Page 57 of Returned Mail

Then the next lines knock it sideways.

I never knew who would walk through the door. Sometimes you were quiet. Sometimes angry. Sometimes you looked at me like you loved me but couldn't remember how to reach me.

And I kept adjusting.

I swallow.

I learned when not to ask questions. I learned when to give you space. I learned how to sleep beside someone who was somewhere else. I learned how to stop taking silence personally, even when it felt personal.

Her anger has nowhere clean to land. I wanted Monica to be cruel. It would be easier if she were cruel. But this isn't cruel. It's exhaustion. I keep reading.

I told myself that loving you meant understanding.

Then understanding became waiting.

Waiting for you to call, for you to write, for you to come home, for you to talk. Waiting for the man I loved to come back to me even when you were already standing in the same room.

My eyes burn.

Not just for George now, but for her too. And I hate that. I hate how complicated it is. I hate that I can see him in his letters, reaching. And I can see her in hers, exhausted from being the place he kept trying to reach back to.

I read on.

I can't keep building my life around waiting for you to come back and wondering who you'll be when you do.

I know you didn't choose every part of this. I know there are things you carry that you don't know how to put down. I know you love me in the ways you know how.

But I have spent years trying to convince myself that should be enough.

It isn't.

The sentence lands quietly, and that almost makes it worse.

I need a life I can actually live while it's happening. Not one I keep postponing until the next homecoming, the next deployment, the next promise that things will be different when there's more time.

There is never more time, George.

I care about you. I think part of me always will.

But I don't want to be angry at you anymore.

And I don't want to become someone who resents you for being exactly who you have always told me you are.

So I'm leaving.

My stomach drops. Even though I knew.

Somehow, I knew.

I've arranged an approved sublease for the apartment. The original lease remains in place, and the building has everything it needs while you're deployed. You won't need to handle anything from there.

I look around the loft. At the window, the kitchen, the floor where George's letters are scattered around me.

Me.

I'm the sublease. I'm the person who moved into the life she left behind. A strange, cold feeling runs through me.

I read the rest.