Page 3 of Soul to Possess

“It was,” I whispered.

Maddie smiled, soft. “You’ve always wanted love to feel like survival. Like something you earn with your whole damn self.”

I looked down at the chipped mug in my hands. “Do you think that’s pathetic?”

“I think that’s human,” she said. “And I think you’ve always had more fight in you than anyone gives you credit for.”

The jukebox near the register clicked over to a new song—something old and low and smoky. A man singing about redemption like it was something you had to bleed for. I didn’t say anything for a while. But the letter was already out there. Floating in a world bigger than mine. And maybe, just maybe, it would find someone who saw me the way Maddie did—like I was worth answering.

Chapter Two

By the time the tenth morning dawned, I had stopped pretending I wasn’t checking the mailbox. I hadn’t meant to count the days. But there they were, tucked into my spine like splinters—each one sharper than the last. Each walk down the gravel shoulder of my street, past the neighbor’s collapsed fence and the junk car with ivy growing through the hood, I told myself:It’s fine if nothing’s there.

But I always looked. And when the box yawned open to nothing but grocery flyers and bills, I told myself again:You’re ridiculous. It was just a letter. You probably spelled the address wrong anyway.But on that morning—the tenth—it was there. A single envelope. Cream-colored. Bent at one corner. My name on the front in a heavy, unfamiliar hand.

I didn’t open it right away. Instead, I closed the mailbox carefully, like I might wake something if I banged it too loudly. I slid the letter into my coat pocket and walked back home from Maddie’s slower than usual, the wind cutting across my cheekbones. It stung, but I liked it. Pain meant I wasn’t dreaming. Inside, I didn’t take off my coat. I sat down on the edge of the tub—of all places—and pulled the letter out like it was something sacred. I traced his handwriting first. The curves and pressure of it. Nothing practiced. Nothing showy. Just… deliberate.

Gennie,

I stared at your envelope for a long time before opening it. Not because I was suspicious. Because it’s rare to get something real anymore. It felt real. You did. What made you write me?

You’re the first person who’s written me without trying to sell themselves. Most people tell me what they think I wantto hear. Like I’m shopping for a woman, and they’re listing features.

You didn’t do that. You wrote like someone who meant it. Who wanted to be known.

I don’t know what you look like, and I’m not asking. Not yet. What I know is this: you said you’re tired of being alone. Me too.

I live on a ranch my grandfather left me. I run it mostly alone now. Horses, chickens, stubborn old dogs. I don’t go into town unless I have to. I don’t like crowds, or noise, or liars. But I miss having someone in the kitchen. I miss laughter that doesn’t come from a screen. I miss hands reaching for mine when I’m not at my best. I want a life built from quiet things. Routines. Trust. Loyalty. I’m not offering fireworks. Just a fire that never burns out.

If you want that too, write me back,

Marvin

He didn’t ask for anything. Not a photo. Not a list of skills or stats or baggage. He just… answered. Like we were already in the middle of something. Like this was just the next part of a conversation we’d somehow always been having. Like I wasknown.If someone had asked me what else I might have expected, I don’t know how I would have answered but it sure came as a shock. That did something to me.

My hands trembled as I read, not from cold but from the sudden, overwhelming hope of it. This letter—this quiet, creased piece of paper—was proof that I wasn’t invisible. That someone, somewhere, saw the flicker of my voice on a page and answered it without needing to fix me, or question what I could offer in return. I held the letter to my chest like I could absorb some of it through my skin.

The weight of it was more than ink and words, it was want. Not lust, not desperation. Just a simple, stunning kind of want that made you feel something deep inside, made you wonder. And it wasn’t just his. It was mine too. The part of me that still wished someone might choose me, not because I was convenient or broken in just the right way, but because they wanted to know me.

I sat there on the edge of the tub, in a coat I couldn’t afford to replace, in a bathroom that still smelled faintly of mildew no matter how many times I scrubbed it—and for the first time in years, I let myself believe that maybe something was beginning. He had written me back. And that shouldn’t have felt like a miracle. But it did.

Marvin,

I don’t know what I expected when I sent that first letter. Probably nothing. Maybe that silence would fold over it and make it disappear, like everything else I’ve ever wanted. But you wrote back. And I haven’t stopped reading your letter.

I guess I should tell you about me. I make coffee for a living. The kind that stains your clothes and doesn’t taste like anything until you’re desperate enough not to care. I read too much and talk too little. I keep an old paperback in my coat pocket like a charm, and my best friend says I flinch every time someone looks at me too long. I know you said about lonely, but do you ever get really lonely?

She’s not wrong. I’m not good at parties. I forget birthdays. I sleep better when it rains. I crave things that don’t fit into checkboxes, like silence that doesn’t feel like punishment and hands that don’t pull away too fast.

You asked me what made me write to you. The truth? It wasn’t the ad. It was the way it felt like someone had finally stopped pretending. Like someone had the courage to say itplain. I want that. I want plain words that don’t hide knives in them. I want real. I don’t know what I’m expecting from this, and I won’t lie and say I’m brave. I’m not. But I am curious. And maybe I’m hoping, just a little, that you’re curious too.

Write me again?

Warmly,

Gennie

P.S. My favorite color is moss green. The dark kind, like forests right after it rains.

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