Page 91 of Running Home to You
Whatever it is, it’s keeping me from you and the future you envision for us. I can’t quite see it. I can’t make the type of promises that you deserve. The main promise being to not sabotage this.
Even if I could, I think there’s more out there for you without me. You’re brilliant and you’re going to be an amazing lawyer.You’re going to meet so many more people. Better people. You don’t need me to hold you back from that. You don’t need to worry about me, like I know you’ve had to do for so long.
I’ll always love you, Kate. You’ve made me a better version of myself, and I’m sorry I still can’t get out of my own way. I know this is going to hurt for a while, but I think it’ll be the best thing for you, even if you don’t understand. I don’t completely understand. But we’re not entitled to understanding. I only know that I have to go and I can’t pull you down with me this time. Even if it means leaving a piece of me behind.
Don’t try to be so perfect, okay?
Love,
Abby
• • •
Dear Abby,
I can’t tell you how many versions of this letter I’ve written. I suppose no matter how mad I am that you left, by the end of this I want you to know I still love you. I still hope that you’ll come back.
After that morning, I lived in denial. I was convinced we’d get back to Insley, and you’d be there. I planned on being furious at you, but I never got the chance. You really were gone.
Isla said she didn’t know where you went, but I didn’t fully believe her. I tried your phone, we all did. I went to your apartment to find it empty. It made me ill for days. I couldn’t get out of bed. Mick and Jill had to pick up my cap and gown for me. I thought, hoped, you might turn up at graduation, which motivated me to go, but when you weren’t there, it was like you’d left all over again. Only this time I couldn’t deny it. This time, I couldn’t wallow and wait.
We packed up the blue house for the last time. I spent the summer at the farm, which stings knowing you’d disapprove. I worked as a paralegal and on the shuttle back and forth between civilization in my brother’s truck, I called our friends asking daily if they’d heard from you. Always nothing. Everyone promised you were okay even though I know they worried too. I just think they hear it in my voice—how close I am to breaking without you.
Mourning, worrying, aching for you in secret has been the most painful thing I’ve ever done. I suppose I could’ve shared my heartbreak with my parents, but to what end? To lose them too?
There were many days I thought I might not get through. I wasted countless wide-awake hours wondering where you were and what I could’ve done. That pain made me think of you too. It must be a small fraction of what you felt when you lost your mother. Because while you’re alive, this is grief too. A sort of brutal half grief, like escaping severely injured. Alive but hurt and changed, fearfully aware that nothing will be the same again. I should be grateful you’re okay, but it’s almost an uglier wound, to know you’re lost to me anyway.
By the time I left for Berkeley, I’d given up on you. I tried to accept you were never coming back, tried to let the summer become a scar. School promised to be a fresh start that I desperately needed.
So, imagine my shock when the registrar called me to their office to inform me that an anonymous benefactor had covered my full tuition. Not just the first year, but all of it. Certainly no one in my life has that kind of money. While I’ve received scholarships, I don’t think I won enough favor for anyone to fully sponsor my law education. Which just leaves you.
I called Isla right away. She stonewalled me, so don’t blame her. When she didn’t break, like your location was the nuclear codes, I told her I would drop out of law school and dedicate my time to finding you. A little melodramatic, but it did the job.
She claims you don’t have a phone, which is just reckless enough of you that I believe it. I worry that you’re traveling around Europe without a way for someone to reach you or you them. What if something happens? But I suppose that’s the point. It’s not my concern anymore and you’ve made sure of it. All I’m left with is a postal box in Amsterdam that I’m not even sure you’ll check.
In your letter, you said there’s more for me without you, but it’s my choice to make. That’s what I hate most about you running away. You didn’t give me a chance to fight. You say that you’ll hold me back, but the person I love and know never did. If anything, you championed me. I can’t understand what changed. I spend hours every day trying to figure you out. If you feel like you’re not enough, think how I must feel. I gave you everything, and you still walked.
As for what I need to figure out, I already have. It was always you. It’s always going to be you. So, I’m asking, pathetically, wholeheartedly, and unafraid of humiliation, that you come back. Come back home, Abby.
I promise I won’t be mad. We can get a little place in Berkeley. You don’t have to go to grad school or play softball. You can surf. You can do whatever you like. And I’ll tell my parents. I’ll tell them I found the love of my life, that there won’t be another. It’ll be okay so long as I have you. I’m not afraid of that anymore. Not after this.
We can figure it out. I want to figure it out. I just want you with everything in me.
Love,
Kate
P.S. Thank you for paying for my tuition. I’m not in a position to refuse it, but one day I’ll repay it.
Four Years Post-Graduation
She’d just finished the bar exam when she got the call. Her back spasmed and her shoulder, a stubborn vexation from an old injury, had locked up after two six-hour days of test taking. She answered outside beneath the July sun, trollies rolling by while she worked the kinks out of her neck.
“She said yes!” Mick shouted through the phone.
Kate’s mouth fell. She’d known the proposal was approaching, but forgot the exact date in the swirl of graduation and studying for the bar. Knowing Mick, she hadn’t mentioned it for that very reason.
“Congratulations! I’m so happy for you, Mick,” Kate said. “I can’t believe one of us is getting married.”
