Page 45 of Our Secrets and Scars

I gape at her, my heart thumping wildly inside me as it sinks like an anchor. “Can’t we talk about this?”

“No.”

“I think you’re overreacting,” I say and instantly regret it. “Sorry, no, I didn’t mean that, it’s just that whatever’s going on here, we can sort it out.”

“Why do you even care?” she snaps, eyes wide and flaming. I blink, and she continues, her voice rising, her face growing redder. “Why pretend like you give a shit?”

“You think I don’t give a shit?” I swallow the distance between us in a few long strides, unable to hold myself back from going to her any longer. “You think I’d have given you my fucking virginity if I didn’t give a shit?”

She at least has the grace to look ashamed, but she doesn’t apologize. Just shrugs her shoulders.

“You need to leave.” Her voice is cold, devoid completely of emotion.

Looking at her, with her arms wrapped around her middle, her face stern and sharp, I hardly recognize her. She could be a different girl altogether than the one whose lips I kissed, whose curves I memorized, whose gentle moans I heard whispered in my ear just yesterday. And God, does it fucking hurt.

“Fine,” I growl, gritting my teeth as I turn back for the door. “But maybe when you’ve gotten over whatever the fuck has got you so twisted, you might stop to consider how this is affecting me.You’re the first woman I’ve ever been with, Violet. Forgive me for hoping this might have ended differently.”

And with that, I pull open her apartment door and slam it shut behind me.

Eleven

Holden

Six months ago

RETURN ADDRESS

Holden Fletcher

236 East Wilmington Av

Salt Lake City, UT 84106

Kinz,

Hey, it’s been a minute, huh? That’s on me, I know, and I’m so sorry, but shit’s been so crazy, and I haven’t had a chance to sit down and write to you for the longest time.

I got out, Kinz. I got out of jail. I’m not an inmate dressed in orange sitting at a desk in a cell anymore. I’m a man with a job, a college acceptance letter, and a whole-ass apartment with a kitchen and bathroom. I feel like I could sit for hours and just stare at the furniture, memorizing the swirling of the wood grain and every little line in each brick on the wall. And you know what? I’ll do just that as soon as I’ve finished writing your letter. But this is the first time in weeks that I’ve had a minute to myself since I walked out of those prison doors, and there wasn’t anything I wanted to do more in the world than write to you.

Because I’ve missed you so much, Kinsley. Going without the sweetness of your words for so long has almost been enough to dampen the incredible glory of finally feeling fresh air on my face or sleeping on a proper mattress or getting to shower for longer than three minutes at a time.

I wish you were here to share this experience with me. Wish I could learn about the world with you by my side. Wish I could walk downtown with you, hold your hand, buy you coffee. It might sound so simple, but just the idea of being able to walk into a coffee shop and buy something is so exciting, it’s almost overwhelming. I’d buy you coffees every day for the rest of my life if I could and never grow tired of it.

The night before I was released, I had to take a sleeping pill. Swapped some food I kept stashed under my bed for one with a guy who’d managed to have it smuggled over from the psych facility. Drugs aren’t my thing, but I wouldn’t have made it through the night without it. I ate noodle soup for dinner that night, it was the only thing I could stomach, and then I took the pill and went to sleep.

I can’t even begin to describe what it was like waking up the next morning, knowing I’d never have to look at those four awful gray walls again. I’d never have to eat my food with plastic cutlery or be strip searched again. Time has never moved so slowly as it did while I sat there waiting for the call to say I could go home. It dragged by, seconds passing like decades. It almost felt as if I was serving my entire sentence again. But, God, when that phone rang, it was everything.

The only thing that could make this better is you, Kinz.

My uncle set me up with an apprenticeship at his tattoo studio, and he’s paying out of his own pocket to put me through college when the semester starts in the fall. I owe that guy the fucking world. He’s saved me more than he could ever know.

So have you. In a different way, sure, but maybe the most significantly. Because there’s no way I’d have made it through these last four years without your letters. Your words were my oxygen. You were my constant, my rock, the fucking anchor that kept me grounded. And in a situation full of such chaos and uncertainty, your letters were my salvation. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to make it up to you, but I’ll spend forever trying if you’ll let me.

Because the thing is, Kinz, I’m still not good enough for you. But now I’m working and going back to school, so one day I might be.

Always, Fletcher

P.S. This is the very first time I’ve allowed myself to think of a future for us beyond just the letters we write. And I want more than anything to be able to say that I belong to you. So, will you have me, Kinz? Will you let me be yours one day for real?

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