Page 46 of Our Secrets and Scars

RETURN ADDRESS

Holden Fletcher

236 East Wilmington Av

Salt Lake City, UT 84106

Kinz,

You okay? It’s been a couple of weeks since I sent my last letter and I haven’t heard back from you. It got me worried, that’s all, because you’ve always been quick at writing me back. I’m sure you’re just busy, and that’s totally fine. Of course it is. Just so long as you’re okay.

I had gelato today for the first time since before I was sent to juvie when I was seventeen. I come from an Italian family. Did I ever tell you that? We’re like third- or fourth-generation Sicilians, I think. That’s what my parents told me when I was growing up anyway, and while I can’t speak the language, I sure inherited the love of Italian food. So, I got four scoops. Stracciatella, nocciola, ananas, and pera: chocolate chip, almond, pineapple, and pear. Weird combination, I know, and the little old woman working the counter tutted at me the whole time, but I didn’t care. I took a bus to Liberty Park and ate it on a bench overlooking the green. It was the most peaceful I’ve felt in a long time. And though I began to feel sick after two scoops, I finished the lot. Prison teaches you not to waste, I guess.

School starts soon, and I’m trying to act cool about it, but God, Kinz, I’m so nervous. I haven’t sat in a classroom for four years, and I’ll be starting college as a freshman, even though I’ve just turned twenty-one. I don’t care that I’ll be older than most of my classmates, but I worry they’ll start asking questions. I don’t want to be a spectacle, y’know? I don’t want to be that dude who went to prison that everyone whispers about, wondering what I did, speculating, spreading rumors. Maybe it won’t be like that. I don’t know. I might just be worrying for nothing.

It would be so much easier to face if I had you by my side. One day. One day, maybe I will.

Write back and let me know you’re good, yeah?

Always, Fletcher

RETURN ADDRESS

Holden Fletcher

236 East Wilmington Av

Salt Lake City, UT 84106

Kinsley,

I’m worried. Never in the four-plus years that we’ve been sending letters have you ever gone this long without writing me back. Is everything okay? Are you safe? I keep tormenting myself with possibilities of what could have happened. That you’re hurt or sick or something. Worse, even.

And then there’s the possibility that maybe you simply don’t want to write back. That whatever this was between us has run its course, and you’ve taken all you can from it. Maybe hearing that I got released from prison made things more real for you. Maybe you got scared. I don’t know.

Truth is, I don’t know which I’d rather be true.

All I know is that I don’t go a second without thinking about you. You’re on my mind twenty-four seven, and it’s driving me kinda crazy. I’m experiencing all these new things and learning how to live a normal life again, and while this should be the best time of my life, it’s overshadowed by the void in my heart that’s been left in your absence.

Fuck, Kinz, I just need to know that you’re okay. Not knowing is torture. It keeps me up at night. And in the brief moments when my mind is caught on something else, my thoughts always seem to find their way back to you. Thing is, and this probably sounds farfetched and fantastical or whatever, but I feel like I’d know if something was wrong. I trust that the universe would tell me. I’d feel it somehow.

And I don’t.

There’s nothing in my heart telling me that you’re hurt. My soul isn’t torn up in the way it would be if you weren’t safe. And the universe hasn’t given me a sign that something is gravely wrong.

So, maybe I just need to accept that my role in your story is finished now. My part in your life is over, and I should move on. I don’t know how that’s possible when you’ve been my best friend for nearly five years, but I’ll try.

I’ll always be here though, Kinz. Waiting, hoping that you change your mind, checking the mailbox every day for another one of your letters.

Until next time, whenever that may be.

Always, Fletcher

RETURN ADDRESS

Holden Fletcher

236 East Wilmington Av

---