Page 61 of Returned Mail

By the end of the first week, I stop pretending.

I want him to write back.

That realization is so uncomfortable I almost laugh in the lobby. I want a stranger I hurt to respond to me. I want proof the letter reached him. Proof I didn't just send Monica's goodbye into another void. Proof that somewhere, George Hale is real and alive and holding the truth in his hands.

The thought terrifies me.

So I ignore it.

Badly.

Days have become strange lately.

I go to work, come home, check the mailbox. Get sad when it’s empty. I make dinner, sometimes, or I order takeout, watch some bad TV, read a good book, and do the same the next day.

I text Lyann without telling her the full truth because if I type the sentence I opened all seventeen letters and mailed a breakup letter to a deployed soldier I've never met, I'm pretty sure she'll call me and start yelling.

So I say things like…

Me: Remember the letters? Situation escalated.

Lyann: I knew this was part of a dating show episode.

I don't answer that.

A couple of weeks have passed, and by now, I've decided there will be no reply.

Which is probably good. Healthy, even.

Maybe he got the letter and hated me. Maybe he threw it away. Maybe he never received it. Maybe writing back to the woman who opened his private mail and delivered the worst news of his life is not high on his priority list.

All reasonable possibilities.

I try to accept them, but I do a terrible job.

On the twenty-fourth day, I check the mailbox on my way home from work. There’s a grocery flyer, a credit card offer, and nothing else.

“Okay,” I whisper. Maybe that's it. Maybe this is the answer. No response. That should be a relief. Instead, it feels like a loss I have no right to feel.

I go upstairs and make pasta, and I overcook it. I eat half of it standing at the counter. Then I put the rest in the fridge and go to bed early.

I do not sleep.

On the twenty-seventh day, there is an envelope in the mailbox, and I feel like my soul has left my body.

I pull it out carefully.

The handwriting is the familiar one, the one I know so well by now. Same neat edges. Same controlled lines. But this time, the envelope is addressed to me.

Mia Matthews

My knees go so weak that I need to grab the edge of the mailbox’s wall.

He wrote back.

I feel like the lobby just tilted slightly. Everything goes warm and cold at the same time. It felt like the moment before someone unexpectedly touches you and you jump. I stand there holding the envelope to my chest, pulse racing so fast it feels embarrassing.

Then I remember I am in a public lobby, possibly looking like a woman having an intimate relationship with stationery.