Page 98 of Hate Mail

“About what?” she snaps. I can tell by the closeness of her voice that she’s right on the other side of the door. “About how you’ve been lying to me? Or about how you’ve been stalking me for the last six months?”

“I didn’t stalk you,” I say. “And if that’s the reason you’re mad, then I feel like I should remind you that you went to at least three different states to try to find me.”

“Bullshit. Do you expect me to believe that you didn’t know who I was either and you just happened to move into the same building as me? Is Joel even your real dad? Do you even have siblings? I thought you were an only child. Is everything you told me a lie?”

“He is my dad.”

“Carol Bell said that your dad left you when you were a kid.”

“He did. We reconnected six months ago, which is why I ended up in Miami. I didn’t lie about that. And I do have three half-siblings. Who the hell is Carol Bell?”

“She was the old lady who lived on the corner of your street in San Diego.”

I want to point out how hypocritical that statement is, but I decide against it. I don’t want to fuel the fight. I just want her to talk to me.

“None of it was a lie,” I say. “Well, except for me not telling you my name.”

“You knew damn well that I didn’t know your name that whole time. If your goal was to make me feel like an idiot, you succeeded.”

I think about when she said my name while I was touching her in her bedroom in the middle of the night. I had thought in that moment that she knew who I was, but by the morning it was clear that she didn’t. I still think about it often. I wonder if I misheard her. It doesn’t feel like the right moment to bring it up now.

“I know,” I tell her. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention.”

She doesn’t respond. I can’t tell if she’s still standing on the other side of the door. If she is, she’s breathing quietly. I decide to continue, hoping that she can still hear me.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you my name sooner. To be honest, I was scared that you wouldn’t want anything to do with me. You never wanted to meet me, and then I came to Miami and found out you lived in the same building as me. I wasn’t supposed to know what you looked like, but I did. When I was a teenager, I spent hours clicking through all of your photos on Facebook. What were the odds that I would end up in the same apartment building as you?”

“Pretty slim. I don’t believe you.”

I’m surprised to hear her voice, but glad to know that she’s still listening to me.

“I should have introduced myself right then,” I continue. “I chickened out.”

“You had plenty of time to introduce yourself, and you chose not to. Why did it take you six months?”

“I was scared.”

“Of what? I didn’t know who you were.”

“I was afraid of exactly this. That I would tell you who I am, and you wouldn’t want anything to do with me. I was scared that you still felt the same way you did when you told me that you didn’t want to be my friend on Facebook, or when you told me that you would never come to my bootcamp graduation. I guess I thought it was easier if you didn’t know who I was at first.”

“Because lying to me is so much better.”

“It wasn’t my plan to deceive you for so long. I was going to send that first letter to you at the news station, and then I was going to tell you who I was. I saw you almost every day on my lunch break. But the day I planned to do it, you were sitting at that table with Anne, and you were looking up my name on Facebook. So, change of plans. I asked you out to dinner instead, and I was going to tell you then, but then you postponed dinner—”

“Oh, so it’s my fault that you didn’t tell me.”

Her tone is dripping with sarcasm. I continue anyway. “No. Not your fault. You told me that you were going to San Diego, and it occurred to me that you might be trying to find me.”

“So, instead of telling me, ‘Hey, I’m Luca, and I’m right here in Miami,’ you decided to keep dragging it out and let me travel all over the country looking for you?”

“That’s not why I didn’t tell you. I was scared that I had already waited too long and that you would be mad at me.”

“I wouldn’t have been nearly as mad as I am now.”

“I’m sorry, Naomi.” I press my forehead to the door. I wish that she would let me back in and we could talk this through without the whole third floor hearing us.

“So you’ve said.”

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