He didn’t say anything, but his arms tightened around me.
“Laney,” my mom said from behind us.
He loosened his grip, but I clung tighter, desperate to make the moment last.
“It’s okay. We got this.” He held my head, kissed my forehead, then stepped away from me.
I believed him because I was seventeen, in love, and certain I’d found my soulmate. Time wouldn’t change what we had.
I have to admit—it was ridiculous and foolish of me to think that.
He kissed me one last time before we had no choice but to say goodbye.
Poppy hugged me tightly before I climbed into my parents’ car.
Everyone I loved, besides my family, stood on that driveway and watched us drive away from Willowbrook.
I hated my dad for taking the job. For making us move.
At first, the letters came daily. Not long or exactly romantic, but sweet. He’d tell me about his day and how much he missed me. One of them was about a dream he had of us taking Cedar out and dipping into the creek, him making love to me on the bank.
We texted too, but phones were different then. After I went over our data plan the first month, my dad restricted my texting.
I found a group of friends soon after school started. Bennett got a job at a pizza place in town, and our letters grew further and further apart. Days turned into weeks.
Starting over in a new town was hard. And having the person I loved most back in the place I still thought of as home made everything more complicated. I constantly felt split in two.
My new friends grew tired of hearing about Bennett and all the memories I couldn’t let go of. Every month, we drifted further apart.
One night, I called him. He was out with Emmett and some friends and was completely distracted and wasn’t really paying any attention to our conversation.
After I hung up, I wrote him a letter, breaking up with him.
I addressed it, stamped it, and mailed it before I could think twice. It was for the best.
And that was that.
I didn’t see him for many years. Not until I walked into that breakroom one day.
Which started a whole new chapter for us—but that’s a story for another letter.
I can answer half of that question now.
Leaving is easier, but you still feel like the one left behind, just in a different way.
That doesn’t mean the love stops. It leaves you with a thousand what-ifs.
I realized young that life is a book with chapters, and as you move through them, you change and evolve.
* * *
Delaney
Chapter Twelve
Bennett
Two days go by, and I don’t see Delaney at drop-off. I’ve barely been at the shop either, and every time I’m there, she’s either with a customer or on her lunch break.
