You’re going to think it’s crazy but it’s the baby that made me realize it. James. He’s the best little dude. I love him so hard and fierce that I’m blind with it and he made me realize that I want it all to be that big. That’s what you do to me baby my other baby. I don’t know what was wrong with me but I’m pretty sure I had to do this. I got scared of us I guess but I’m not anymore.
I never explained this to you before and maybe it’s really fucking stupid to put it in a love letter but I’m a little drunk right now so I’m going to and hope it will help you understand. I did what I did with Sabrina because she’s like a symbol of everything a man is supposed to want. I know you’re not going to believe that but it’s true. I’m me but I’m also still just a kid from a fishing town in Maine and she’s the gorgeous blonde with the moneyed old family and from the first second she just admired the shit out of me. Who could resist that combination. I couldn’t. From the second we met all she wanted to do was support me and promote me and introduce me to her rich friends who all actually followed through on calling my gallery and I kind of got high on it. And I’m not going to say I’m sorry about it because that wouldn’t even matter. If you think about it, it had to happen this way. I had to have that to know that I wanted you. She does everything for me because of me and I thought I needed that. Because you don’t do that. You do things for yourself and I do things for myself. We’re selfish bastards Saina and now I know it’s better that way for people like us.
Because we burn up the world together. You can’t deny it. I don’t talk to anyone the way I talk to you. No one else has ideas like we do. No one else consumes shit the way that we do. We tear each other apart. We crawl up inside each other and die there. It sounds sick but it’s amazing. That’s the way we love and I miss it.
I won’t lie. I love what Sabrina does for me. But I love what you do TO me and WITH me. And now I’m so lonesome without you. Lonesome. Like Johnny Cash. I know you hate similes (See I remember everything about you.) but they just keep coming out because I’ve never written a letter like this before.
You know I’ve already deleted this letter ten times? I know I don’t have a lot of shots left with you. Hell maybe I don’t even have this shot. But I’m going to try.
You’re going to ask if I have any plans for us and I don’t. But I know that we should be together. Just tell me that you want to be with me and that will be enough for me right now. We’ll figure the rest out. Maybe me and you will have a baby. Why not.
Okay now I really am drunk and I’m at least smart enough not to keep writing this. But you’ll think about it won’t you. I know you met that guy up there but he’s not me and Sabrina’s not you.
I love you I love you I love you my little pieces. I love you.
G
She felt calm at first, detached, and vaguely interested. But as she scanned, thumbing the screen upwards, her fury grew. Grayson probably wrote this in Sabrina’s apartment, huddled in the kitchen in the middle of the night, draining a bottle of whiskey while his fiancée breastfed their baby. Saina could see it. Him, with the screen glowing on his face. Her, burping some adorable, chubby creature, worried about his absence but not wanting to say it.
It was gratifying, a little bit, to think that she could take him away from Sabrina. Her ring was probably in their apartment, too, or in Sabrina’s workshop. She’d given it back when they’d broken up. Flung it at him and then run to get the complex, faceted box it had come in and thrown that at him, too. Now Saina remembered how it had felt on her finger, how its heaviness had meant that she was loved, that she could stop worrying about that part of her life at least. She missed that constant reminder, even if it had turned out to be a lie.
Andrew looked back at his sister. She was sitting on the bench next to his duffel, staring at the floor in front of her. Grayson was probably trying to win her back, that asshole. He hoped that she didn’t fall for it. Saina and Grace hadn’t asked him yet about Dorrie, but he’d tell them the truth if they did.
Just then the baggage carousel started up, and pieces of luggage started sliding down the chutes.
“Oh! I see mine! It was the first one out!” Grace dragged him behind her as she chased her bag and then Saina’s. As they walked back to the bench, pulling the suitcases behind them, he leaned in to her and whispered, pointing at the man putting a new plastic bag in the metal bin, “Have you ever seen a Chinese janitor before?”
“I’ve never even seen so many Chinese people before,” she whispered back. But it was true. She’d never seen a Chinese janitor or a security guard or even a Chinese boy band like the one that had been on the plane with them.
Saina stood up as they approached. “Okay, so I’m thinking that we just go straight to the hospital, right? It’s almost midnight, so it doesn’t really make sense to find a hotel and stuff. Let’s just go there and maybe they’ll let us into his room, or if not, there’ll probably be a waiting room or something.”
“Wait, you’re not just going to slip by us! What did Grayson want?” asked Grace.
How could she even begin to explain it? “I don’t think I’m going to respond to him.”