Page 37 of P.S. It’s Always Been You
“Exactly. What if it’s a dead end? We should see where it leads first, because it might lead to nothing. A letter from beyond is a powerful thing. I should know.”
“Do you still carry it with you? The letter from your dad?”
He’s quiet for a moment, his brow furrowed like he’s deep in thought. “I do. Do you want to know what it says?”
I flinch in surprise. I wasn’t expecting him to say that. He always kept the letter closely guarded. “You don’t have to. I know it was private.”
“It was,” he says, scrubbing a hand across his jaw as the waitress streaks by with an order for another table. “At the time, I wanted to keep it for myself because it felt entirely personal. As if it were the only way I could connect with him after he was gone.”
“And now?”
“Now, enough time has passed. But more than that, I’ve done what he wanted me to do.”
“Is that what the letter was? His rules for living or something?”
“I believe so. He gave it to me a few months before he died.” He smiles, but it brims with sadness. “That’s the other reason I kept it. It felt intentional. Not like he planned to die on a jump, but intentional in the sense that he definitely meant to pass on these life lessons to me. Does that make sense?”
“It makes perfect sense.” Something else does now too. Hunter wrote notes to me when we were together, slipping them in my purse or whatever book I was reading. It’s as if he was trying to give me pieces of himself for when he was gone. He was always going to go. I knew that then. I know it now.
But I didn’t want to accept it. Back then, I was so caught up in us that I couldn’t be objective or rational about those final days. Now, with the vantage point of time, I can see he was doing what his father did for him—leaving words for those he might leave behind.
“He was giving you his wisdom,” I add.
“Exactly. But then, he was always like that. Always passing on little lessons, writing down life advice. He’d done so much, been to so many places, and he wanted to share his experiences. And honestly, his last letter to me was one of the biggest motivations in my work.”
I swallow a lump in my throat. “What did he tell you to do?”
He reaches into his back pocket, takes out his wallet, and fishes around. “Since we’re on a letter kick,” he says with a smile, but it’s the kind of smile that covers up something hard. He unfolds the note, spreads it open, and turns it around. The writing is blocky and slanted.
He slides it in front of me, and it feels a little like he’s baring a part of his soul.
What’s more terrifying is how much I want to see it.
To see him.
16
Presley
Quietly, I read the words from his father.
* * *
Dear Hunter,
* * *
When I graduated from an all boys’ school, they asked us to write down our hopes and dreams for our children. I was eighteen then, and barely more than a child myself. Yet I already knew what I wanted for the family I’d have. Maybe because I was young. Maybe because I was idealistic. Even so, what I most wanted hasn’t changed when it comes to you.
* * *
What I want is for you to live big. To live your best life. To take every great chance that comes your way.
* * *
You might wonder why I want that. Why am I telling you this?
* * *
Because I see a piece of myself in you. You have the same fire. The same intensity. You’re so much like me. Perhaps that’s why the dreams I had then align with you today. They are still the dreams I have for the man you’ve become.
* * *
Remember this—there are some chances that only pass your way once, and you have to grab them. You have to seize them, clutch them, and hold them tenaciously with all your might.
* * *
That’s what we’re put here to do. To take those tremendous leaps into the wild unknown.
* * *
I love you, and I hope you take all the chances that matter.
* * *
Love,
Dad
* * *
Tears swim in my throat. Looking up from the paper, I’m not sure I can speak. I meet his gaze. His eyes are a little glossy too, a little distant. “Do you still miss him?” I ask quietly.
His head tilts back and forth. “Yes and no. It’s been so long. You learn to live with the missing so that it doesn’t really feel like missing anymore. It becomes part of what’s normal for you. But there are other times when I wish I could talk to him. Pretty recently, I’ve desperately wished I could sit across the table from him and ask him to sort out the mess in my head.”
