Page 80 of Until Forever Falls

“I see too much of myself in her. That fire. That sharp, stubborn edge. And it fucking terrified me. I didn’t know how to love her without trying to snuff it out first.” She swipes at a tear like it’s an inconvenience, but they just keep coming. “She needed more from me. She deserved more. How was I ever supposed to give her something I never even got a taste of? Love isn’t instinct when you’ve spent your whole life starving for it.”

She takes a breath, but it doesn’t help her. The words keep spilling. “And the drinking, God. I thought it was numbing me, thought it was helping. But it just turned me into something uglier. Bitter. It poisoned every inch of me until there was nothing left to give her but the worst parts of myself.”

Her throat bobs as she swallows hard, and for the first time, she looks small. Hollowed out. Like she’s been burned down to nothing but embers. “I’ve quit…drinking. Since she left. I dragged myself out of that hell, fought like a rabid dog to stay sober these past few weeks—so if she ever comes back, if she ever lets me in again, I can finally be the mom she should’ve had all along.”

None of this erases what Dylan’s been through, but it’s not my place to say that.

“Do you think she’ll come back?” I ask instead, the question feels useless, but it’s all I have.

Denise looks at me, eyes bloodshot. “God, I hope so. I beg for it. Every damn day. But if she doesn’t…” Her breath shudders, and she grips her shaking hands like they might hold her together. “I wouldn’t blame her.”

Her gaze drops, shoulders curling inward like she’s trying to disappear. “I just— I want her to know I love her. That I’m sorry. That I never meant to make her feel like she was a burden, even though I know I did. I said things I can’t take back. Made her feel like she had to earn a love that should’ve been hers without question.” She shakes her head, letting out a choked sob. “If she can’t forgive me, I’ll understand. But she’s my baby. My only baby now.”

She looks like a structure caving in, one cracked beam away from collapse. Like if she moves too fast, breathes too deep, she’ll scatter into pieces too small to put back together.

It does something ugly to my stomach—sits there like rusted metal, heavy enough to sink me. “I’ll find her,” I say, and I mean it. I mean it with everything in me.

She nods, but it’s absent, like she’s here but only because her body hasn’t figured out how to quit yet. I start to turn away, but something drags me back.

“I never said it,” I start, voice rough. “But I’m sorry about Beckett. He was solid. Loyal. A better friend than most people deserved. He shouldn’t have—” My throat locks up, and I force myself to finish. “None of it should’ve happened.”

Denise blinks like she wasn’t expecting it, like she forgot how to hear kindness. Tears spill over, running unchecked down her face. And for the first time, she really looks at me—like I’m not just a reminder of what she lost, but someone real.

“Thank you,” she whispers. And then she’s gone, retreating into the ruin of her grief. And I? I walk out into the night, carrying a piece of it with me.

I hunch forward in the front pew, elbows digging into my knees, eyes fixed on the emptiness of the old church. Light filters through the shattered windows, catching dust in its grasp, twisting it into something ethereal before letting it fall. The floorboards are tired, worn thin from time and ghosts of footsteps long gone. It’s so quiet that the sound of my breathing feels louder than it should, uneven, like I’ve been holding it in too long.

This place is nothing special, but it mattered to Dylan. Maybe it still does. That’s why I’m here, gripping this envelope like it’s the only thing still connecting me to her. Her name is desperately sprawled across the front in my own uneven handwriting like it might bridge the distance between us.

I flip the envelope over in my hands again, running my thumb along the edge, worn soft from all the times I’ve held it. Months have passed, and she’s still nowhere. No social media posts. No updates. Just silence. Like she’s been swallowed by the earth itself. I keep dialing the number etched into my memory, knowing it won’t ring, knowing no one’s on the other end—but I do it anyway, like repetition might rewrite reality.

Graduation came and went, and I stood there like an idiot, cap in hand, scanning the crowd for a face I knew wouldn’t be there. But she was gone, and I was just another name on a list, another body in a sea of futures that didn’t include her. Still, I waited, long after the last speech, after the chairs emptied, and the sun dipped low. Like maybe, somehow, she’d change her mind and I hadn’t given her every reason to disappear.

I drag a hand down my face, the chemo buzzing under my skin, a restless, electric sickness that won’t settle no matter how still I sit. The doctors say it’s working—great, good, whatever—but all I can think about is how I destroyed the one thing that mattered. How I let fear worm its way into my head and take the wheel. I didn’t want Dylan to see me like this, didn’t want her looking at me like I was already one foot in the grave. So, I shoved her away, convinced myself I was saving her from loss. But let’s be real—I wasn’t some noble martyr. I was a goddamn coward.

Mr. Lyons said if I got him a new letter in time, he’d sneak it in with the rest from our class. It’s a long shot, a desperate swing in the dark, but I have to try. One last attempt to tell her the truth, to let Dylan see the things I was too much of a fool to say when it mattered.

I let my gaze drift to the mural on the far wall, a riot of color sealed in time. She poured herself into it, brushstroke by brushstroke. The walls may be cracked and the wood faded, but her colors refuse to dull, defying time. It’s a relic of her, a pulse of life she left behind, preserved by the elements, untouched by loss. Somehow, that’s enough to trick my brain into thinking she’s still with me—beyond the paint.

I stare at the envelope like it might burn a hole through my fingers. Then, with a sharp exhale, I fold it and tuck it into my back pocket. I tell myself it’s just paper, but it feels like a confession, a reckoning, a hopeless attempt to reach her across the distance I built between us. If she ever reads it, I hope she understands. If I don’t make it another ten years—hell, another month—at least she’ll have this. At least she’ll know.

My fingers press into the worn edge of the pew, splinters biting into my skin. I close my eyes and breathe through the nausea curling low in my stomach. I don’t pray. Never have. But I do now. Not for me—for her. That wherever she is, she’s not curled up on some lumpy motel mattress, staring at a ceiling stained with water damage, counting cracks like they hold all the answers. That she’s not drifting from place to place, running on fumes, feeling like she has nowhere to land. That she’s not out there believing—even for a second—that she was too much or not enough. That she knows—God, please, let her know—that she was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I was the dumbass who let her slip through my shaking, unworthy hands.

Brooks’ Letter

Dear Dylan,

I’ve tried to write this a hundred times, but the words never came out right. Maybe because there aren’t words strong enough to hold everything I should have said. Everything I should have done. I let you go. I let you think you were easier to lose than to fight for, and I hate myself for it.

I don’t know where you’ll be in ten years, if you ever made it to Paris or if life kept you stuck somewhere, the way it did me. I don’t know if you’re happy. If someone else gets to love you now. But God, I hope so. I hope you’re somewhere safe, where the walls are covered in art that speaks to you, where every brushstroke reminds you that you were always enough.

If I could erase every moment I made you question it, I would. But I can’t. All I have left is the ink on this page and a hope so violent it rattles in my bones.

I’m not sure how to start this, and that’s honestly fitting—there was never a right way to leave you either. I’m sorry. God, Dylan, I’m so fucking sorry. For walking away. For tearing us apart when you had already lost so much. For every second after Beckett died that I didn’t tell you the truth.

You might tear this to shreds. I wouldn’t blame you if you did. Hell, I deserve worse. But if these are the last words you ever get from me, then you need to understand why I turned my back—why I let you go, even though it felt like ripping out the only pieces of my heart that still knew how to beat.

I have cancer. A rare kind. One that doesn’t offer mercy, only maybes. Maybe treatments will work. Maybe they won’t. Maybe I’ll still be here when you find this, or maybe I’ll just be a ghost—a name you haven’t said out loud in years.

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