Page 52 of A Christmas Mystery

“I’m so sorry. I was about to say I wish I had known, but I’m not sure that would have been good. What would I have—”

“No, no. You never could have known. It would have been absolutely wrong to tell you while you were still with Chris. I might not have been able to stop myself from wanting you, but I could at least stop myself from doing that. I loved Chris, and I would never do that to him. I would never be that man. I just... I just held it. Carried you in my heart. But it always had to be a secret.”

Something about his words strikes me. Feels familiar. But I’m so overwhelmed with feelings that I can’t pin down where I heard them before.

“Thank you for telling me,” I say, reaching up to palm his face and turn his head so he’s looking at me again.

His mouth twists again. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart, but that’s not all I need to tell you.” He leans into my hand for just a moment before he eases his head back.

“What else is there?”

With a raspy breath, he gives a brief shake, as if he’s trying to wake himself up. “So then Chris died. And... and it was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. But I couldn’t even grieve for him without feeling guilty.”

“No! No, there’s no reason you needed to feel guilty. You never made a single move on me. You never betrayed him. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I hope not, but I still felt so guilty. Because I still wanted you. So much. I just couldn’t make the feelings go away. You were gone then. You left town and didn’t come back, but it didn’t make it any better. I couldn’t date anyone else because suddenly you were right back there at the forefront of my mind when I’d worked so hard to keep you out.”

He sounds so anguished I feel like I need to answer the feeling somehow. “Oh Theo. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. You had to work through your grief just like I did, and you had those old feelings to complicate things.”

“They weren’t old though. They suddenly felt brand-new again, and nothing I could do would get you out of my mind. When you started posting your pictures and thoughts, I... I kept going back to look at every single one. They felt so much like you, and they made me feel close to you in a way I was never allowed.”

“I didn’t know you followed me.”

“Followed you.” He breathes out the words like they mean something different. “That’s exactly what I did. Follow you. Everywhere you went, I was right there with you in my heart. Until finally... finally...”

He tries, but he can’t seem to finish the sentence.

I wrap an arm around him. “It’s okay. Just tell me.”

“Until finally I sent you a message.”

I hear the words but can’t immediately process them. “You—”

“Sent you a message. Just some thoughts about one of your posts. Reading and looking at your pictures weren’t enough anymore. I needed to... to connect. If I was ever going to get out of my paralysis, I had to at least try. So I sent the message from the account I sometimes use online, and you responded.”

My stomach starts sinking as if my body is catching up faster than my mind. “I responded?”

“Yes. And you were so lovely and authentic and deeply reflective—exactly as I’ve always known you are. So I wrote back, and you responded again. And... and we kept talking. For almost a year.”

I slowly pull my arm back. My back stiffens.

Theo is suddenly urgent. Like he’s scrambling to hold back an avalanche. “It meant so much to me. Talking to you every day like we did. It... In a real way, it helped me heal from losing Chris. And it felt to me like... like it was helping you too. So I didn’t think it was wrong. I kept telling myself it would never be anything but an online correspondence, but maybe both of us needed it. And you’d never have allowed it if you’d known it was me.”

I make a weird, choked sound. “So you... you...”

“It was me. Your pen pal. All along. It wasn’t supposed to be a lie. It didn’t start that way, and then it got so far and so deep I didn’t know what to do. Because finally telling you would feel like a betrayal. I knew you’d never liked me, and I was terrified you’d misunderstand my intentions. So I just never told.”

It’s so much—so overwhelming and disorienting—that I can barely see his urgent face in front of me. I can barely breathe. “So all this time... But you kept... Even now you didn’t...”

“I meant to tell you! When you mentioned you were coming back, I decided that this was the time to tell you. That very first day I saw you in the store with your Tee, I came in so I could finally get it said.”

“Then why didn’t you?” There’s almost a sob in my voice, but there’s no way to control it.

“I tried. You won’t believe me, but I tried so many times to get it out. But I’ve always been so tongue-tied around you. It’s always felt like the weight of the world rested on each interaction because I felt so... so deeply for you. And this was worse than anything. Because I’d fallen in love with you all over again over the past year, and I wasn’t sure how I could ever stand losing you.”

I hug my arms to my belly. Shake with spasms of emotion.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. Please don’t cry. When your Tee recruited me into your mystery, I went along with it because it gave me the chance to be with you. And each time I figured I’d finally tell you the truth, but I never did. Then you started to like me. And then you started to want to be with me the way I’ve always wanted to be with you. And it felt like all my dreams were finally coming true, but if I told you this one thing, I might blow it. Lose everything I’ve always wanted.” He reaches out like he’s going to touch me, but then he pulls his hand back. “But I didn’t want to take this last step when... when you still didn’t know.”

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