SHORT BUT-tissue-worthy
When Meredith woke the next morning, she was achy and tired and miserable. She couldn't remember dozing off. She had not rested well. Forcing herself out of bed, she put the box with the journal on the nightstand and left the unopened bundle on top.
She showered and still felt exhausted. She ran errands, bought groceries, paid the bills. By mid-afternoon, her need to read the letters was overpowering. She dug in the back of a seldom-used kitchen cabinet and found a well-aged bottle of tequila about a third full. She quickly unscrewed the cap and poured a shot. She downed three shots in rapid succession, knowing they'd affect her now more than when she drank them regularly.
She trudged upstairs and sat on the bed with the bundle. After losing the battle to heed his warning and not open the letters, she untied the ribbon and opened the tissue paper. On top of the letters was a small note.
Your mom left these letters with a note for me in her room in Seattle. I found them the day she died.
D---
She flipped the stack of letters upside down and started looking at the envelopes in reverse order. There were letters during the time he spent with her mother. Slowly, she flipped back through the years and saw when he had sent letters to her. Moving backward in time, she found letters written shortly after his return home. The postmarks let her know the occasions on which he had written. He had written to her near holidays, her birthday, his birthday, their dating anniversary...... He had thought of her while she thought of him through all those years.
As she flipped the first letter over to examine its envelope, her heart stopped..........
No......Oh, God.........please let this letter be from South America. The postmark mocked her and told her otherwise. A letter from Boston.......while I was pregnant? Before I married Steve?
The realization that they could have been together finally hit her. He'd protected her, let her think that she was married when he came home. The disbelief, the irony, the unfairness, the pain were too much. "NO!!!!" she yelled as she flung the letters down on the bed and raced to the bathroom. She was physically ill from this news.
Shaken and miserable, she made her way back to bed to read the letters she knew would be her undoing.
She sobbed afresh as she opened the first letter and started reading.
Mer,
I'm home. I miss you. I need you. I love you so much...........
YOU ARE READING
I Will Follow You Into the Dark
FanfictionThis story had a beginning. But we're no longer at the beginning of the story. Instead, we join a story that's already in progress--one that has evolved over time without the benefit of our watching its events unfold. Given the fact that we're jumpi...
