Page 90 of Never After Us
“Yeah,” he replies.“Some stories get cut off before anyone understands what they were meant to become.”
The words catch in my chest and stay there.His voice isn’t philosophical or distant—it’s personal.Lived-in.Like he knows what it’s like to have your story fractured before it’s ever told.
A part of me cracks open under it, the ache unfamiliar and all-consuming.I’ve been avoiding this moment, this letter, this part of myself that still remembers what it feels like to be held through pain.I didn’t expect him to stay.I didn’t expect to want him to.
I inhale slowly, trying to steady the beat of my heart.
“Do you think ...”I pause, not because I don’t know what I want to say—but because it terrifies me to say it out loud.“Should I read another one?”
Alec meets my eyes.
“Only if you want and you think you can handle it,” he says.“I’ll be here for as long as you need me.”
I want to respond.
I want to tell him that it isn’t just tonight.That whatever thread keeps pulling me toward him has been tugging at me for days—quiet, persistent, impossible to ignore.I want to admit that I need him in a way that terrifies me, because needing anyone has never ended well in my life, and I swore I’d never do it again.
But with him ...
With him, it feels different.
With him, it feels like my ribs finally remember how to move after years of holding everything in.
With him, it feels like I could set down a piece of grief I’ve been dragging around since before Sam died—grief I never learned how to carry properly, grief that shaped me into someone I barely recognize.
I hate it.
I hate that he’s undoing things I’ve kept stitched tight.
I hate that I want that undoing.
It makes something low inside me ache—this stubborn, blooming hope I don’t trust, don’t understand, don’t believe I deserve.I want him here longer than tonight.Longer than a few pages of a letter.Longer than whatever temporary arrangement the universe accidentally carved out between us.
But saying that aloud feels like walking barefoot into the past—with every step reminding me of abandonment, disappointment, and a marriage that broke long before death touched it.
So I hold it in.
I hold all of it in.
Because if I say the words out loud, if I let him see all the fractured pieces I’ve hidden from everyone else ...he might stay.
And I don’t know if my heart knows how to survive that.
ChapterThirty
November 5, 1967
Tommy,
Your last letterscared me a little.Not because you wrote anything alarming—but because you didn’t.You know me well enough to understand what I mean.
Sometimes silence tells its own story.
I tried to pretend I didn’t notice how your sentences dipped in the middle, how your handwriting leaned forward more than usual, like you were writing fast so the words wouldn’t slip away before you could get them out.I tried to ignore the part where you said some days feel longer than they should.
But I notice everything you try to hide between the lines.
Last night, I sat on the roof with my sisters again.They asked if you were safe, and I said yes.I didn’t even hesitate.I told them you’ll come home because you promised—and you’re stubborn enough to fight the universe if it tries to disagree.
