Page 119 of Almost Always

“Zara is amazing and I think you’d like her. She’s nothing like my old girlfriends and in fact, she reminds me of you sometimes. When I told Nonna this, she said that it was wrong of me to be with someone because it makes me feel closer to you. But how do I explain to her that you—” he choked on the next words and closed his eyes, realizing that even then, he’d held her so high on this pedestal, everyone else paled in comparison “—that you might be the love of my life? Is it wrong of me to be with someone else when I sometimes compare her to you?”

He looked up and she nodded, eyes brimming with tears again. It shouldn’t have surprised him how deep he got in these letters, how honest he had been when writing to her.

“I love her, I swear. But it’s a different kind of love,” he continued, chest aching with how sincere he was being. “I do want to marry her, not because I can’t have you, but because a life with Zara will be good. I know that a part of me will always wonder why it wasn’t you, though. Anyway, this is probably the last letter I’ll write and not send. It feels wrong to still be thinking of you every time something happens when someone else is waiting for me at home. I hope that wherever you are, Hero, you found your field of flowers and you’re in love with every single color and petal and stalk. I hope that they make you feel like you deserve every flower in the universe too.

“Yours, forever and always, Rafferty.” He folded the letter up and tucked it back into the box. He didn’t know what other kind of confessions he would stumble across by reaching for another one, or if it would be so painful that he would hate himself for writing it down. There had been a few letters where he made it seem like the reason he was miserable was because of Daisy, that her leaving had turned him into this grouchy human.

Truth be told, after she left, hehadbecome angry and irritable, and everyone noticed it. They approached him carefully, like a skittish horse they didn’t want to spook. It took him years before he was able to shed all of that and focus on the good stuff, like Zara, then Cal, and having his family with him. His son was the only reason he hadn’t fallen apart after his ex left. He couldn’t hate Zara for the choices she made and the way she felt, because as someone who struggled with his mental health now, he understood it. He’d held so much resentment for the two women he loved, even if he felt about them so differently.

“You don’t have to read anymore,” she offered. “But I’d like to read them later?”

Do I want her to read these innermost thoughts? My deepest and darkest desires and secrets?

“Can you read one more, Daddy?” Cal asked, blinking at him like he hadn’t just learned that his father didn’t love his mother.

“Wanna pick one?”

Cal grinned and sorted through the envelopes, and held one out to him. This time, he sat on Rafferty’s lap and leaned back against his chest.

Based on the creases and folds of the paper, it was clear that it had been read multiple times. But it was also a shorter letter, one with only six or seven lines. Even skimming through it, he knew what the letter would say and his breath caught at the emotions in his written words.

“What I’m about to read is…intense,” he warned her and she nodded. Clearing his throat, he looked down at his son and at the letter before the words flowed out of him. “I can’t remember if I said this in an earlier letter, but I love you. It’s crazy to admit that I loved you from the minute I met you because we were kids. But I have loved you for so long that I woke up this morning feeling heartbroken that I’d never get to tell you. Maybe one day, our paths will cross and I’ll be able to stare into your eyes and say—” he looked up, their gazes clashing as her soft lips parted slightly “—that I will never love anyone the way I love you, because you are my soulmate and my one true love.”

A lone tear slid down her cheek as they stared at each other. He could hear Cal saying something, but the words didn’t register. All he could focus on was Daisy and the way she was looking at him. He knew that if the roles were reversed and she’d said something like that to him,readthe words a younger version of herself had written, he’d probably look as stunned as she did right then.

“See, you were meant to be here,” Cal’s voice broke through the quiet.

Daisy smiled, wiping her face. “I agree, kiddo.”

His son leaped from his lap into her arms and they hugged, swaying and laughing. His chest was so full, ribs on the verge of cracking with how much love he was holding inside of him. When they parted and Cal was on his feet, Rafferty nodded without really listening to the question. Seconds later, kid and dog were running out the back door, barks and squeals echoing in their wake.

“I can’t believe you actually wrote me letters,” she admitted, pulling the box towards her. “There’s so many.”

“Started the week after you left and kept going. It felt therapeutic, getting all these feelings and words out, expressing myself even if you never got to know how I really felt.”

She nodded and he allowed himself to look her over. Her clothes weren’t anything fancy, but his eyes snagged on the singular gold necklace she was wearing—the wildflowers he’d gifted her.

“Were any of these angry?”

Her question made him wince, but he nodded. “There were some days when I felt like I had no control over anything and would pour my rage into the letters.”

“Were you angry withme?”

“I don’t know. I was just angry. If you ask my father, I was quite miserable to be around after you left. I hated that I never told you how I felt and I didn’t know how to handle that. I only had the memory of our kiss and the way you felt in my arms, but it wasn’t enough.”

She smiled sadly while neatly stacking the letters together in the box. “I was angry too, for a while. Because I waited too long to express my feelings and when I finally built up the courage…it was too late.”

“It felt that way back then, huh? Look at us now.”

With a hum, she closed the box and tilted her head. “Are we going to address the fact that your son orchestrated this whole thing in the hopes of us getting married?”

“And you becoming his mother? No, we’re not. I didn’t want to talk about it unless you were ready to do so.”

They’d talked about babies a few times already, so he knew that she had hopes and dreams, but the likelihood of that happening was also pretty low. They’d also addressed the wholemamathing, so none of this was a surprise. The fact that his son knew what he wanted and wasn’t shy to ask for it was absolutely astonishing. In one day, Cal had asked Daisy for everything that Rafferty never had the courage to ask her for.

“Is that what you want?”

“What?”

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