I felt like I'd climbed a mountain and was nearing the peak; the light glimmered against the edge, promising an end. Or a beginning. Either way, the shift was tangible, and I marveled over the power of my losses and gains, that they contained the means for me to change. And change I had, elementally.
For so long, I had been still and quiet, waiting. Waiting for what exactly, I didn't know, not even as I looked back. Perhaps inspiration to guide me to a profession I'd love. Or maybe I was waiting for the courage to submit my work, realize my dream to write. I was waiting for something definitive to break the chains of my family, something to convince me that they held me back. I'd still been waiting for Wade, even after all those years, after all that we'd been through since he'd come back.
But there would be no more waiting. Not to seek out my career. Not to walk away from my family. Not even for Wade.
It didn't matter how much I loved him; my love couldn't change him. So I'd go on loving him silently through the rest of my days, as I didn't know that I could ever move on.
As we walked up the street, I saw the shade of a figure sitting on the step, shrouded in the failing light. But the moment he stood, his name filled my mind, my soul recognizing the lines of his body.
My feet slowed as my heart sped, betraying my promise not to wait for him. He waited there at the foot of the stairs, shoulders straight, the collar of his peacoat flipped against the cold. As we came closer, I saw that his face was set in determination, his eyes filled with sorrow and apologies. A wooden box rested in his hands, elegantly carved, and my thoughts raced with possibilities.
I reminded myself that he'd rejected me, blamed me, hurt me over and over again. This would only be another version of that cycle we'd found ourselves caught in. But hope sprang despite it all, like a shoot of grass in the snow.
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.