Page 46 of Second Chance Serenity

From years ago.

Paper and ink.

So why am I so afraid of them?

I drop down onto my hands and knees and reach beneath the bed, withdrawing the main box and the smaller one with his letters. With nerves dancing in my stomach, I open the top of the box and stare down at the stuffed envelopes inside.

He’d written to me constantly after he left. I’d been so angry that I’d thrown the first few away, not knowing my mom pulled them out of the trash as soon as I’d left the room. She’d given them to me a few weeks later, along with letters she’d removed directly from the mail, and told me that one day I might be angry at myself for not reading them.

That, while the hurt is so great right now, someday, it might not. Though given how badly I still ache, I can’t help but wonder if she were merely trying to put my mind at ease.

Well, I’m still waiting for that day to come, but at this moment, I’m glad she didn’t let me toss them out. I choose one at random, then slide my finger beneath the sealed flap and open the envelope.

As I draw the folded pages out, I’m hit with a sense of heaviness I can’t explain. Like I’m about to uncover something that will forever change the way I’ve seen Michael these past few years. And I can’t decide whether that’s a good thing or if I’m just opening myself up for more heartbreak.

Reyna,

I don’t know why I’m still writing these letters. I can only imagine that you’re tired of reading them—if you even are. I just don’t know who else to talk to. And even if you aren’t reading them, it feels good to get everything on the page so that I can at least pretend you are.

How are you? How are things back home?

It’s summertime, so I imagine you’re spending plenty of time at the beach, hunting seashells for your collection or searching for washed-up messages in a bottle. I know that’s one of your favorite things to do, and if I knew it would get to you, I would stuff this letter into a glass bottle just so you could find it.

Things here are bleak. Deployment has been rough on me this time around. I’m not sure if it’s the location or simply my outlook on all of it.

A friend of mine died yesterday. He was a good man. Had a wife and toddler back home, and now he’s just gone. It’s so hard to believe.

His wife will be getting a folded-up flag, and all I can think about is how incredibly sad it’s going to be for that kid to grow up without a dad, all because of the ugliness of war.

And then that leads me to thoughts of you.

Of how it could have been you getting the folded flag if we’d gotten married like we planned and I still joined.

Which leads me to be grateful we didn’t because I wouldn’t want you to remember me that way. As a flag. Red, white, and blue. How do you remember me now? I doubt you’d recognize me if you saw me again. I barely recognize the man staring back at me in the mirror.

Honestly, there’s a part of me—a dark, depressing part—that hopes I don’t make it home. Because then I will live forever in your mind as the boy I was before I became a soldier.

I want to tell you that I miss you more and more each day.

And as always, I want to finish it off by telling you how sorry I am. How much I wish I could come home to you, wrap you in my arms, and never let you go.

Love,

Michael

By the time I’ve finished reading, tears are streaming down my cheeks. I read it a second time. A third. Hating how lonely he must have felt. Did he cry while he wrote it? Does he still wish he’d never come home?

CHAPTER 15

Michael

“You’re sure about this, son?”

“I’m eighteen. I can make my own choices.” I sit across the desk from a man wearing an Army uniform. We’re surrounded by posters about how the Army wants me. How the military needs strong, capable soldiers.

I’m strong—right?

Capable.

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