Page 96 of Just My Ex

Her breath catches. “Oh, Henry.” There’s so much in her eyes, as if she’s seeing my pain and my weaknesses and has already forgiven me for it all.

I look down at the words and shore up my resolve. “I was going to mail it to you. But, thankfully, some graffiti artist decided to be an idiot, so here we are.”

I scoot back a few feet to the wall so I can rest my back against it. She does the same, only it’s on the opposite wall. I don’t love that we’re so far apart right now, but it’s okay.

“Dear Quinn, writing this letter seems foolish because it’s far too late. I don’t have any expectations of what will happen after, you don’t have to even talk to me again if you don’t want to. We can go back to our former life where we don’t interact. I don’t want that. But we can. And I can still feel a measure of peace knowing I at least wrote this to you.

Please know that in sharing this with you, I’m not attempting to justify any of my wrongs. I’m fully responsible for every decision that I’ve made. Our failed marriage is on me. You gave of yourself. You were patient with me and loving and willing to connect with me, to put your heart out there. But I only pushed you away.”

“Wait,” Quinn says, holding up a hand. “I can’t let you go on without saying something.”

I lower the papers. “Okay.”

Her tongue darts to the corner of her mouth. “Our failed marriage isn’t all on you.”

I sigh in protest, but she stops me again.

“I’m understanding now that I let my fears make me rigid. It was my way or the highway, and that wasn’t right.”

“But it’s like you said, you had to protect yourself, so you held to your boundaries. Your strength was a good thing.”

“Yeah.” She stares at her feet. “I didn’t have to take that tone with you all the time, though. I didn’t understand the PTSD very well. I approached it the wrong way. I could have given you the chance to make choices on what kind of help you needed … taken care of myself and let you empower yourself to do the same.”

“Well,” I say, shrugging. “We’re here now, though. And that’s no small thing.”

Her smile and the way she gazes at me makes me want to kiss her again, but I have to read these letters first.

“This one’s dated for the following week. ‘Quinn, I’ve been thinking about Navie. I miss you both so much. Sometimes, thinking of Navie makes me think of my own childhood. I resent my father for how he treated me growing up and it kills me to think that Navie might feel the same way towards me. In my childhood, I was lonely and scared. Yes, I had everything I needed in a material sense, but there were times I felt abandoned by my parents. I’ve been thinking about all the summers my brothers and I spent in Longdale and those were the best times. I wish I’d taken the time to show you and Navie the lake. I’m praying I get the chance someday.”

She throws her arms wide and moves her still-damp hair. “Well, that prayer was answered how you wanted.”

I smile and find my place in the letters again. “The next one is dated three days later. ‘Today I ran into a guy I knew when I was stationed in Iran. It reminded me of that time of my life when I was away from you for both of my deployments and how much I missed you. I wished I could have told you more about my experiences during that time, the things I witnessed and had to do that I didn’t want to do.”

Little by little, the hole in my chest starts filling up as I read aloud some of my difficulties in the military. I describe to her the combat—short-lived but life-altering—I experienced as a nineteen-year-old second lieutenant in the Army in Afghanistan. It’s hard to say the words, mostly because I’ve never said them before. But once I get going, I can’t seem to stop. I put the letter down and add nuances to help paint the picture. A few times, she wipes tears from her eyes.

“The next one is dated two weeks later,” I continue. “Dear Quinn, I had a migraine yesterday and at one point, while I was losing my lunch in the bathroom of a government building in Paris, I had the strangest sensation of you being there with me. I know that sounds weird, and in reality, I wouldn’t have wanted you there witnessing me being so sick like that, but there was an overall sense of wanting to experience my life with you. I wish I’d done what was necessary back then to help us still be together now. When I was talking with Navie on video chat last night, I imagined being there with the two of you. I ache to have both of you in my arms again. I’m sorry I wasn’t the man you deserved, Quinn. I can’t expect you to ever let me try again to make us work, but I will be that man, even only for Navie.”

I read the rest of the entries, some rambling, others more to the point, still others trying to share as much as I could about my job and the past. The last letter, dated a few days ago after we kissed, ends with me telling her I’ll always love her and I’ll do whatever it takes and wait however long it takes to be back in her life.

At these last few words, tears sting my throat and eyes. I move to stand. My legs have gone a little numb on the hard wooden floor, and I stumble a little as I stand.

“Don’t fall down the hole!” Quinn springs to standing, her arms out.

I drop my head back and laugh. There was never any real danger of my falling down that death trap, but for some reason, it strikes me as funny that I, while trying to keep my dignity around me, would stumble like that in front of the woman I care the most about.

“Watch me fall down a hole and die the moment I bare my soul to you.”

She starts laughing, too, and sinks back down to the floor and now we’re both crying and laughing, and I’ve got the throaty, wheezy, old man laugh going on. Quinn does, too, and when she snorts, we both lose it again.

Finally, we compose ourselves and she crawls on her hands and knees towards me. “You might be too stubborn to die, King Henry, but I’m certainly not. Even so, I’ll take the risk and crawl to you.”

“Every precaution, Queen.”

When she reaches me, she clings to me so tightly that for a moment, neither of us dare to breathe. But then we do and we’re laughing and hugging and crying all at the same time. My feelings escalate quickly, memories of the moments we shared when we were married coming to the surface. I pull away, only because I have to in order to keep control of myself.

“I want to be with you, Henry. I want us to make this work so badly. And your job isn’t ideal, but I can accept it. I’d rather have you doing that job, than not have you at all.”

I’m so happy at her words that I want to go on a celebratory, triumphant ride around the paddock on Maverick bareback.

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