Page 22 of The Pen Pal
She moves quietly around the room, setting her bag down, turning on the lights, flipping her planner open even though we both know she’s not seeing any of it. She’s here, but not here. Her voice, when she finally speaks, is almost too low for me to hear. “You want coffee?”
I almost ask if she’s okay, but I already know the answer.
“Sure,” I say, and my voice sounds too deep in the silence between us.
She walks to the tiny coffee station as I stand frozen in the middle of the room, more out of fear than politeness. The air feels too fragile to move through. One wrong word and I’ll crack it open.
Eventually, I find my voice. “Amelia, I’m sor?—”
“I’m sorry,” she says at the exact same time.
We both stop, and she laughs softly.
I let out a breath and smile, relief bleeding into the edges of the ache in my chest. I clear my throat, hoping it’ll clear the fear, too. “Can I go first?”
She nods slowly and sets the coffee mugs down without a word. Her silence slices clean through me. In the short time we spent together, she was never silent.
“The Portugal trip? It’s not what you think.”
Her shoulders tighten, and she stares at a spot on my shoulder.
“I should’ve told you about it. I meant to, but—” I run a hand down my face. “I forgot. Genuinely. It’s been booked for months. My sister planned the whole thing. She FaceTimed me one night and basically roasted me for being a shut-in and told me I looked like shit, like a man who hasn’t seen the sun shine in years.”
That earns me a snort. It’s barely audible, but it’s something.
“She booked the plane ticket and set up a few weeks in Portugal, then Spain. One way. Because she wanted me to take as much time as I needed. Said I could extend it or bounce around Europe.” I laugh quietly, though it’s dry. “I wasn’t even excited, honestly. It felt like a favor to her more than something for me.”
I step closer to her. “Then, I met you, and I forgot the trip even existed. I wasn’t planning anything. I wasn’t hiding anything. I was too busy thinking about your voice and how your emails made me smile like an idiot. Too busy falling for you to think about an escape.”
She exhales, and the sound is long, trembling. “I’m sorry too for … just leaving.”
I don’t interrupt. I want her to say whatever she needs to say, even if it guts me.
She swallows and meets my eyes. “It’s not an excuse, but I’ve gotten used to catching people in lies. Finding things out. Seeing something and knowing, just knowing, it meant they were already halfway out the door.”
Her voice breaks a little at the edges, and I feel every crack like it’s opening inside my own chest.
“I saw that flight info and my brain just … spiraled. And instead of asking, I ran like I always do. My fault is not talking to you first. Not trusting you enough to believe there might be an explanation.”
I take a cautious step forward. “You were hurt. That’s not on you alone.”
Her lips twitch sadly. “But I want to be better. I don’t want to be that girl who assumes the worst, especially not with you.”
“Well,” I say, voice still low, still raw. “Guess we just had our first fight.”
“Oh no,” she says gravely. “Does this mean we have to get matching ‘we survived our first fight’ t-shirts? Or maybe mugs because they’re on-brand for us?”
“You kind of conveniently forget that we fucked in public, actually in public, with people around us.”
Her eyes widen, and she groans. “God, that got buried because I was too stupid.”
That does it.
I pull her to me without thinking, my arms wrapping around her, caging her in. She melts into me. Her body folds into mine, and she rubs her cheek against my chest. “We can always do it again, you know.”
Amelia tilts her face to look at me. “I corrupted you successfully, didn’t I?”
I bury my face in her hair and chuckle. “Thoroughly, my love. You corrupted me thoroughly.”
