the moment that she either pushes me off the cliff or pulls me back.

  “No but,” she finally says.

  “What do you mean, no but?” I can barely make the words.

  “I have no rebuttal,” she adds with a half smile. “I’m always proud of you, James. Of who you are and who you are becoming. I’m proud that you always keep going, that you’re reliable and dependable. That you’re so smart.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Because I’m proud you’re mine,” she whispers lowly.

  The entire world stops spinning on its axis. “What did you say?”

  Her eyes find mine, and she repeats softly, “I’m proud you’re mine.”

  “Get out of the truck.” My voice comes out harsher than I mean to. Everything in me is pounding, adrenaline coursing through my veins. I feel like I may explode.

  “What?” Mina’s voice shakes.

  “Get out of the truck.” I try to soften my voice. Her face is sallow, tears pricking the corner of her eyes. “Please,” I add in desperation.

  She does as I ask with a slightly quizzical, slightly panicked look on her face. As soon as we’re free of the truck, I fall to my knees in the moonlight.

  “Marry me. Please.” I don’t say it as a question but rather a statement. She has to say yes. Both for me and for her. Why would she say she’s proud I’m hers otherwise?

  “No, James,” she says softly as she slowly lowers to her knees too. “Not today.” She reaches up and gently runs her knuckles along the ghost of my shiners. “And I need you to listen to my reason.”

  “No?” My body rattles as if it might liquify and puddle on the street.

  “Listen to me,” she commands, gently cupping my face and pulling until my eyes to meet hers. “Does this hurt?”

  “I’ll live,” I mutter.

  “My grip, not my words,” she clarifies.

  “Be gentle.” Regardless of what she says, I’m still talking about both.

  “When you proposed before, it was to fix something. To fix the gap between us that nothing else seemed to bridge, right?” When I don’t answer she applies the slightest pressure. “Right?” she asks again.

  “Correct, Stalin.” I wiggle beneath her hands.”

  “Leave it to you to compare me to a dictator minutes after you proposed.” She chuckles, and I notice the weight that’s been hanging heavy around her neck is gone.

  “Rules completely based on fear and the promise of a better future? Sounds exactly like you.”

  She lets out a loud and free laugh. One I haven’t heard in a long time, one that strums the innerworking of my soul.

  “I’d rather rule your heart based on love, but I can be Stalin if that helps.” She’s still smiling broadly.

  “Mina, I’m lost.”

  “I love you, James. So much it hurts. So much that I don’t know if I can trust it because if it goes sour, so do I. I want to be with you.” She enunciates each word clearly. “But I don’t need to marry you for all that to be true.”

  “So you’re saying no?” That word hurts.

  “I’m saying move back in. Love me as fiercely as you say you will. And someday, when it’s not to fix something between us, ask me to marry you.” She shrugs. “If it never happens, it never happens. I’m not in it for the proposal. Or the ring. Not a big white dress. None of that crap. I’m just in it for you.”

  “Well, I…” I wanted to marry her. I wanted to say vows to her in front of everyone we love so that they would know. I wanted to, but now… “I don’t know what to say, Meen.”

  “Say yes. Yes, you’ll live with me. Yes, you’ll love me in some way that is both mythic and so damn simple. Say you’ll take that proposal back and eat those words for breakfast.”

  I sit, staring at her. Her words are a jumble. Yes, love me. Live with me. But no, don’t marry me. Don’t ask. Despite the fact that you asked my dad for permission and got assaulted by my brother while decidedly not getting permission… My head swims.

  “So… you don’t want me, but you do?” I’m still having a hard time. Her words make my brain a little fuzzy.

  “You’re far too logical for this to be a real stumbling point, James.” She leans in and lets her lips brush across mine. “I want you. End of sentence. I’m just not going to say yes. Not yet.”

  I take a moment, a real moment to think. And to breathe. Mina’s thumbs still move gently below the bruises on my face.

  The first thing I notice when the adrenaline stops clouding my vision and I spiral back down to earth are the goose bumps blanketing Mina’s arms.

  “You’re cold?” I ask without thinking about her words, just reaching out and rubbing her arms.

  “Not with you here.” Her hands fall from my face, shooting around my neck as she lunges at me, pulling me into a hug.

  My arms move around her without me having to ask and I fall into the crook of her neck, breathing her in deep. She smells different in the cold. Like her but crisp. I can’t decide if I like it more or less than her every day smell, I just know that it stands the hair on the back of my neck on end.

  And that she’s mine.

  For however long I can keep from screwing up.

  “Guess who?” A voice I’d know anywhere tickles the curve of my ear and hands just as familiar cover my eyes.

  “Love of my life,” I answer as I reach up and trace the calluses on her pointer fingers, matching on each side from how she pours beers. “What are you doing here, Meen?”

  “You said there was something I needed to see.” She pulls her hands from my face and steps around to face me.

  Her hair is shorter now, cut into this angled bob that brushes her collarbone. I miss the way her wavy curls fell in my face and fanned out across her pillow but the curve of that bone that is always on display now makes me a little weak kneed.

  So much about Mina still does.

  “I put it away. You said that you couldn’t get down here. That I’d just have to show you later.” I let my fingers trace her collarbone. “I had a whole thing planned.”

  “A whole thing?” She eyes me and there’s a mischievous twinkle there.

  “Yeah. But let’s just get tacos and watch Wayne’s World or something now, yeah?

  Her smile doesn’t fade but the twinkle dims. I know what she thought a whole thing meant. I also know that she didn’t mean wait two years to propose again but here we are. At first I didn’t want to do it too soon, then I became obsessive about making it perfect, and now… Now I know.

  “Yeah, sure.” She reaches across the small space between us and brushes the back of my hand. “I can’t wait.”

  “Why don’t you grab a beer or two from the cellar closet over there, then we’ll go.”

  “You’re ready to go?” She looks around at the relative disarray of the brewhouse. “You can’t leave it like this.”

  “I got it,” Jonas says, leaning against the doorframe. “You two grab a few bottles from the cellar closet then go have fun.”

  I glower after him; he didn’t need to use the exact same words as me…

  “So I should go grab some beers from the cellar closet, eh?” Mina laughs, rolling her eyes. Her footsteps echo on the tile floor as she walks over. “You guys install something new, something fancy in here today?”

  She opens the door and fishes for the light. “On the left, Meen,” I offer as movement from the hallway catches my eye. Aspen darts back the way she came as soon as I catch her looking; Jonas smiles big and wide before he follows. I only get to return the smile for a second before the cellar closet light flips on.

  “What am I looking—” Her gasp interrupts her question. “James,” she says a moment later, but the subtext is one hundred percent, oh my god you shouldn’t have.

  I shove my hands into my pocket and slowly walk over to the open door. My eyes take in the stained oak barrels, stacked around the room before landing on the fi
rst three bottles of Mina.

  “James, what is this?” She turns, knowing I’m there behind her.

  “It’s a beer I brewed for you. It’s been aging about eighteen months in here. I had the label artwork finished a month or so ago.” She grabs the bottle closest to her and I hold my breath.

  Her thumb traces the outline I spent weeks perfecting. The one that looks like the line of a tulip snifter and the curves of a woman all at once. The one inspired by the shape of her getting out of bed and walking naked to our bathroom. The one inspired by the way she always presses a tulip glass to her temple.

  She doesn’t even notice her engagement ring sitting on the barrel box, revealed from where it had been sitting beneath the punt of her beer bottle.

  “It’s beautiful, James.” She hasn’t taken her eyes off the label. “What is it?”

  “It’s a biere de miel, brewed with saison yeast.”

  “Like our beer?” she asks, that twinkle from earlier back in her eyes.

  “But I made it.” I’m pretty sure something just as ridiculous is in mine.

  “So we’re having this beer with tacos and Wayne’s World?”

  I just nod.

  “Well then.” She reaches back for the other bottles only to freeze. For a minute, nothing moves, neither of us breathe. “James.” Her voice is barely more than a whisper.

  “I took it out of your jewelry box, I hope you don’t mind.” I swallow the knot in my throat.

  “Depends on what you say next.” She sets down the beer and her fingers drift over the ring.

  I reach for the two glasses I’d hidden before pulling out the knife I carry faithfully in my pocket. I set them next to the bottles of Mina and flip the blade to score the wax then use the butt to pop the cap. Before I say a word, I pour two glasses and hand her one.

  “I think I knew July 17th, 2017 that you would change me.”

  Her eyes light up. “You remember the day?”

  “I had to do a little math if I’m being honest, but I put it in the calendar after that.” She nudges me with her shoulder then sags completely into me. “The date doesn’t matter tons, Meen, because it was the feeling. Like the earth shifted just the smallest bit.”

  She smiles, resting her head against my chest.

  “I’ll be the first to admit that I had some trouble navigating the new landscape but…”

  “You never gave up.”

  I bend down and kiss the crown of her head. “And I never will.”

  “I believe you.” She reaches for my hand and twines her pinkie with mine.

  “It’s not always going to be perfect—you know I’m not—but I meant it years ago when I said, I don’t want to get over you. I can live without you, but I don’t want to. Ever. And the choice to be with you, each and every day, is one I always look forward to making.”

  She squeezes my pinky.

  “Choose me too, Mina. Please? Not to fix anything or because you can’t breathe without me, but because you want me. You want to be with me. All the ups, all the downs. I want to love you the way you deserve to be loved.”

  “The beautiful thing about this is I already do choose you. Every day.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  She nods and it’s my turn to squeeze her pinky before I let go and grab the ring, sliding it back into place.

  “This is the other beautiful thing about it.” She holds up her hand and admires the ring in the lights. “I love the ring.”

  “I’m glad.” I smile. “I thought about getting you a new one but…”

  “But we’re the summation of all of it. The good, the bad, and the beautiful.” She holds her hand up again. “I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

  I don’t have a ring to look at. Not even the beer brewed for her will do. I just have her, and she is what I stare at with admiration and adoration as I murmur, “Me neither.”

  I keep my eyes fixed on the back of my truck. Waiting. Normally, I don’t mind waiting. I’m grateful for each moment and can usually find something to occupy my thoughts. But waiting for Mina McLennan sucks.

  After what feels like an eternity, the back window unlatches and rises to the sky. The tailgate falls a moment later and Mina emerges.

  She steals my breath the moment I see her.

  Every single thing about her says bride, even the lighting is playing along with a golden orb illuminating her from behind, but she’s still shimmying out of the back of my truck barefoot. She’s pinned her hair up, loose with the small curls hanging artfully down her neck and framing her face. She has lace capping both her shoulders and the matching deep Vs down her back and front. Everything about the dress is delicate, ethereal, or maybe that’s just her.

  Once she stands, she smooths the front of her dress so that that it falls in gentle cascades from her waist. Only one piece of jewelry compliments her breathtaking dress. A burnished gold circle that says amour that I gave her years ago.

  My wife is striking.

  The lump is already back in my throat, tears prick the corners of my eyes. She smiles when she notices then reaches back into the bed of the truck and pulls out a bouquet that seems almost as big as she is. Wildflowers drip from her hands as she walks toward me in the meadow we’ve chosen.

  “Hi, you,” she says when she’s just a heartbeat or two away. She reaches up and smooths the button up I’m wearing then adjusts the boutonnière pinned to my suspenders. “You look incredibly handsome.” She runs her fingertips down the contours of my forearms, exposed because I rolled my sleeves up.

  “You look…” I can’t even find the words. She knows that when I say awesome or breathtaking I mean it but still. She looks like more today. “You look like I could love you forever,” I finally murmur.

  Her face twists and I watch as she struggles to swallow. When she finally schools her face, her eyes glisten.

  “I know you wanted to say your vows in front of everyone we know, everyone who’d listen, but thank you for just letting it be us.” Her hand finds mine, skating across my skin rather than stealing it. “Well us and Jonas.” She nods to where he’s standing with a thick leather-bound book beneath a natural arc of aspen branches.

  “And Courtney.” We both smile at her where she’s photographing us from a few feet away. She gives us a beaming smile before tucking back behind the lens and offering a thumbs up.

  “Any last words?” she asks as her pinky hooks in mine.

  “She will be mine. Oh yes. She will be mine,” I answer with a purr.

  Mina laughs loud and wild and free so that it fills the meadow. Courtney’s camera shutters rapidly and I can only hope one of those pictures captures Mina in all her glory. When she finally lets her laugher trickle off like a small mountain stream, she reaches over and cups my cheek.

  “She will. I don’t even know if you need vows after that.”

  We start walking toward Jonas and Courtney shifts in front of us, still snapping. “You’re getting the vows. I’ve been working on them for over three years, and I have the whole box of rejects to prove it.”

  “You do?”

  I nod. “I thought about burning them once but…”

  She chuckles then lets her head fall against my shoulder. We’re both picturing the stone bowl of ash that still sits on our dining room table. The centerpiece of letters, written, broken, burned, and beautiful just like us.

  “I want to read them when we get home.”

  “Anything.” I look over at her, into her eyes when I say it so she knows how very much I mean it. We walk in a comfortable silence the rest of the way to Jonas. He steps forward and kisses Mina on the cheek then switches his book from one hand to the other to clap me on the shoulder.

  “Ready?”

  We both barely breathe yeses into the woods and Mina hands her bouquet to Courtney. Jonas clears his throat.

  “We’re gathered here today in the only cathedral grand enough to house a love like this, a love like the one between Mina McLennan and James
Larrabee. No carved stone or stained glass would have done it justice, only the splendor of the mountains, the arches of the trees and branches themselves, and the delicate details of the wildflowers are fit for you two.”

  I take a moment to look around, to savor the impressive splendor of this high mountain meadow. The peaks in the background, the field of wildflowers brushing against our clothes that are both too fancy and a perfect fit for the setting. I gaze into the forest, a grove of pristine white, tall aspen trees. The ghost of a sideways smile tugs at my lips where I can see Mina’s family hiding, close enough to hear and see but not so close as she can.

  “I’d say love like yours is the stuff of movies and books but we all know that it’s not. Love like that is easy and what you have is hard fought and even harder won. Love like yours is real and rough and raw. It’s the love we should write books about, the type that we should crave because of its honesty. Because it’s real.

  “With that in mind, I’m about out of words. No repeat after mes, no till death do you parts, just your words. Your vows to each other.”

  Mina starts and I hear a few of the words but honestly, I can’t stop getting lost in her eyes. Following the shape of her lips. Tracing the line of her collarbone. Her voice is melody and song, a compliment to the breeze blowing through the clearing.

  And before I realize… “And now for your vows to Mina, James.”

  I reach into my pocket and resist the urge to shove my hands in and leave them. Instead I pull out the vows that I’m finally happy with and read them to her.

  “Mina. When I looked up your name, the meaning of it, the very definition is love. Lover.” I smirk and she reaches up to trace the shape of my smile. “It’s steadfast, committed, unrelenting, and determined.” I take a deep breath. “And I have had the privilege to know you as all of those things. To know you as all that you are. I’ve had the privilege to know you like that, and to love you unconditionally like that.

  “I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, of the words which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun,” I quote from Austen’s Pride & Prejudice before continuing. “I can’t remember back to the day I knew I loved you, or the reason that I felt that way, I only know that I do.