Page 3 of Soul to Possess (The Artmaker Trilogy #1)

Genevieve,

I wasn’t sure you’d write back. Honestly, I figured I’d scared you off with the ad. Most people would’ve laughed. Hell, I laughed writing it. But you wrote me anyway. That counts for something.

You asked about the horses. There are five.

They all have moods. One of them hates me.

I admire that in an animal—clarity. You’d probably get along with her.

The snow’s melting here. It leaves behind the kind of mud that pulls your boots straight off.

I almost lost a sock today. Thought of you when it happened.

Wondered what you might think. Thought you’d probably make fun of me. I didn’t mind.

You asked if I ever get lonely. Yes. The kind that makes you ache deep inside, and just feel forlorn forever.

Tell me something you’ve never said out loud.

—M

Marvin,

I laughed at your sock story. Out loud. The kind that startled the cat and made the neighbor’s dog bark.

So, congratulations—you’re officially the funniest person I’ve interacted with this week.

Not that the competition’s fierce. The barista at the gas station café called me “darlin’” and gave me a stale biscotti.

I think that’s the closest I’ve come to flirting in the last six months.

You asked me to tell you something I’ve never said out loud.

So here it is: Sometimes I lie awake at night and pretend I live inside a house that doesn’t echo.

A place where someone else’s breathing fills the dark, steady and soft, and I’m not always the one who has to lock the doors or make the coffee or remember to buy more light bulbs.

I pretend there’s someone who knows how I take my tea and would notice if I didn’t come home.

That’s pathetic, isn’t it? I didn’t write to you because I was brave.

I wrote to you because I was tired. Of pretending I don’t want more.

Of convincing myself that I’m too complicated or too damaged or too late.

But your letter—it felt like the first time in a long time someone saw past the silence.

Tell me what kind of coffee you drink. Tell me what scares you. Tell me if you’ve ever fallen asleep somewhere you weren’t supposed to.

I want to know the little things.

—Gennie

Gennie,

You're not pathetic. You’re honest. That’s rare. And brave, whether you meant it to be or not. You gave me something real, and I felt it hit in a place I forgot still worked.

Your letter—it was like stepping into a room I didn’t know I’d been locked out of.

One where someone else had left a light on for me.

You asked about coffee. I take it black.

Cheap stuff, usually. From a tin. No fancy names, no cream, no sugar.

The kind of brew that tastes like a bad decision and keeps you awake anyway.

Same brand my dad drank, and I hated that man, but habits die slower than people do.

You asked what scares me. Here’s something: I’m afraid of being forgotten by the time I’m gone. Not missed—just erased. Like I was never here to begin with. Some days I look in the mirror and feel like I’m already halfway gone.

And yeah—I’ve fallen asleep where I wasn’t supposed to. In the back of a feed truck once, after a fight with my brother. Woke up with straw in my ears and frost on my eyelashes. I was seventeen and stupid and sure I’d never need anyone. That aged poorly.

Gennie… if I were there, I’d make your coffee the way you like it. I’d remember the light bulbs. I’d leave the door unlocked when you said you were on your way home. Not because I’m good at any of this—but because I’d want to try.

Tell me what kind of music makes you feel like your ribs might break from holding it all in.

Tell me what you’d do if no one was watching.

—M

Marvin,

You say things like you’re carving them into wood.

Sharp and permanent and real. I think I reread your letter five times before I folded it up and tucked it under my pillow like a teenager with a crush.

Maybe I am. Maybe that’s exactly what this is—a slow, strange, impossible crush that feels a little too sacred to name.

I tried to imagine you in that feed truck, all frost-bitten and stubborn. Part of me wanted to laugh. The other part wanted to climb in next to you and stay until spring. You asked about music. What makes me feel like I’m unraveling in all the right ways.

There's a song—old, slow, kind of haunting. The kind that sounds like it’s been soaked in whiskey and cigarette smoke.

I played it once in the car, and the sun was low enough to make everything look like memory.

“I’m so lonesome I could cry” I cried so hard I had to pull over.

Not because I was sad—because it felt like it cracked something open that had been locked tight too long.

That’s the kind of music I go back to. The kind that lets you bleed a little quieter.

And if no one was watching? I think I’d dance.

Not well, not gracefully. But like the kind of girl who used to spin in the kitchen in bare feet, chasing a kind of joy that didn’t ask questions.

I’d wear red lipstick for no one. Eat cake with my fingers.

Read poems out loud to myself just to hear the words take up space.

I’d write letters to strangers.

I’d write to you.

Tell me the worst thing you ever regretted.

Tell me what makes you stay, even when it’s easier to go.

—G

Genevieve,

I read your letter with a hand on my jaw, like pressing hard enough might keep something from slipping loose in me.

You wrote about dancing in bare feet and eating cake with your fingers, and I swear I could see it—your shoulders unburdened, your mouth soft with sugar, joy leaking out of you in quiet defiance.

I’d watch that. I’d memorize it. And if I was brave enough, I’d join you.

Not well, not gracefully. But I’d try. Just to keep you spinning.

You asked about regret. There’s a girl I loved once—years ago.

I loved her in the way boys sometimes love—like gripping a thing too tightly and then watching it die anyway.

She wanted to run and I let her, told myself it was kindness.

That she needed space. What she needed was someone who wouldn’t give up.

And I did. I watched her walk away and I didn’t follow.

I don’t even remember what I said—but I remember everything I didn’t.

That’s the worst thing. The not-saying. The silence I stitched around someone who needed words.

You asked what makes me stay. It’s this strange thing: the land here is mostly mud and fences and frostbite, but it holds me.

The horses, the quiet, the morning light over the barn roof—I think I belong to it more than it belongs to me.

And now, these letters. You. Somehow that keeps me from disappearing.

I stay for the sound of hooves in the cold, for the promise of something tender growing wild in a hard place. For the thought that maybe someone, somewhere, still knows how I take my coffee.

Tell me what makes you angry.

Tell me the softest thing anyone’s ever done for you.

—M

Marvin,

It’s been two months. Sixty-something days. Maybe more. I’ve lost count, but not in the absentminded way—more like the way you lose count of heartbeats. You just trust they’re still happening, even if you’re not measuring them anymore.

Your letters feel like they arrive through some sacred, secret channel.

Like the universe still knows how to deliver something right to the hollowest parts of me.

I don’t even wait to get inside anymore.

I open them right there by the mailbox, paper trembling like skin in the cold, trying to drink in every word before it vanishes.

You asked what makes me angry. I used to say nothing.

I thought being angry made me look bitter, or small, or—God forbid—ungrateful.

But I am angry, Marvin. I’m angry at the way people disappear while you’re still looking at them.

At the way love becomes currency. At how loneliness makes you question your worth, like the absence of company means you’re unlovable.

I’m angry at how long I stayed quiet about the things that hurt me because I thought naming them would make them worse.

Turns out silence is what does the real damage.

You asked about softness. When my mother died, I stopped eating for a while.

Not on purpose. Just... forgot how. Grief turned food to dust in my mouth.

There was this boy—barely a friend—who showed up with a thermos full of homemade soup.

I told him I wasn’t hungry. He didn’t argue.

Just sat on the porch next to me and drank his share while mine sat warm between us.

He didn’t push. Didn’t speak. Just stayed.

And I swear, that silence healed something in me before the food ever did.

That’s what softness is. Not noise. Not grand gestures. Just someone staying, even when you’ve got nothing to offer but your broken parts.

You say the land holds you. I think these letters are starting to hold me.

But sometimes I wonder—what would it feel like to be held by the person writing them?

Tell me what you imagine when you think of me there.

On your land. In your space. What it would feel like. What you’d do if I showed up tomorrow.

—G

Genevieve,

I read your letter sitting on the barn steps, boots untied, a horse chewing hay beside me like the world wasn’t quietly shifting under my feet. Sixty-something days. That sounds both too many and not nearly enough. You asked what I imagine when I think of you here.