I lied. And I miss you. Please. Please forgive me. I’ll do anything to make it right.
Remy
There were already tears leaking out of my eyes as I finished reading the short missive.
“Such a stupid man,” I muttered. While I thought about all the years we’d lost, I fidgeted with the bracelet I still wore around my wrist, the one he’d given me as a kid.
“Duh!” Kennedy piped up from the floor. “Haven’t you met my brother? The man is an idiot.” She paused. “Do you want to tell me what he said?”
“No.” Wiping my nose, I reached for the box and another letter after I carefully folded the first one and put it away. The next one was dated for the very next day. “I think he wrote to me every day he was deployed.”
“Sounds like Remy. Man’s been obsessed with keeping an eye on you since the day he got back. Makes sense that he’d be just as obsessed while he was overseas.” Her voice was filled with something more than annoyance, though, and I felt her pain radiate from the floor.
“Did Linc?”
She coughed. “Yeah, no. He did not write to me, not even once and I have no doubt that I won’t find a bunch of unsent letters. He left me his dog tag, though. One of them. I wore it until the day they came home, too. Now I’ve got it sitting in my jewelry box.”
I thought about joining her on the floor, but then she sat up and grabbed her pillow. “Scoot over. The couch is big enough for both of us.” Plopping down with the pillow held over her chest, she stared at me with glassy eyes. “Do not let anything in these letters change your mind about him, Parker. Promise me.”
“They won’t,” I told her with my eyebrows raised. “If Remy hadn’t taken off, I would have calmed down and read them in front of him, if he’d let me. But no, your brother had to take off and do stupid shit.” I sniffled. “That’s why I called you.”
Kennedy nodded solemnly. “Good.”
We both looked down, and I caught sight of her ring finger. “Where’s your ring?”
“Gone.” That’s all she said, and I knew she wouldn’t tell me anything else.
My heart lifted at the thought that she’d broken off her engagement. Kennedy, for all her bluster, loved Linc just as much as I loved Remy. It was one of the things that connected us and our friendship over the past six years. There might be hope for them yet.
Instead of saying anything about it, I turned my attention back to the letter in my hand. Taking as much care with it as I did with the first one, I started to read.
Dear Parker,
I lied. You aren’t nothing. You’re everything.
I know you married Danny, and I know you’re pregnant with his baby. But I wish I could turn back time and make you mine.
Remy
I grabbed another letter, this time from the middle of the pile, and opened it.
Dear Parker,
I watched you marry my friend and it broke my heart. But seeing you cry at his funeral destroyed my soul.
Remy
There would be no stopping the tears streaming down my cheeks now, as I remembered the pain I’d been in. The pain I’d seen on his face at Danny’s funeral. The regret I had at ever telling him how I felt.
I reached for another, this time from the back of the stack, but not the last.
Dear Parker,
I dream about you.
Holding you in my arms, kissing you, touching you.
You’re the only thing keeping me sane here. Even if I know it’s just a dream.
Fuck… I think I love you.
Who am I kidding? I’ve always loved you.
Remy
There were so many more letters I hadn’t read. Letters I had every intention of breaking into and reading in their entirety.
“I spent so long thinking Remy hated me,” I confessed to Kennedy. “Years where I thought he’d rather stay overseas than come home and face me. I stayed in a town that hated me, Kennedy, so that Nox could be near his family. And Remy didn’t hate me.”
Kennedy snorted, holding her pillow tight as she watched my face. “Remy never hated you, Parker. He might not have admitted it. My parents might not have seen it. The entire town might have turned a blind eye, but I saw it. I saw the love, the way he watched you from a distance.”
I picked up the last letter, surprised to find it thicker than the others, and shut out anything else Kennedy might have said.
My heart was beating so hard I could actually feel my blood pumping through my body. The skin on my arms and neck started to itch, and I had to focus on the task at hand to get through it.
It was dated for the week before he came home for good. Less than a year ago now.
Dear Parker,
I made Danny a promise, and I’m going to see it through. We were drinking the day you two got married, after you left with Rose and Emma, and he made me promise that I would watch over you. That I would make sure you were taken care of if anything ever happened to him. That I would love you in his place. But how can I keep that promise to him? How can I claim you when I’m the reason our lives are the way they are? How can I keep a promise to him when it means breaking the one I made to myself all those years ago? How can I possibly earn your love?
Tell me, and I’ll do it.
I’m coming home, finally, to Birch.
Even if it kills me, I’m going to make sure that you’re taken care of. I won’t come close, because I know by now that you hate me and that I will never deserve your love. I haven’t gotten a letter from you since the end of my first deployment, so you must have given up. Good. I can’t blame you, considering I’ve never had the balls to send a single response back to you.
One day, I’ll have the courage to give you these letters. To tell you how much they meant to me and how I’ve always felt about you.
I know you’re the one who made it so Daisy could come with me, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank you enough for that. I’ll find a way, though. I’ll figure it out, like I always do.
You’re the reason I survived this place during my deployments. This is the last one, and if my sister hadn’t died, who knows if I’d have reenlisted again.
I keep the picture of us, from before I ruined everything, in my pocket so I can see your smile and imagine what we could have had.
Danny told me once that he loved you, but he knew that I loved you more. I don’t know about that, because if I loved you more, I don’t think I would have been able to let you go like I did.
The man that I am now? I would never have given you up.
I’m rambling. I know I am. Fuck. I’m not even going to send you this letter so I don’t know why I’m bothering to write it.
I promised Danny that I’d take care of you if anything happened to him.
Maybe one day, when I figure out how to earn your forgiveness, we can be more?
Just let me know, and I’ll be there.
I’m yours, I think.
Remy
“That asshole copied my letter.”
Kennedy watched me like the lunatic I was, tears streaming down my face unchecked, as I raged against her brother stealing the ending of the letter I’d written him before he graduated boot camp. Before he broke my heart.