Page 44 of Choosing Her
“I need to show you something,” he said.
“What is it?” I asked hesitantly, stepping up by him as he dug in his bag. When he spun around, his arms were filled with… envelopes.
“What…” My question trailed off as I took them in. Every single one of them was addressed to my house. Had he written them to Naomi? But if he did, he must not have sent them, unless she gave them to him in the break-up. “Why are you showing these to me?”
I didn’t want to think about him and Naomi. I never wanted to think about them together, but especially not now, when everything was finally falling into place for us. Why would he tell me he loved me and then show me this?
“Because they’re for you.” He held them out toward me and a couple fell from his grip, fluttering to the ground between us. I didn’t bend down to pick them up.
“No, they’re not,” I said. I didn’t want to know what he wrote to her. I didn’t want to see the words he promised or to imaginehim sitting around, thinking of her. “Just because you loved Naomi doesn’t mean I?—”
“Saylor,” Crossy cut off, “I wrote these for you.”
I bit my lip and shook my head again, stepping back once again. “You said you didn’t love me.”
“I lied.”
Wasn’t it exactly what he had just said? I wanted to believe him so badly, but how could I? I would understand if his feelings had reappeared in the last few months, but the idea that he continued to love me since New Year’s Eve was…
Well, it was how I felt about him. And I wasn’t sure I could believe he felt the same.
“Do you know how many times I have lied to you? Every time that I told you that I didn’t care about you, that I didn’t want you, that I needed to be with Naomi. All of it was a lie. I was lying to you and I was tomyself.”
This time, when he shoved the letters into my hands, I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out to grab them. Almost like I needed to feel them as a tangible thing. I needed to read them, to know that he was telling the truth, to see the dates on them, to read what he said.
I lifted my eyes. “Crossy, if you’re lying to me right now… If you’re telling me these are for me and they’re not, or that all of this is some trick to?—”
“I’m not,” he said, and his voice was so deadly serious that I knew he was telling the truth. “The letters are just… proof.”
I swallowed quickly, staring at the massive envelopes in my hands and tears pricking at my eyes. There was no way, no way he could be telling the truth about this, but no way that across all these months he had been writing so many letters to me. With shaky hands, I put them down on the table in front of us and opened the first one up.
Dear Saylor,
It’s been four weeks since I dropped off that letter at your dorm. Or not your dorm. Is it bad that part of me hopes I got it wrong? At least then I know you’re not ignoring me.
Crossy
“What letter?” I asked softly, looking at him again. When he looked confused, I waved the letter around in the air, like that would explain it, and choked out, “You said you left a letter at my dorm. Or not my dorm—what do you mean?”
He stared at me and then whispered, “You don’t know.”
“I don’t know what?”
He shook his head and gulped. “Never mind, it’s not… Just keep reading.”
Dear Saylor,
So I guess I did get the dorm wrong after all. I know I said I hoped I got it wrong but now that I know for sure, I regret that.
Naomi asked if I wanted to go out sometime and I said yes — at this point, I’m never finding you so I guess I should move on.
He got the wrong dorm. Had he tried to send me a letter? Did he realize I went to Hartwell and he tried to track medown? I wasn’t sure how he could have though. Our paths never crossed last year, what with him being a junior and me only a sophomore. No shared classes, no overlap with our friends…
I shook my head and kept reading.
Dear Saylor,
I lied when I said that was the last letter. But it’s not my fault—tonight we watched the fireworks on the beach and all I could think about was you kissing me.
