Page 63 of Christmas at the Ranch
He didn’t call. So, I walked over there. It was late at that point, and I didn’t want to knock on the front door of his house and wake up Charlie, so I threw handfuls of snow at his window, then tiny pebbles. His light was on, but he didn’t come.
As I walked away, I had the most horrible feeling that I would never be coming back here. That Tate was finished with me forever.
Thirty
I blink back tears and close the diary. I never wrote in it again. I left it here in Evergreen, threw it in a trash bag. I told myself I needed to forget about Tate and that discarding the diary in which I had so painstakingly kept an account of our time together would be the first step. I didn’t want to remember any of it.
But now I think about what happened next, all the things I didn’t write down. I sat in the back seat of the Jaguar, my eyes closed, pretending to be asleep, refusing to look at the town I had so loved as we left it behind for what I was sure would be forever. Remembering all this is the most horrible feeling—one I’ve only ever experienced once before, ten years ago, right here in this place.
“Is this why you asked me here? To read this, and to remember why we should never be together?”
He gives me a long look, and then without a word, he stands and leaves the room.
I sit in stunned silence. When he returns, he’s carrying a shoebox. He puts it down in front of me.
“Open it,” he says.
I do, to reveal a stack of papers I realize are letters.
I lift the first one and start to read.
Dear Emory,
I miss you so much. I can’t believe things ended between us the way they did. I’m upset, still. I wish you hadn’t brought your dad into it. But I should have talked to you about it instead of just shutting you out like that. I was so hurt, but mostly, I think I was afraid. I have been afraid since the second I met you, and it felt like this perfect dream girl had just…dropped out of the sky onto my beach or something. I was afraid it couldn’t be real. Instead of fighting for us, I made my worst fears come true. Because now it’s not. It feels like you were never even here.
You came to my house, you threw pebbles at my window, and I ignored you. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive myself for that. And now I have no way to reach you. I tried. I even went to Toronto. But I left without seeing you. And it’s possible—more like probable—that you never want to see me again. That you’ve forgotten me already.
Because maybe my fears are true. I don’t fit into your world. Maybe the sooner I accept that, the sooner my heart will heal.
Only, right now, it feels like it never will. I can’t imagine ever getting over you. I have this thought sometimes that we’ll find our way back to each other one day, if it’s really meant to be. I guess I have no other choice but to wait and see.
For now, all I can say is…
Love,
Tate
I read through letter after letter. They become slightly less heartbroken, and almost conversational, after a while. He starts to share news with me, tells me about his experiences at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair. That he looked for me. He tells me about the horses, and especially Star.We’ve started training Star and she’s spirited, but taking to it…This year will be Star’s first time being ridden in the Starlight Ride; I’m the one who’s going to ride her, but I wish you could, too…
I look up at him. “Why didn’t you ever mail these?”
“It’s not exactly something I’m proud of,” he says. “I should have had the courage to, but I felt like it would be better to see you first, to try to explain things to you in person, rather than just mailing all these. I mean, how would you have reacted?”
“I would have driven straight here. All these years, all I wanted was to know that you were thinking about me, too.” Then I sigh, and I put down the letter I’m holding. “Because I was. I thought about you. I waited for it to stop, and it didn’t.”
We stare at each other in silence, what could have been hanging between us.
“Can you forgive me?” he asks. “For letting it go this long?”
“It was my fault, too. What was I thinking, bringing my dad over? I should have known he would act that way.”
“I blamed you for his behavior. I was so unfair. I’m sorry, Emory.”
“We had no idea what we were doing, did we?” Ishake my head. “And I could have called you. I could have written. It didn’t need to be all on you.”
More silence. I can feel the air between us filling with all our regrets. But then, he ventures, “Maybe this is the way it needed to be. Maybe the timing would have been wrong if we had done it any other way.”
I nod. “I like that. It makes it feel less like being apart was wasted time…”
