The Truth About You & Me (22 page)

The thing was, the gate on your driveway had been shut when I'd arrived, which I figured meant you didn't want visitors. I'd parked near the road and then slipped through the gate to go to your house. After you didn't answer, I went back to my car and stood there, one hand on the door, reluctant to leave without seeing you, and your neighbor saw me.

And without so much as a hello, he said two words that shattered everything I'd hoped for:

“He moved.”

I froze there on the gravel drive, the rain sprinkling down around me, darkening the surface, and said simply, “Huh?”

The guy, a little overweight with a goatee and a newsboy cap, shrugged. “Up and moved to Brooklyn or Baltimore or something. A big U-Haul arrived a couple weeks ago and I haven't seen him since.”

“Well, which is it?”

He shrugged again and kept walking, up the little steps to his house.

“Wait! How do I find him?” I asked.

He turned around. “Dunno. Moved out in a real hurry.
Sorry.”

Then he pushed open his back door and slipped inside.

And that was it, Bennett.

I would never see you again.

I miss you.

I don't like
being alone.

I'm sorry. I'm
sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This hurts more than I expected.

Dear Bennett,

I've kept these pages for two years. Two long years. I haven't read them in months, but today everything changed.

Because I saw you today. December 13th, two years from that night at the cabin.

It's funny, because that first year after you left you were all I could think about, and this past year I've been trying so hard to move on that I somehow blocked it all.

But I guess my subconscious was thinking of you, because I was drawn to that mountain, to taking that once-familiar hike. And that's what brought us back together.

Your hair is shorter now, and when our eyes met for the first time in two years, the look you gave me was more guarded than joyous. But it was you, and my heart stopped so completely I felt as though the oxygen in my blood had disappeared, and I had to put a hand on a nearby tree to keep from falling to the ground.

That must sound melodramatic, but it's the truth. I thought I'd never see you again, and I'd resigned myself to that. It started with me handling it one day at a time—so much like climbing the mountain, one step a time.

I was standing at the top of Mt. Peak, my jacket zipped up to my chin to ward off the cold. I don't know why I hiked up there that day. The wintery air made my lungs hurt, but it was a good sort of pain.

I was staring down at the Enumclaw Plateau, the farmlands dotted with cows, my old high school stretched out in the distance, Mt. Rainier at my back. When I heard someone on the trail, I turned to look, just a glance, and then did a double take.

You
. In one instant—that moment our eyes met—a swirl of memories spun around me, and the strongest image was of you that night in your cabin, that instant your eyes darkened to match the winter night.

You froze there, one foot on the top of the mountain, the other still on the trail, and stared back at me, and I wondered if you might spin around and bolt, or maybe stride right over and yell at me, really scream, say the things you must have thought these last two years.

Two years, Bennett. That makes me eighteen now. Legal. I don't expect that to matter anymore, but I do wonder if I even look different, if I think differently, if I
am
different. It's impossible not to wonder these things, because two years was supposed to mean everything.

I turned around and
stared at you, and you took that last step, until you were standing at the top also. Like you planned to stay. We were dozens of feet apart, but ne
ither of us moved or spoke, and the whole winter could have passed us by and I don't think I would have noticed, because to me the world had stopped turning.

“I'm sorry,” I finally said. The two words I wanted you to hear more than any others. You could bolt in the next instant but you'd finally know that I was sorry, and that would be enough.

It would have to be enough.

Your jaw tensed but you nodded, and I waited for anger to swim into your eyes, but it didn't.

“I thought I'd never see you again,” I said.

“My parents still live around here. I'm in town for the holidays,” you said.

I nodded, finally taking a few steps closer to you. You didn't do the same, just crossed your arms.

“Where's Voldemort?”

You frowned, and your eyes turned sad around the edges. “Gone,” you said. “He was thirteen. He didn't do so well this winter. It gets cold in Boston.”

Boston. You moved to Boston.
Thousands
of miles because of me. “I'm sorry,” I said again, this time for a different reason.

“Yeah. Me too.” You sighed, deeply, a sigh about so much more than your dog. You kicked a rock and it skittered past me, hit a tree trunk, and tumbled down the mountainside. You didn't speak again until the quiet sounds of its descent fell silent. “Why'd you do it?”

I blinked, studying your face, trying to figure out if you wanted a real answer. I hadn't expected you to want to know, to give me enough time to explain. I'd expected just anger. Hurt. Betrayal. “I—”

But what could I say, where could I start? I wrote you hundreds of pages to try to explain. Even if the world
had
stopped and we'd had all the time we wanted, I didn't think I could have said the right things. “Does it matter?”

“Yes,” you said, zipping your jacket all the way up. “No.” You paused. “I don't know. “

That was how I felt, too. Yes, no, I don't know. Round and around.

“I wrote it all down,” I said. “All the ways I lied to you. I was going to send it to the police station to try and get you released, but then I found out you hadn't really been arrested.”

“Oh.”

I closed my eyes and willed the words to appear, to magically transform from a tangle of excuses into something real. I wanted a lot of things for myself, but mostly I wanted things to be okay with you, I wanted the knowledge that what I'd done hadn't devastated you in every way possible.

“You ruined me,” you said, and my eyes popped open, darted up to meet yours, shocked that you'd spoken the words I'd been so terrified to hear. And the worst part of it all is that your words weren't an accusation—they were the simple truth. I'd stolen everything.

“I know.” I tangle both hands in my hair as if I want to rip it all out, but then I let go and my arms fall to my sides again. “I know,” I said again. “You lost your job and you moved away and it was because of me.”

You nodded, accepting this simple fact. Then you shook your head. “No, actually, they didn't fire me. I quit. I'm sure I would have been fired if they'd launched an investigation. But I wasn't charged with anything, and the quarter was over, so I just moved. Right away. I don't know what would have happened if I'd stayed. I didn't teach for a while, but then I got a job with an online university. I like it more than I thought I would.”

I didn't know what you were saying—if you meant you forgave me, or hated me, or what—but I just stood there, breathless.

“I'm engaged,” you added. And what followed, for me, was such a strange swirl of hurt and happiness. Because I'd spent the last two years thinking I'd destroyed everything, that you had no hope of a real future because of what I'd done, and now here you were, telling me you had one. A future.

“Oh.” I raked in a shallow breath. “Congratulations.”

“I told her about you.”

I must have reacted visibly, betraying my shock, because the tiniest smile graced your lips, a sad sort of humor.

“Why?”

“Because I couldn't start our life together based on lies. She thought I'd moved to Boston because I preferred the east coast, when really I just wanted to be here. Teaching. I wanted to buy that house and live close to my parents and have the life I'd planned for. And she deserved to know who I was. What I'd done.”

“What
I
did,” I said.

You shook your head. “No, it was us.”

Us. So maybe there is an us, even if it's only a footnote in your life.

You swallowed but didn't take your eyes off of me. “I almost lost her. Christ, I haven't been that scared in … ” And then you broke eye contact and looked away. “In a couple of years.”

“But you didn't,” I say.

“No. I guess there's something to be said for honesty.”

It wasn't an intentional barb, but it was one just the same, and I had to nod.

“So you're okay,” I said, more of a statement then a question.

“Yeah. Boston's nice. The weather can be hell and the traffic is horrible, but I like living in a big city more than I expected to.” You chewed on your lip, then looked up at me again. “And you?”

I pursed my lips and nodded. “Yeah, I'm okay.” And I was. I really am okay, Bennett. Somehow, through it all, I've come back to myself. No, not back to myself the way I'd been—I actually
found
myself, the girl I would have been all along if I hadn't let other people's expectations smother me. “I mean, no boyfriend or anything, but I'm okay with that. I have time.”

“Yeah. You do.”

“I'm going to culinary school now. Just made it through the first quarter. My mom doesn't really get it, but she's a terrible cook anyway. Dad actually likes the idea. He's already volunteered as my official taste-tester. And he bought me all these ridiculously expensive pots and pans.” I was silent for a second. “I'm excited, I guess. When I'm there, I forget everything else and just cook.”

You nodded, and things went quiet again. It was hard to imagine the days we'd talked for hours, hard to imagine the connection we'd had when we were two strangers now. Somehow you'd become … just … someone that I used to know.

I'd given you something, a piece of me, something you'd always have.

But the rest of me … I took it back.

“Well, take care of yourself, okay?” you said, edging back toward the trail.

“Wait!” I said, taking another step. “Do you want it?”

“What?”

“The letter. The one I wrote to you, to explain everything. To make you understand why I did what I did.”

You stared into my eyes for a long, lingering moment, and I don't know what you were thinking. Because I didn't know you anymore. You'd grown and changed just like I had, and the people we were back then … they didn't exist anymore.

But eventually, you shook your head. “No. I don't need it. You keep it.”

I nodded, a lump growing in my throat. Maybe I didn't know you, but some part of me still felt gaping, still wanted to run to you and rest my cheek against your chest and close my eyes and remember how it felt to be together. Remember how on top of the world we were.

Before the world crashed down around us.

“Well … good luck,” you said. “I hope someday you find what you're looking for. Maybe someday I'll dine at one of your restaurants.”

“Uh-hmm,” I say, keeping my voice as even as possible. “And congratulations. I hope it lasts forever.”

As much as it hurt to say that, I meant it. If I couldn't have you, if you weren't mine, you deserved to belong to someone.

You smiled then, a real smile, one that reminded me of the you I knew before it all went wrong. And something warm bloomed inside me as I realized I hadn't stolen that smile from you after all, that on the other side of the country another girl got to see that glow, bask in the warmth of it. “Yeah, me too.”

And then you turned and left me standing on top of that mountain.

And now here I am, standing in the backyard writing this last letter, so that I can fold it in half and throw it into the fire pit next to the two hundred other pages, the ones already twisted and blackened, rising in the smoke and floating away. It's snowing today—something that only ever happens once or twice a year in Enumclaw—and the snowflakes scatter on my sleeves, melt in my hair, but I hardly notice them as I write this.

I guess it's a fitting send-off, that the night we spent together was one of snow, and in the last moment we share together, it's snowing too.

Because I'm letting go, Bennett. All the way. I've sifted through the letters from time to time, these past two years—tried to understand it all, tried to imagine where you'd ended up, how you felt about me, what it all really meant in the grand scheme of things.

But now I know you're okay, and somehow, I have to be okay too.

I'm letting go of the hurt and the sadness and the guilt, and most of all …

I'm letting go of you.