Page 58 of Returned Mail

I'm sorry.

I hope one day you understand that I didn't leave because I never loved you.

I left because I couldn't keep disappearing inside a life built around waiting for you to come back. We could talk later, but for now, I’m choosing me.

—Monica

I lower the letter.

The loft is still silent around me… There are no villains in the room. That might be the worst part. There are just letters. Seventeen from a man trying to reach someone. One from a woman trying to leave before she disappeared too.

And me.

Sitting in the middle of both, knowing things I should never have known.

For a moment, I want to hate Monica. I really do. Because George never got this. Because he kept writing. Because somewhere, maybe, he still thinks silence is the answer. Then I look at her letter again.

I learned how to sleep beside someone who was somewhere else.

And the hate slips out of my hands. All that's left is this heavy, awful ache. George didn't get his goodbye. Monica may not know it came back. And I have no idea where George is. No way to know whether he is still deployed. No way to know whether he is safe. No way to know if Letter Twenty-Four was followed by Letter Twenty-Five.

I gather the pages slowly, one by one. My hands feel clumsy as I try to organize this mess I made. I put George's letters in order. Then Monica's. I should feel satisfied. I wanted to know, and now I do.

I know enough to understand that knowing is not relief. Knowing is worse.

The thought arrives before I can stop it, “Someone has to tell him.” I go completely still.

No, absolutely not.

Not me.

I don't know him.

I shouldn't know any of this. I have already done enough wrong for one lifetime. But the thought stays.

Someone has to tell him.

Chapter Sixteen

Mia

I don't sleep that night.

Every time I close my eyes, I see his handwriting. His jokes. His apologies. His confusion. The way he kept trying to make sense of silence that wasn't empty at all.

By morning, my pillowcase is damp, my head hurts, and the loft feels too quiet.

I check my phone before I even sit up. Monica still hasn't answered. Nothing. No missed call. No text. No explanation. Just the same silence George had been writing into for weeks, maybe even months.

I lie there staring at the ceiling, one arm thrown over my eyes, trying to convince myself there is still a reasonable way out of this. There isn't. I drag myself to the kitchen table wearing yesterday's sweatshirt and the kind of messy bun that suggests I have lost control of both my hair and my moral compass.

I grab a blank sheet of paper and a pen, and set them beside their letters. My hand trembles before the pen even touches the page.

Dear George⁠—

No.

Absolutely the fuck not.