Page 65 of Healing You
She stepped to the side. “Come on in. You want any tea?”
He nodded, moving past her into the kitchen. Grabbing the tea kettle, he filled it with water. “I'll make the tea. You just read.” He froze momentarily. “Unless you prefer to read alone. In which case, I can give you some privacy—”
“I wouldn't have invited you in if I wanted to read them alone, Steve.” She curled onto the couch as the dogs rushed around jumping up and greeting him. Daisy hopped into her lap, curling into a ball as she unfolded the first letter—from Steve to her. The white paper was aged yellow and some of the writing had worn away from the folds, almost illegible. It was an apology, she realized while reading. A long apology right after the accident.
You're still not allowed to have visitors, he wrote. I tried. Ronnie and I both tried to come by even though the nurses told me I wasn't allowed out of bed. Ronnie stole a wheelchair from the supply room and wheeled me over to you while I carried my IV drip. I need to see you. I need to see for myself that you're okay. I'll sneak past the nurses every day if I have to, to see your beautiful face again. But you should be prepared for my face. I don't look the same. I probably never will again. Your mom thought you should know that ahead of time. Hopefully you'll get this letter and she'll let me in to see you tomorrow.
The smell of peppermint pulled her out of the letter and she looked up to find Steve setting a piping hot cup of tea in front of her. “You came to see me?”
“Every goddamn day. The nurses hated me at first, but then soon after I think they started silently routing for me to get through.”
Yvonne shook her head, taking a sip of the tea. “My mom never told me. She—she never gave me any of these,” she said, flipping through the other ten letters.
“It's not her fault. Every time I tried to leave a note, I got intercepted by nurses and brought back to my room.”
Well, that made her pay attention. “Why didn't you say anything in the thirteen years?” her voice cracked as emotion flooded her—consumed her like a cancer, angry and just as deadly. “All this time, I thought you never came to see me.”
“I actually did make it in. Once. Your mom and dad were down at the cafeteria and there was a new nurse on staff. It was her first day. She didn't know I wasn't supposed to be in there.”
“Why don't I remember that?”
“You were asleep. And heavily drugged. It felt wrong to wake you. I sat with you, held your hand for ten minutes or so. And as I went to leave my notes beside your bed, I saw a letter sitting beside you. Your handwriting. With my name scribbled on the front.” He waited, staring at her almost as though he was waiting for a moment of recognition. And as hard as Yvonne wracked her brain, she came up blank. “I don't remember writing you any letter.”
His face dropped. “But you apologized for it. Weeks ago.” He reached over, grabbing the bottom letter and pulling it to the top.
“I apologized for the accident. For distracting you. For practically being the one who caused us to go through the windshield.”
“So … you don't remember this letter? At all?”
She shook her head as she unfolded the note, recognizing her own handwriting immediately. It was a messier cursive than she usually had because of the accident. “God, I was so mad that you didn't come to visit me—”
That's when it hit her. No, it more than hit her. The memory crashed down on her like a thirteen story stone wall collapsing. “Oh no,” she whispered. “No, this wasn't for you. It was just an exercise that my therapist made me do.”
She skimmed her words... those horrible words she’d written. I wonder if my life would have been better without you. I wish I had just died there, wrapped around that tree. Not because I don't think I deserve to live or can survive like this. But because I want you to hurt. Hurt like I hurt. I never want to see you again.
It went on like that for another two pages. Hot tears dripped onto the paper trembling in her hands. “No, Steve. You were never supposed to see this.”
Bending forward, Steve planted his elbows on his knees, his gaze branding her. “What do you mean?”
“I was so angry. Every therapy session started with me staring out her window with crossed arms, not talking, and ended with me shouting about my horrible life, my bad luck. I wasn't mad at you... at least not at first. My anger, this anger, toward you only surfaced when I thought you were avoiding me after the accident. When I thought you blamed me for your injuries. Hell, I blamed myself for it.”
He eyed her carefully, those blue eyes simmering, hot like the center of a flame. “So your therapist gave you homework?”
She nodded. “To purge the anger by getting it out, writing it down in a letter to you. She also had me write them to my parents.” It was a tactic she still used to this day when she was mad. She would formulate an angry email, but never hit ‘send’. “I just always assumed I threw them out or that one of the nurses did when they cleaned my room.”
“I thought it was meant for me to read. I thought you wanted me to see it and had planned to give it to me. That's why I read it. I sat there reading it while holding your hand. And then, I left and didn't come back. It said in there you hated me. Never wanted to see me again. I thought I was respecting your wishes by leaving and avoiding you.”
“Without asking me directly about it?” Daisy flinched in her lap as her voice got shrill.
“I know. Stupid,” he said a little too casually for her liking. “But I was only eighteen, and I was hurt, too. The last thing I wanted was to have to hear these exact words come from the girl I loved.”
She shook her head. “I didn't mean them. This letter—these words—I didn't mean any of it. I was just an idiot teenager who was angry. I completely forgot about this letter.”
There was a long, tense silence as they sat there in thought, until Steve broke it. “I want to be honest with you,” Steve said. “My panic attacks? They seem to be triggered by you.”
“Yeah, I kind of figured that out the other night.”
“And I have a problem with my prescription drugs. They're really addictive, and in my first year of college, I was intensely hooked on them. I couldn't function without my pills. That's why I started running. I had to learn to self-medicate. It's also when I got Molly as my service animal.”
