Love Letter

Ian

I couldn't remember much of last night, but I woke up fully clothed with Lynne lying next to me. She was in a pair of my sweat pants and white undershirts. She looked gorgeous. It was eight-thirty before I had woken up, meaning Lynne was already half an hour late to work. I called Patricia, letting her know that we would work from home today. I could tell Patricia was not happy with this news.

Instead of waking Lynne up, I head to my kitchen and start whipping up French toast for her. When I am carrying breakfast back into my room, Lynne is sitting up looking outside my window.

"It is an amazing view," Lynne says, looking at me.

"Well, that's a first in a long time," I say to her.

"What is?" she asks, confused.

"I don't see any resentment in your eyes toward me," I say, smiling. "I would have guessed with me ruining your date, you would have been upset."

"You mean ending up outside your apartment building pleading for me to come in and spend the night with you?" Lynne shoots back at me jokingly. She shrugs. "It is all for the sake of the novel," she says again, using the novel as a fallback.

"Did anything good happen last night after we got back? It's a little fuzzy to me," I say, and with this, Lynne does a complete one-eighty, and the resentment for me is very much back in her eyes.

"I knew this was a bad idea," she says, getting up to collect her stuff that is on my dresser.

"What... Why?" I ask, wondering what all had happened last night.

"Nothing... I just need to get ready and get into work," she says, picking up her dress and shoes off of the dresser.

"I told Patricia we would be working at home today," I say, my happiness slipping away. "Hey... What happened last night?" I ask again. She brushes past me and leaves me standing in my bedroom, watching as she walks away. I knew we hadn't had sex because I would remember that. So it must have been something I had said to her. Did I tell her I loved her? And now couldn't remember it... I would think that I would remember that too. I didn't have that much to drink, but maybe I did. I usually wouldn't show up at a gala drunk ready to start a fight with a loser Britain guy that had nothing on me. If Amanda hadn't gone with, I would have punched him out as soon as I saw him.

"Lynne, knock it off and talk to me," I say, storming out to the entryway where she is slipping on her high heels.

"Trust me. I will wash all this," she says, pinching the fabric on her leg, "and return it to you."

"Lynne, I'm not letting you leave until you tell me what happened last night," I say, standing in front of the door.

"I don't want to go through this again," she says. Again?

"Then help me remember," I say, stepping forward grabbing her in the front like I had done back in Light Falls. I can slip her heels off with my feet and throw her over my shoulder and sit her on the couch in the living room. "Okay, I remember finding out you were going to the gala and this very irrational rage going through me. We had been having a good week working together and thought I was making progress on us... then I remember leaving Johnny," I say Johnny with an accent, "at the gala while we stood outside smoking and pleading with you to stay the night with me."

"That's all you remember?" she asks.

"Yes," I say, looking her in the eyes.

"You do not remember telling me that you hadn't got to the end of my senior year journal?" she says. I shake my head, not giving her room to talk to me. She starts to pick at my all-white leather couch, and I don't even care if she puts a scratch in it because I have a feeling that Lynne is about to open up to me. "Here," she says, placing her right arm into my hands with the palm face up. This slight movement sends my memory into full swing... The scar is there just like it had been last night. You can barely see it due to her mother paying for plastic surgery, so no one would know what she did. I want to ask why but I remember her small voice from the night before "no one loved me... my dad was the only one who did, and he was gone... my mother didn't love me..." she had said to me, and I cut her off.

"But I love you, Lynne," I said, grasping that Lynne could have taken her own life, which would have drastically changed my life. I would have never felt what love felt like. I never would have felt what rage it sent me into when I thought of Lynne with another guy.

"I love you, Lynne," I say to her today, taking her in my arms and pulling her to my chest. I don't know how long I have held her until she pushes away when her phone starts going off in the entryway.

"Hello," I could hear her saying into the phone. "I'm fine," she says into the phone. "Oh will you give it up – I will be home in a little bit," she whispers into the phone.

"Do you want me to go with you?" I ask her.

She looks up, smiling at me. "No... Not with how you were with Johnny last night. I don't know what you would do to poor Luke."

"He's still staying there with you?" I ask.

"In my bed and all," she says, laughing making a joke.

"Then I am for sure coming with you," I say, grabbing her stuff.

"I was just kidding," she says while I take her hand and make my way to my car service.

"I know it was a joke but not a funny one," I say, looking at her. I stop in the middle of the hallway and brush her hair back. "I'm not letting you out of my sight now that I may be in your good gracious again," I say.

"Ok," she says, taking my hand in hers.