Page 70 of Love, Utley

Only one shoulder goes up this time. “I said something foolish about how much our time had meant to me.” Foolish. It wouldn’t have been foolish. “And I wrote down my number.” The blow hits. I knew it was coming, that she would have included it, but to hear her say it… “I said something about how I know long distance sucks, but that I’d like to talk to you again. Maybe read together.” She whispers the last sentence.

I take a step back.

She wanted to read to me over the phone. Like she’d done that night.

“And then I never called.” I feel like I’m breaking my own heart.

Hannah gives me another one of those fucking shrugs. “I get it.”

“No.” I shake my head. “No, there’s nothing to get. I didn’t— Hannah, I never got that letter. If I did, I would’ve called.”

“Okay.” She says it like she doesn’t believe me.

“I would have.” I run my hand through my hair. “I don’t know what happened to it, but I never got it. You have to believe me.”

Hannah is biting her lip, but she nods.

An intense sense of loss fills me, and I fucking hate it. There’s so much time we could have had together, but instead, we lost it all.

“Why didn’t you write to me again?” My voice sounds different from a moment ago. “You knew where I lived.”

She huffs out a broken laugh. “Because writing that letter once was hard enough. And because I didn’t want to be the desperate hookup begging for attention from hours away.”

I grit my teeth. “You weren’t just a hookup. You have to know that.”

“How?” She lifts and drops her hands again. “How was I supposed to know that, Maddox? As far as I knew, I left you a letter telling you how I felt, and you ignored it.”

I clench my fists. “That’s not what happened.”

“I believe you, okay? I believe you never got the letter, but at the time, I didn’t know that. And it hurt.” Her voice cracks. “I figured you didn’t care.”

“I cared a lot.” I take a step closer.

Hannah stops me with her next question. “Did you go to the library looking for me?”

My mouth opens, but I don’t want to answer.

Because I didn’t.

FORTY-FIVE

HANNAH

I can see it on his face.

He didn’t go to the library.

I believe him about everything else. I do. But I believe that too.

“You weren’t going to meet me that night.” My heart sinks as I say it.

None of this even matters.

He never tried looking for me.

It would’ve been over anyway.

“I was going to.” He grits the words, frustrated.

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