Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Between those lines, I was still so naïve and optimistic.
My gaze jumped down the page to a section that had been highlighted in yellow—and not by me.
I just want to leave, Ramsey. I’ll buy a car and we can go, get the hell out of Clovert and never look back. Maybe by Christmas you’ll be home and we can go to the mountains.
I turned the page and laughed as I skimmed over a dozen cuss words to the highlighted section.
We are not breaking up, you idiot. I love you and I still want you, so shut your stupid face.
Sinking into the swing, I settled the binder in my lap and continued to flip through the pages, each one inciting a different landslide of emotions. And surprisingly enough, not all of them were sad. There were stories about Nora’s and my shenanigans and normal everyday stuff about trying heels and the big stuff like when I bought my first car.
There were jokes.
There was longing.
There was love.
Some of the letters I remembered like I’d written them only yesterday. Others, I had no recollection of at all. But each one had a highlighted line describing something I’d wanted.
I want you to come home.
I want you back.
Who the hell wants celery in their chicken soup? Not me!
I want you to know that I should hate you for everything you’re doing to us. But I can’t.
You should have seen Nora’s face when I brought home that ceramic rooster. She might never speak to me again, but I wanted that damn thing more than anything in the world…except maybe you.
How long can you want somebody before you have to let go? It’s been ten years and I still can’t figure it out.
Page after page.
Want after want.
He’d highlighted them all.
My heart sank when I got to the letter I’d written the day Nora had told me he’d be coming home. Twelve long years and in my last letter, I was still begging him to let me back in.
I want us to be a family again, Ramsey. Please.
Tears dripped from my chin as I turned to the last page. This one was in his handwriting, and it hit so deep, stealing the air from my lungs, I wasn’t sure I’d ever breathe again.
Things Ramsey wants.
And in big bold letters, with nothing else on the page, it read:
To be with Thea.
I slapped a hand over my mouth and read it over and over again.
To be with Thea.
To be with Thea.
To be with—
“Right after my twelfth birthday, you told me that we were best friends, and even if I had a third nipple, I was required by best friend law to tell you about it.”
Dropping the binder to the ground, I jumped at least ten feet in the air. Okay, slight exaggeration, but he’d scared the hell out of me.
“Dammit, Ramsey!” I yelled, craning my head back and finding him sitting on his usual branch in our tree.
And then all the fear and anger vanished when I realized Ramsey was sitting on his usual branch in our tree.
For some, it would have been a creepy man spying on an innocent woman. And yeah, it was kind of still that to me too. But mainly, it was too many years of dreams coming true. In clean sneakers and a fitted T-shirt that hugged his toned biceps, he was a far cry from the shaggy-haired boy I’d once known. But his eyes—those brown eyes that owned my soul—were exactly the same.
“I fucked up, Sparrow. I may not have broken the real law, but I committed some pretty heinous best friend crimes.”
I sniffled. “Best friend law is the real law.”
“I’m learning this. Oh, shit!” he exclaimed as the branch he was holding on to suddenly cracked.
“Jesus, Ramsey, be careful.”
He blew out a hard breath. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to get up here? I’m old, Thea. I have no clue how I used to scale this thing every day. I’ve died almost eight times waiting on you to get here.”
I shook my head and lifted the binder up in his direction. “You told me you didn’t read these?”
He half shrugged. “I didn’t.”
“But you kept them?”
“As many as I was allowed. It was like a safety net for me, knowing they were there. I used to hold them a lot, flipping them between my fingers. It was crazy. Between the post office and the prison mail system, there were probably a dozen people who had handled those letters after you. But to me, the only thing that mattered was you’d touched them first. Having them was as much torture as it was reassurance. I never allowed myself to open them or read them.” He smiled. “Until this week. I figured if I was ever going to get you back, I needed to get to know you a little better.”