Page 42 of Our Secrets and Scars

It smells like him too. The whole apartment does. The smell of smoky wood mixed with a hint of something spicy is so fragrant that I’m surprised not to see a fireplace. It’s so heady, it’s almost overwhelming, but it brings me comfort and peace in a way that Fletcher’s letters used to.

I take my coffee back to the bedroom and set it down on one of the blackwood side tables. A draft sweeps in through the open window on the opposite side of the room, reminding me of my nakedness. The wind kisses my skin, and I shiver, remembering the way Holden brushed his lips over my body just hours ago.

Not wanting to put my own clothes back on, I decide to borrow something of Holden’s. The idea of drowning in one of his T-shirts is so much more comforting than the prospect of wearing my catholic schoolgirl inspired skirt again that it doesn’t even occur to me that going through his closet may be a gross invasion of his privacy.

Not until I find something buried at the bottom that makes my heart stop beating entirely.

Letters.

Lots of them.

Lines and lines of musings, stories, and secrets that are as familiar to me as the name written at the bottom of each one.

I’ve got to be hallucinating.

I blink.

They don’t disappear.

I scrunch my eyes shut for a long minute before reopening them again.

They’re still there.

Tentatively, I reach for the papers and gather the bundle into my arms before scattering them across the bed. Four years’ worth of letters stare back at me. Four years’ worth of words I was too scared to tell anyone other than him, four years’ worth of secrets, skeletons, and clandestine confessions.

“What are you doing?”

The suddenness of his smooth voice startles me. I didn’t even hear him come in. I feel the heat of his body as he moves closer, stepping up behind where I stand, staring wordlessly at the bed.

“What are you looking at?”

I don’t respond. I can’t. My mind won’t allow it. I’m paralyzed by what I’ve just discovered, frozen where I am in the middle of his bedroom as my brain fights to make sense of what I’m seeing.

“Where did you get those?”

His question is asked slowly and cautiously, but not in accusation. But still, I ignore it. Because I have too many questions of my own right now to be able to answer any of his.

“What’s your last name, Holden?”

There’s a pause. An intake of breath. And then…

“Fletcher.”

Ten

Holden

Istareatthedoorway Violet just fled through with my lips parted and eyebrows furrowed.

Kinsley’s letters are littered across my bed, the words that brought me peace for so long laying open and exposed.

Did she read them?

I expect my heart to jolt or my gut to churn at the possibility, but neither happens.

Kinsley’s letters have always been the most sacred thing in the world to me. I don’t have much, but I’ve always had her words. They were the only reason I continued to wake up every morning, the only reason I fed myself, the only reason for every single breath I took inside those concrete walls.

They were my solace, my sanctity, and my lifeline.

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