Page 24 of Letters of Faith
“You look to be in one piece at least,” he says after a full minute of staring at me. “Are you staying for supper?”
A grin spreads across my face. This is the same conversation we have every week, but it’s nice—comfortable. Things in my life haven’t been comfortable for a while, but I can always count on my dad to be that person for me.
“I just ate lunch, Dad. It’s not time for supper.”
His grin is cheeky, like he’s in on a secret that I’m not. He leans close to me, and just like all the other weeks, he whispers, “It’s never too early to start thinking about your next meal—not with your mom’scooking.”
Standing beside him, my mom rolls her eyes and smacks him on the arm with the back of her hand. I take in the scene—emotions splitting me in two. As prickly as my mom can be, my dad loves her. He always has. When I married Nate, I dreamed of having a marriage like theirs. The thing is, I would have. Nate looked at me like my dad looks at my mom. On the day of the funeral, I didn’t just bury the love of my life. I buried some of my dreams, too.
Chapter 11
Grayson
Metal clangs against metal as I drop the weights I’ve been lifting for the last half hour.
I needed a distraction—anything to take my mind off the crushing weight of the elephant on my chest.
A letter—not even one, but two.
I should have seen it coming. I should have known. It’s not often I’m caught off guard, but this plan of Nate’s hit me like a ton of bricks.
I hate that.
“Dang it, Nate. What were you thinking?” I yell into the air.
Frustration ripples over me, eating at my insides. I’m no stranger to anger—we’re old friends—but this is different. The man I’m angry at is gone, and that’s like screaming into a void—useless. So, instead, I let the anger choke out my sanity.
I’ve had a year to tell Georgia about my letter—the one I received days after Nate died—but I didn’t.
It would change everything.
I wanted to hide it and pretend it didn’t happen, but now that Georgia is receiving letters from Nate, I have to tell her because what if Nate tells her first in one of his letters?
Nate’s put me in an impossible situation.
If I tell her, I’ll lose the only person I have left, but if I don’t, then I face the same problem.
There’s no winning for me here—Nate made sure of that—and for the first time since I’ve known him, I resent him and his meddling.
Pushing off the weight bench, I walk over to the punching bag I have set up in the corner. My fist meets the bag over and over until my knuckles are raw and bloody, creating a scar across the tattoos there.
Nate.
Punch.
Screwed.
Punch.
Up.
Punch.
My.
Punch.
Life.
