I take Bruno for a walk, and then I sit down on my couch with the envelope. Giving it back to Luca yesterday was a knee-jerk reaction that I regret. The thought that I would never know what’s inside this envelope has bothered me all day. I rip it open. I’m surprised to find two more sealed envelopes inside. The first one is addressed to my last address in Oklahoma City. I recognize the second address as the house my parents owned before I left for college and they downsized. There’s a yellow label affixed to each envelope, indicating they were undeliverable.
Dear Naomi,
I know it’s been a while since you heard from me. Life has felt like a rollercoaster lately. It started when you didn’t write back. Or, at least I thought that you didn’t. My ex-fiancée intercepted your letter and hid it from me for several months. She was also batshit crazy, and for a while I thought that she was the best I could do in life. And then she threw your letter at me, and I realized that you did write back. Come hide away with you? Is that invitation still open? Because if it is, I’ll be on the next flight.
I know that we say mean things and joke around all the time (at least I hope you’re joking) but I want you to know that I mean it.
Love,
Luca
Dear Naomi,
I guess in the time it took me to move to Dallas and back to San Diego, you also moved. It’s a little weird to realize that I have no idea where you live now. I’m sending this letter to your parents’ address on the off-chance they still live there. I hope that they can get it to you.
Long story short: I didn’t get married and I never saw your last letter until months after you sent it.
Update on my life: I currently live with the guy who told me that I shouldn’t just ignore the very first letter you sent back in fifth grade. I also live with three screaming children and their mom who takes a lot of naps. I need to escape. Any suggestions on where I should go?
Love,
Luca
I thought that I was sad before. I thought that I was angry. What I feel now is something new, and I can’t explain it. I wish that I had seen these letters sooner. I wish that I hadn’t shoved them into Luca’s chest when he tried to give them to me yesterday, and I wish that I hadn’t insulted him.
If I had known to set up a forwarding address, these letters would have made it to me. The postmarks on the envelopes indicate they were written around the time that I first started to give up on hearing from him again. That was back when I hoped that he would show up one day out of the blue. I guess I never stopped hoping that he would.
When Luca knocks on my door, I turn the letters over as if I’ll get in trouble for reading them. I head over to the door to let him in. The blue of his eyes looks ice cold, and there’s no hint of a smile on his face. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look this angry.
“I could have you arrested for dognapping,” he says. He steps past me and grabs Bruno’s harness and leash. I turn to watch him, frowning.
“I still can’t believe that he’s deaf,” I say.
He doesn’t respond. He slips the harness onto the puppy.
“He seems like a normal dog to me.”
He clips the leash to the harness.
“Are you ignoring me now? Is that it?”
“My bad,” he says. “I didn’t want to subject you to any more mediocrity.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh. You’re mad atmenow? Is that how this works? You lied to me, Luca. You tricked me. You don’t get to be mad at me.”
He turns away from the door and steps toward me. My heart rate picks up. I hold my ground, refusing to be backed into a corner. I have to crane my neck up to look at him. He’s still holding the puppy, who is excitedly licking his chin. He’s glaring at me, but it’s a little hard to take him seriously when he’s holding such a cute puppy. I press my lips together to stop myself from smiling.
“I have every right to be upset,” he says. “Do you really think you’re the only one who’s hurting over this? I fell in love with you, and I lost you.”
There are those words again, catching me off guard. My heart pounds so hard that I think it might rip out of my chest. My hand raises up against my will, reaching for him. I force it back down to my side before I can touch him. His gaze drops down to my hand before he meets my eyes again. There’s something about the look in his eyes that makes me wonder if he would have backed away from my touch.
I want to believe that he’s only saying this to try to win me back, but he doesn’t seem like he’s trying to win me back anymore. “How can you say that you fell in love with me? You barely even know me.”
He sighs, angling Bruno away from his face. “You’re wrong about that. I’ve known you for most of my life. Maybe it was just the idea of you at first. I thought that you had to be just as funny in real life as you were in your letters.”
“That’s not love, that’s—”
He cuts me off, continuing. “I fell so hard for you that I couldn’t even enjoy anyone else’s company, because I had already decided that you were the one. I tried to tell myself that I was holding you up on a pedestal, that you couldn’t be as funny, or beautiful, or amazing as I imagined you were. Before I came to Miami, I had convinced myself that I was wrong for thinking I could be in love with someone I had never met. And then I met you in person, and it turns out I was right. Everything that I thought I felt was real. I fell in love with you all over again.”
