I stopped, though Charlie and the kids kept going, making their way inside. When I looked up at Wade, the nearness of him was stifling.
"What are you doing here?" I asked, girding my heart for the answer.
He looked down at the box in his hands. "You said you didn't owe me anything, and you were right, Elliot. But I owe you everything."
My breath was thin as I stood still, waiting, wishing, hoping, dreading.
"I have been unfair and unjust. I've been resentful and angry. I've been so many things I'm ashamed of, but the one constant is that I've always been in love with you." He met my eyes, pinning me down as he so easily could. I was his, irrefutably. "You asked me why I came to you that night — it's because you have possessed my soul from the start. You were the only one … the only one who would understand, who could show me that there was love still in the world, in my heart."
He took a deep breath, shifting, eyes dropping once again to his hands. "You asked me why I never wrote you back. But I did, Elliot. Every day, to every letter."
He opened the box, and I watched him as my tears chased each other down my cheeks. Inside were my letters, dozens and dozens of them, each in my hand, and in the center was a leather bound journal, fat and bursting with papers.
"When I left, I was angry, so angry. But through boot camp, I didn't have time to think about anything. I got every letter, but I couldn't throw them away. I couldn't open them either. So I tossed them in my foot locker and ignored them. I took them with me when it was over, because I still couldn't get rid of them. And when I got stationed in Texas for training before deployment, the letters kept coming, and every one added to the pile was another log on the fire."
He swallowed, meeting my eyes and dropping them again as the wind ruffled his dark hair. "It wasn't until I was in Iraq, when my mail finally caught up, that I opened one. There were twenty of them, all with your handwriting on the envelope, and where I was, so far away, I … I found I wasn't mad. I only missed you. So I opened one. Then another. Then I couldn't stop, not until I'd read them all."
Tears stung my eyes, and I blinked them back, steeling myself.
"And then, I wrote. Letter after letter poured out of me, the things I'd wished I'd said. Some were angry. Some were happy, some sad. But they were all wrong. I didn't know how to tell you I was wrong, that it wasn't your fault but mine. And I was, Elliot. I was wrong. I was selfish and scared, and I've regretted that for a long, long time." He took a breath. "I thought when I came home, maybe you could forgive me. We could talk, make it all right. Go back to the old plan. I couldn't answer you while I was there because … well, because of no good reason, I see that now. But at the time, I was stuck there. The only concession I gave myself, the only allowance to feel anything, was when I sat down to write you a thousand letters I never sent. Friends died, I saw things that made me feel like I wouldn't make it out. I had nothing to offer you, nothing to give, no promises to make, not until I was home. And when I finally did get back, when I opened your first letters, I realized just how wrong I was."
He met my eyes, and I saw his were sparkling with tears.
"You changed your mind."
My breath hitched, and I nodded.
"I didn't know," he breathed. "I would have come back before leaving for deployment. I would have married you then, if I'd known you'd been begging me to come back that whole time. The answer I wanted was given to me over and over again, piled up in a locker in the dark. And when … when I read them, I knew there would be no going back. I believed at the time that I'd lost you forever without even asking you because how could you ever forgive me? I pushed you and blamed you, and you believed I didn't want you because I didn't come home. I could have married you then, but I had too much pride. I was young, young and stupid. And by the time I realized how wrong I'd been not to reach out to you, it had been years. Your letters had stopped. You were through. But I kept writing you back, every day, even after you stopped. I never stopped loving you, even though I thought you had stopped loving me."
He set the box on the concrete rail and picked up the journal, unwinding the strap, opening it to one of his letters before he offered it to me.
The leather was soft, the book heavy in my palm as I read his words, the words I'd imagined for so long.
Elliot —
Every day that passes takes me farther away from you, from us, from what we had. I sit in the mountains, surrounded by men who are each alone entirely, and I think of you. I can remember you so vividly that sometimes I feel like you're here, and I imagine what you would say, what I would say. Sometimes I imagine that we talk about nothing, that I make you laugh, that you kiss me and tell me you'll always be waiting. Other times, I imagine us saying all the things we'll never have a chance to say.
I wish I were brave enough to send these letters to you. As much as I love you, as much as I always will, when I sit under the stars on the other side of the globe, I know that you and I can't fit into each other's worlds. But there will ever only be you, for all my life.
I ran my trembling fingers over his words, then across a letter I'd written him that rested in the crease, folded like a paper boat. I flipped back through the pages, letter after letter, his words breaking me, his sorrow, his longing. His heart had been through what mine had.
"It's always been you, Elliot. Every night when I lay my head on the pillow, every morning when I rise, it's only you. Tell me I'm not too late. Tell me there's still a chance for us, and I will spend every breath I have earning your forgiveness. Tell me that you still love me, and I will give myself to you completely."
I was overcome, unable to speak as I closed the journal and clutched it to my aching heart. And because words could not find me, I stepped closer until our bodies met, laid my hand on the hard line of his jaw, tilted my chin, and kissed him with everything I possessed.
His lips against mine transferred truth, singing softly as they parted and closed against mine in a song of deliverance and salvation.
He wrapped his arms around me, breathing me in deeper with every second as the kiss went on and on forever just as it ended too soon. He searched my face, only a few inches from his, his breath warming my skin.
"Is it true? Is it real?" he asked in a whisper. "After everything I've done, could you still love me?"
"I have loved only you," I whispered back, and his face lit with joy, bent with grace as he kissed me again. And with a few simple words, he was mine and I was his, as it had always been, even when it was unspoken.
He dipped his chin, breaking the kiss as he pressed his forehead to mine.
I was home.
27
Wait
Waves lap my feet
Eyes on the horizon
Love in my heart
As I wait
For you.
* * *
- M. White
* * *
Wade
I closed my eyes, certain I'd open them to find her gone, but there she was with love and forgiveness in her eyes. And my new mission was to earn that forgiveness with everything I did.
I kissed her again, pulling her into me, drinking her in with every breath, every touch. When she broke away, she smiled up at me.
"What do we do now?" she asked with swollen lips.
Within a split second, I had my answer. I smiled back and took her hand. "Come with me."
"I'll follow you anywhere. Where you go, I go."
I couldn't resist another kiss, slipping my hand into her hair before I pressed my lips to hers, transferring all the gratitude and triumph I felt. And then, I hastily packed away my notebook and closed up the box, tucking it under my arm as I took her hand again.
Anticipation crackled between us, popping with wonder. Her hand was in mine, and she was smiling. She was happy, but not as happy as I was — she'd given me everything I wanted, everything I'd been hiding from, the things I thought I'd never had. But all I'd had to do was ask.
"Where are w
e going?" she asked as we hurried down the sidewalk.
"To my house, is that all right?"
"Perfect," she answered.
We didn't speak along the way, both of us too busy with our thoughts, with our awe and reverence, and before long, I was towing her up the steps of the house and through the door, up the stairs and into my room, closing the door behind me.
She stood in the middle of my bedroom catching her breath, looking around with wide eyes that scanned the walls and furniture.
"It's just like I remembered it," she said half to herself as she unwound her scarf absently, walking to my desk to hang it and her coat on the back of my chair. The cork board still held our photos, my boutonniere from senior prom pinned next to our picture, a poem she'd written me there alongside it. She trailed her fingers across the words. "It feels like a lifetime ago."
I took off my coat too, tossing it on my bed, stepping behind her to hold her around the waist. My chin rested on top of her head, and she covered my arms with hers.
"Feels like yesterday," I said. "Time is a funny thing, isn't it?"
"It is," she answered quietly before turning around in my arms. "I've missed you. Every second of every day."
I brushed her cheek with the backs of my fingers. "I thought I could forget you. I even convinced myself I had, for a time. But it was impossible. You left a mark on my soul I couldn't erase."
The feeling of her body against mine, the weight of her hands on my chest reminded me she was real. And then I kissed her, compiling the sensations blissfully.
"I want to know everything," I said, pressing my lips to her temple. "Everything I missed, everything that's happened."
She chuckled. "So much. Seven years' worth."
"I've got all the time in the world to listen."
She sighed, the sound full of perfect happiness. "Where should I start?"
"From the minute I left."
"That," she said sadly, "was not a very tale-worthy time."
"But I want to know all the same."
She took my hand and led me to my bed, climbing in to lie against the wall, and I lay next to her. Her body curled and molded to mine, our legs wrapping around each other, her arm over my chest and mine under her shoulders, her dark hair fanned out and my hand unable to leave it alone. I slipped silky strands of it between my fingers, lost in the moment with her.
We lay like that for a little while before she spoke.
"You read my letters, so you know a bit."
I nodded and kissed her forehead.
"For almost two years, I floated through life, not knowing if I'd ever recover. I just kept writing letters, an exercise likened to stamping your feet in the cold to keep the blood flowing. It was the only way I could survive, to get the words out and away from me. Except the words were wind. They meant nothing to anyone but me. Or, I thought. I wasn't sure if you'd even gotten them or if you did, if you'd read them."
"I did. I read every one, just not when I should have."
She was quiet for a moment. "I think I'd rather hear what happened to you through all that time. I've missed it all."
"I … Elliot, I don't know how to tell you what it was like."
"Words, strung together, one at a time."
I took a deep breath, her arm riding the rise and fall of my chest. "When I left, I left my soul here, with you." I paused, not sure how to put it but trying to, regardless. "I was empty at first, focused only on basic training. Every day was scheduled, every minute from the time I woke to the second the lights went out, and it seemed the next thing I knew, I was shipped off to Iraq."
Her hand shifted, resting in the hollow of my chest, just above my heart.
"It was … extreme, intense is the only way I know to explain it. You know, during the war, we had ways to call home, ways to keep in touch, but none of us did. I mean that — not the guys with kids or families, no one. It was too hard, knowing that back home, everyone went about not knowing, not seeing the world for what it is, not knowing what we knew. I barely spoke to Dad or the girls, but they wrote, and you wrote. But I couldn't answer. I tried. I was going to. But there was a moment …" I paused. I'd never spoken about it.
"You don't have to talk about it," she said softly, as if she knew.
I squeezed, holding her to me as I pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
"It's okay. It was a long time ago. Our truck hit an IED and flipped. My friend died, and I knew I couldn't answer you because I was sure, certain in that moment that I would die before I could get home to you. I dug a hole, a deep hole in myself, and I hid there, burying that most precious part of me so it would survive what I went through, all I saw. The only problem was that before long, I'd forgotten where it was buried. I don't think I uncovered it again until I found you again here, now."
Her fingers closed, clutching my shirt.
"But I wrote to you every day. I'd write them over and over again. Admission after admission. Some days, I'd just tell you what I did that day. Some days I'd beg for your forgiveness. And some days, more days than I'd care to admit, my words were angry, hurt, unforgiving. But no matter what I wrote, I couldn't send one back. I needed to be cut off from the rest of the world. From you. It was the only way I could survive everything I'd seen and the only way I could protect you from losing me. You'd already lost me. Better that than to give you hope. And part of me thought that if I didn't respond that you'd stop, that you'd be quiet and leave it alone, all while hoping you'd never stop, riding to every mail pickup with my heart in agony and hope.
"I was in Afghanistan when you finally gave up on me. I'd brought the box with me to every station, the only personal effect I kept with me always. I bought it on my first tour to Afghanistan in a village nearby from a man who'd learned to carve from his father, who learned it from his father and back generations. A few months after I bought it, that village was laid to waste. I always wondered if he'd survived to teach his sons. But I never saw him again."
She took a shuddering breath, and I pulled her closer.
"It wasn't long before the letters didn't fit, and I'd gone through a journal. Then another. So when I came back to the States, I kept only the ones that meant the most. Every time I came home, I switched them out, and every time the ones I kept changed, with the exception of just a few. I have thousands of them in Germany, all worn, the creases soft from folding and unfolding them so many times over the years.
"I volunteered for tour after tour, never wanting to be back here. It's … easier over there. When we come home, we can't forget, can't walk away from war, especially knowing we'll probably be sent back, so I just kept going. At least over there, everyone understood. We were all in the same place, hurting in the same way, pretending we were fine because it was the only way we'd survive.
"By the time the war was over, I'd changed so much, withdrawn into myself. I didn't know how to be the old me, and I wasn't sure who the new me was. I was still angry, so angry. And even at that, I thought about trying to find you. But there was no way to reach out. Not after a thousand letters I'd never answered. Not after ignoring you when you changed your mind and begged me to come home. After your last letter, I … I was sure it was over. I told myself I could move on, that it was time. But it was empty, and so was I."
"This will be my last; my heart can't take any more," she recited from the letter, her voice distant, just as I'd imagined when I'd read it over and over again.
"I hear you. Your silence is deafening, the answer clear. Since I'm sorry will never be enough, I'll only say goodbye."
We lay in silence for a few long minutes, hanging on to each other, the years folding up like a paper fan until the length had been shortened, bringing us back together again.
"I don't deserve your forgiveness," I whispered, and she propped herself up, looking down at me with her face framed by curtains of dark hair.
"I wouldn't have forgiven you if you hadn't changed."
I reached for her face, thumbing her cheek.
"How can you be sure I have?"
Her eyes, her bottomless eyes told me only of her faith. "I can see it here." She ran her fingers across my temple. "And here." She touched my lips. "I can feel it here." She laid her hand on my heart. "I know you, even when you don't know yourself. Even when you pushed and pulled me, deep down, I knew how you felt. But I couldn't fix you, couldn't help you because you didn't want help. You wanted to be broken, and you wanted to hurt all of us, to warn us away. It almost worked."
"You believe in those of us who didn't love you the way you've deserved. Why?"
"Because," she said as her lips smiled small, "I knew all that you could be, and I wished for it with all of me."
"I'll spend every breath that I have proving you right." I pulled her down to me, my hands in the curve of her neck, her lips against mine, her breath my own.
So many years I'd missed. So many kisses, so many words from her sweet lips. How happy we could have been all that time — my chest burned at the thought. But I was through looking back to the past when my future was right in front of me, right there in my arms.
There was no urgency, only the long kiss, the kiss that never ended, only flowed from one moment to the next, softly, gently. I broke away after what felt like an eternity or a moment and climbed out of bed, walking around to turn off the lights. Snow fell beyond the window; the ground had been covered in the time since we'd been inside, and the full moon reflected off the crisp white canvas, lighting the room in shades of indigo. I reached over my shoulder, grabbing a fistful of sweater to tug it off. Then my shirt. Then my jeans, leaving me just in my underwear.
She'd pushed herself up to sit, taking off her sweater and jeans before climbing under the covers in a tank and her underwear. I slipped in next to her, the heat of her body radiating, mingling with mine as we lay chest to chest, our legs entwined, her arms folded and curled against my chest, my arms around her back, hands in her hair.
It was a moment I'd dreamed of, a moment I'd rejected. It was a moment we'd shared so many times, so many years before. It was the moment, the now, the present. The beginning and the end. The end of our pain. The beginning of our future.