Page 377 of Face Off

Briggs is terrifying in the net, which is unfortunate because he is already difficult enough to tolerate without the Inferno coaching staff telling him how talented he is. They know what they have in him. I watched three coaches praise him today, and he tried to hide how much it meant.

He needs to hear that he is extraordinary more often.

Some nights, he wants a bar, a woman, and enough noise to convince himself he is free. Other nights, he cannot unlock his apartment door, and I make him sleep in my guest room.

He is getting better.

I remain afraid Lyric will find him during one of the moments when better feels too difficult to maintain. I worry she will call when he is weakest, text from a number he doesn’t recognize, or appear somewhere he isn’t prepared to see her. I worry he will mistake familiarity for safety.

He knows.

He also knows I will drag him away from her myself if necessary.

The bastard read none of your letter, but he sat on my bedroom floor while I finished it. He didn’t ask what you wrote until I could speak. When I told him what you said about my mother, he told me to believe you.

I am trying.

Write soon.

You can tell me to fuck off for speaking too bluntly about Temple. You can tell me I crossed a line by describing what happened, that the mirror sentence was inappropriate, or that olives belong on pizza despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

At least “fuck off” means you are still talking to me.

Take whatever time you need before giving me your voice.

Just don’t disappear inside the silence.

Ryan

I set the pen down as midnight moves across Milwaukee.

Six days of anger, fear, love, and hope cover eleven pages. Victorian men would have found a more elegant way to express devotion. They would have buried it beneath metaphors about stars, oceans, death, and eternity.

Charm doesn’t need elegance from me.

She needs the brutal truth and the man willing to remain after giving it.

I read the letter once, resisting the urge to remove every sentence that exposes too much. By the time I finish, Briggs has sent three messages.

Briggs: Are you still writing?

Briggs: Eleven pages is a manifesto.

Briggs: If you mention my love life, I will deny everything and sue you.

I look toward the wall separating our apartments.

Ryan: You smile at your phone.

His response arrives immediately.

Briggs: Fuck off.

I laugh and slide Charm’s letter into its envelope.

The one I wrote follows it.

Tomorrow morning, I will hand eleven pages of myself to a postal clerk and trust a road stretching nearly four hundred miles to carry them into Charm’s hands.