Page 30 of Choosing Her

saylor

When Crossy stepped back, I almost pulled him closer to me on instinct. As it was, I barely managed to stop myself from grabbing his arm as he walked back to his bag and sighed.

“I need to show you something,” he said.

“What is it?” I asked hesitantly, stepping up by him as he dug in his bag. When he spun around, his arms were filled with… envelopes.

“What…” My question trailed off as I took them in. Every single one of them was addressed to my house. Had he written them to Naomi? But if he did, he must not have sent them, unless she gave them to him in the break-up. “Why are you showing these to me?”

I didn’t want to think about him and Naomi. I never wanted to think about them together, but especially not now, when everything was finally falling into place for us. Why would he tell me he loved me and then show me this?

“Because they’re for you.” He held them out toward me and a couple fell from his grip, fluttering to the ground between us. I didn’t bend down to pick them up.

“No, they’re not,” I said. I didn’t want to know what he wrote to her. I didn’t want to see the words he promised or to imagine him sitting around, thinking of her. “Just because you loved Naomi doesn’t mean I?—”

“Saylor,” Crossy cut off, “I wrote these for you.”

I bit my lip and shook my head again, stepping back once again. “You said you didn’t love me.”

“I lied.”

Wasn’t it exactly what he had just said? I wanted to believe him so badly, but how could I? I would understand if his feelings had reappeared in the last few months, but the idea that he continued to love me since New Year’s Eve was…

Well, it was how I felt about him. And I wasn’t sure I could believe he felt the same.

“Do you know how many times I have lied to you? Every time that I told you that I didn’t care about you, that I didn’t want you, that I needed to be with Naomi. All of it was a lie. I was lying to you and I was to myself .”

This time, when he shoved the letters into my hands, I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out to grab them. Almost like I needed to feel them as a tangible thing. I needed to read them, to know that he was telling the truth, to see the dates on them, to read what he said.

I lifted my eyes. “Crossy, if you’re lying to me right now… If you’re telling me these are for me and they’re not, or that all of this is some trick to?—”

“I’m not,” he said, and his voice was so deadly serious that I knew he was telling the truth. “The letters are just… proof.”

I swallowed quickly, staring at the massive envelopes in my hands and tears pricking at my eyes.

There was no way, no way he could be telling the truth about this, but no way that across all these months he had been writing so many letters to me.

With shaky hands, I put them down on the table in front of us and opened the first one up.

Dear Saylor,

It’s been four weeks since I dropped off that letter at your dorm. Or not your dorm. Is it bad that part of me hopes I got it wrong? At least then I know you’re not ignoring me.

Crossy

“What letter?” I asked softly, looking at him again. When he looked confused, I waved the letter around in the air, like that would explain it, and choked out, “You said you left a letter at my dorm. Or not my dorm—what do you mean?”

He stared at me and then whispered, “You don’t know.”

“I don’t know what?”

He shook his head and gulped. “Never mind, it’s not… Just keep reading.”

Dear Saylor,

So I guess I did get the dorm wrong after all. I know I said I hoped I got it wrong but now that I know for sure, I regret that.

Naomi asked if I wanted to go out sometime and I said yes — at this point, I’m never finding you so I guess I should move on.

He got the wrong dorm . Had he tried to send me a letter? Did he realize I went to Hartwell and he tried to track me down? I wasn’t sure how he could have though. Our paths never crossed last year, what with him being a junior and me only a sophomore. No shared classes, no overlap with our friends…

I shook my head and kept reading.

Dear Saylor,

I lied when I said that was the last letter. But it’s not my fault—tonight we watched the fireworks on the beach and all I could think about was you kissing me.

Where are you? Why can’t I find you?

Crossy

He was looking for me. All this time, I thought he’d chosen not to call, but he was looking for me. Why?

Dear Saylor,

Well, I know who you are now.

I’ve spent six months dreaming of this day and now that it’s here, I wish I could undo it.

How did I find your sister instead of you?

I know that I’ll never be able to make this up to you. I saw it on your face today when you opened the door. You looked so heartbroken that I wanted to apologize right then and there, but what could I say? How could I tell Naomi the truth?

I’m so sorry, Saylor. I’m sorry I never called. I’m sorry I never found you. Most of all, I’m sorry I stopped looking.

I’ll try to fix this. I promise.

Crossy

The letter was dated the same day he’d shown up at my house for the first time. Somehow, it never even occurred to me that he hadn’t known I was Naomi’s sister when he started dating her. He’d seemed so calm and collected that day that I just assumed.

Dear Saylor,

Everything I do seems to make it worse. I thought telling you that we should forget about what happened between us would relieve you. I thought it would make you feel like you didn’t need to avoid me anymore.

Instead you pushed me in the pool. And honestly I deserved it.

Have I said I’m sorry yet? Because I am. I really, really am.

***

Dear Saylor,

Naomi broke up with me today and honestly, it felt like a relief. Not because I didn’t like her but because it was torture to have to be near you.

I hate that I know we can never be together now because I think you were always the one I was supposed to end up with.

***

Dear Saylor,

I sat next to you in english class today and I honestly thought you were going to stab out my eye with a pencil.

Do you really hate me that much?

I guess I can’t blame you--if I was you, I’d hate me too.

But I hope you know that I never stopped loving you.

***

Dear Saylor,

I thought I knew pain before this but nothing hurts more than spending so much time with you and knowing you’ll never be mine.

I love you. I’ve always loved you. I will never stop loving you. Just thought you should know.

I love you.

Sorry. Just had to say it again.

Crossy

P.S. did I mention I still love you? Because I do. And I wish I’d been brave enough to kiss you again when I had the chance

I blinked away the tears that were gathering in my eyes as I looked up to Crossy. I guess I wasn’t good enough at hiding the tears, though, because one slipped down my cheek, and he immediately stepped in to brush it away with his thumb.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

“You didn’t,” I said honestly.

I looked up at the letters again, all of them gathered in my hands. They existed all this time—when I was wondering why he and I just couldn’t make anything work. Why he had to be around all the time, first with Naomi and then with Bear. Why he had to hate me the way that he did.

He told me that he loved Naomi. Now he told me he didn’t want me anymore. And then all this time…

“Why would you do this? Why didn’t you tell me before now?”

“How could I tell you? How could I tell you when you were Naomi’s sister?” He let out a breath and shook his head. “You have no idea how hard I looked for you, Saylor. Everywhere I looked, everywhere. I’m telling you, the only reason I found Naomi was because I was looking for you.”

I looked at the second letter again. So I guess I did get the dorm wrong after all. Naomi asked if I wanted to go out sometime.

“You gave it to Naomi instead,” I whispered.

Suddenly everything came clicking into place.

I always thought it was such a strange coincidence that he had ended up with my sister.

Somehow, in a way, I thought he’d done it on purpose, that he knew who she was and that he had gone after her because of it like he just wanted to hurt me.

Tears sprung up in my eyes. “You were looking for me.”

“I lost the Polaroid,” he said. “I’m so sorry, but I lost it.”

I laughed softly, almost choking on my tears. I’d spent days waiting for him to call. Weeks crying when I realized he wouldn’t. All of this because the stupid polaroid I’d written my number on for him.

I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. “It’s been ten months, and it took you this long to tell me.”

“In my defense, you hated me from the moment I stepped up on your doorstep. If I told you back then, would you have said, would you have kissed me back?”

I tried to picture it: that moment when Naomi asked me to open the door because her boyfriend was there, and I thought there must have been some mistake because there was no way this boy, the boy that I had kissed, could be with her.

Would I have kissed him back?

I wish I could nod and say absolutely, that I could pin this on him and say that he should have come to me sooner.

But no, because if I’d gone along with it then, it would have meant watching him break Naomi’s heart.

And even though she won in every aspect of our lives, and even though I hated her for it sometimes, I also knew I could never do that to my sister.

“No,” I admitted softly. “I wouldn’t have.”

He sat down on the couch next to me, his leg brushing mine. “And now?”

It was such a loaded question. The situation with Naomi hadn’t changed, not that much. They may not have been dating anymore, but she was still his ex-girlfriend. She would still feel betrayed if she saw me with him.

But… she’d moved on. And this boy was standing in front of me, telling me that the very thing that she thought their relationship was based on was meant for me. Did she know it? Did she do it on purpose? Or was she just some awful victim of circumstance?

And was that awful coincidence enough for me to throw away the love of my life forever? Sticking by Naomi’s side would mean telling him we couldn’t be together because he had dated her once, months ago. It meant letting her and what she wanted dictate my life when she never even loved him.

“If you kissed me now,” I whispered, almost not believing the words as they came out of my own mouth, “I wouldn’t pull away.”

Maybe it was a testament to how long Crossy and I had been waiting that he didn’t hesitate for a second.

I would always consider our first kiss my favorite—the one when we didn’t know each other, where he was just a boy and I was just a girl and we were having the most magical night of our lives.

But this was a different kind of special.

It was the specialness of knowing who he was and that he loved me and that I loved him and that we could make this work.

It was the knowledge that tonight, when he walked away, he wouldn’t be saying goodbye forever.