Did you forget me {Jonathan Toews}

Chapter 7

"Put your dreams away for now, I won't see you for some time, I am lost in my mind, I get lost in my mind. Mama once told me, you're already home where you feel loved, I am lost in my mind, I get lost in my mind." - The Head and the Heart

************************************************************************************

I've been waiting for a while now. Waiting for him to finish reading. Waiting for whatever reaction will follow. I keep trying to anticipate how he will react, but I have no idea. Maybe if we hadn't been apart for so long, I could at least predict what emotions he would be feeling, but I have no clue just how much he's changed in these past three years. And that scares the shit out of me.

It feels like he's been reading forever, even though I know it hasn't been that long. Although I guess if I was him I would need to read it multiple times, along with just sitting there to think about it before I truly understood the magnitude of the realization. I know, because I had the same experience when I found out that he never got the letter.

He's finally finished reading, so I watch as he quietly closes the letter and puts it in his pocket. He then gets up and walks straight out towards the water, and just stands there with his hands in his pockets.

He stands there, looking out at the water for what feels like forever. I wait for a few minutes, then get up, tell Scout to stay, and go to stand next to him. I don't say anything, I just stand there, hoping that he'll talk when he's ready.

I watch the water, following the path of each wave until it crashes against the rocks below us. The waves of Lake Michigan are a mysterious thing. There is no tide to pull them, yet they are there, day after day. Even on days when the lake seems to be completely flat, the water still laps at the shore. But today, the strong winds cause them to crash against one another, growing and growing until they break on the rocks. It's a continuous lull, fading in and out with the sway of the water.

And when he finally speaks, his words build with emotion, rolling and bubbling until it finally spills over the surface and breaks around us, just like the waves breaking on the shore.

"I'm sorry " is the first thing out of his mouth, and I'm baffled.

" I'm sorry I didn't pay more attention when you talked about traveling the world, I'm sorry I wasn't there that day, I'm sorry you left without saying goodbye. I'm sorry you didn't come back when you were supposed to. And while I don't understand it right now, I want to. I need you to tell me, I need to know what happened that made you stay away. Because from what I've read in this letter you were just as in love with me as I was with you. This damn letter has just made everything ten times more fucked up because I accepted a long time ago that you didn't love me anymore and now I'm finding out that everything I thought was wrong. I keep analyzing everything I've done from that day on and I can't find anything that I didn't fuck up when it comes to you. I have no idea what to think right now because I've been trying to move on for years, and I finally thought I was getting close but then here you come, suddenly back in my life and I have no idea what to do Evvi. I have no fucking clue what to do."

His eyes are full of anger and pain and deep beneath the surface, there's visible regret, and I know he sees the same in my eyes. So when I whisper "me too," he understands that he's not alone with his emotions. And when he wraps me in his arms and holds me tight, we simply exist.

Side by side we stand there, watching the waves, trying to sort through everything we're feeling. We don't talk, because if we did, we would talk about what could have been, and what would have happened, and where we might be now if it did. So we don't talk, because if we talked about that it would only end up causing us more pain.