Sixty-One Letters

.Four.

.Sixty-One Letters.

"Once again, I'm sorry this is so last minute," Scarlett muttered as she ran her left and through her hair. "It's just that, I'm suddenly so stressed and I felt like I couldn't...I don't know, like I couldn't breath, almost. I just...I just-"

"Scarlett," Jarred Hamilton cut her off, his eyebrows furrowed together as his eyes searched her face in concern. "It's okay. Really."

"I just feel like it's awful of me to just take off-"

"You're going out with your friends for the night," Jarred slowly stated as he rolled his eyes, "That's hardly taking off. We're divorced but we're still a team. Hell, I literally live down the road and it's not as if we don't see each other every day," he continued to soothe.

Scarlett bit her lip and still looked weary about suddenly dumping the responsibility of looking after their daughter for the night on her ex-husband, but when the car behind her beeped and her friends started yelling at her to get into the vehicle, she finally relented.

"Okay. Right. Okay. This is fine."

"Scarlett. You're fine...now please leave," Jarred laughed a little and Scarlett smiled slightly before she backed away from turned to walk to the car.

Jarred rolled his eyes again and stepped into his ex-wife's house, closing the door behind him.

He had met Scarlett six years ago in a bar. They ended up spending the night together and while they both had planned on it being a one-night-stand, she woke up on him cooking breakfast and they ended up eating together...and talking. The talking lasted until lunch-time and then continued on until dinner and she ended up spending the night again.

They were married a year later but divorced after four years of marriage. It wasn't a messy divorce and the two continued to get along brilliantly, spending as much time with their young daughter as possible in order to ensure a stable and happy upbringing...hell, honestly, Jarred was sure they could still be married if they were comfortable just being in a friendly relationship. However, he didn't want that. He had loved Scarlett and, in her own way, Scarlett probably loved him as well...but something always kept her from fully being with him. Jarred never really felt like Scarlett was ever truly 100% there with him in their relationship, and that hurt him. She tried. God, she tried so hard...but it was obvious that Jarred was more like a best friend to her than a husband.

So they divorced.

"Daddy!" Kaylee barreled into the living room and crashed into her father's legs. He grinned and picked up his favorite four-year-old, his spitting image, and squished his nose to hers in order to make her giggle. "Daddy, you're making me look like a pig!" She laughed, turning her head away.

He grinned and swung her around as he made his way to the sofa.

"So my darling girl, have your brushed your teeth?" He questioned, dropping his pajama-clad child on the couch. Kaylee nodded and grinned, showing off her tiny white teeth. "So I suppose its bedtime than, isn't it?"

Kaylee instantly shook her head.

"No, Daddy. I wanna stay up with you!"

Jarred rose an eyebrow as he took in his daughter's pursed lips and droopy eyes.

"Kaylee, it's your bedtime...and I'm not going to do anything interesting."

Kaylee's eyes narrowed in disbelief.

"What're you gonna do?" She asked, not trusting her father's declaration.

Jarred smiled and picked up the remote.