I lie there on the couch a while before I get up, lock the front door, and climb up to my loft bedroom.

It isn’t true I didn’t get his letters.

I read every one of them. Not in real time. I couldn’t. My parents hid Landon’s letters while we worked out what to do. While they discussed what I wanted and how it meshed with what they would allow. But I read them later. After it was too late, after everything was ruined.

I reach into the back of my desk’s top drawer and pull out the envelopes I kept. I take them to my bed, turn on my nightstand lamp, and take the first one from its time-worn envelope.

1-10-07

Damn it, Evie. What to say?

I feel like I’m dead without you.

How did I live this way for sixteen years…without seeing your face and talking to you. Holding you. It’s so hard to sleep without you. But I’m trying.

The people in charge of this group home are religious, but in a weird, aggressive way. Most of the other kids here just got out of juvie. I probably would have gone there too, given what happened, but your parents didn’t rat me out. They told DHS they changed their minds about me, but not why.

Fuck. I wish this never happened. I still can’t believe it. I never got to kiss you bye or tell you face to face I love you more than anyone has ever loved anyone. I love you more than that, Evie. I hope you know.

I don’t know what to do now. I think about you every hour, every minute, every second. The only break I get from that is sleep, and I’m pretty low on that. I don’t even want to. I just want to get to you. I want to walk to you, even though I think it’s about ten miles. I would do anything to see you, Evie.

I miss seeing your hair band on your wrist. I miss the way you always smack the visor mirror shut after you put that lip gloss on. I miss the way you would tell me to shut up, the way you always pushed the newspaper down when I was at the table just so you could tease me to my face about reading the newspaper.

Evie. I don’t know how to live without you. It’s the worst kind of irony, because if I ever hope to see you again, I have to do it. I know that. Please don’t worry. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I will. I’ll find a way to see you. I’m going to try to call you sometime soon, on your cell phone.

I hope you’re okay, Evie.

All my love, forever,

Landon

I bite my lips and set that one aside. Tears are making my eyes blurry, but I won’t let them fall.

1-29-07

Oh, Ev. They changed your number. I waited so long to find a time to call, and now the number doesn’t work.

It’s hard to swallow.

I hope that you’re okay, Evie. I have this thought of skipping school one day and taking one of the buses to you. Maybe after school, at soccer. I know I’d get in trouble, but I have to see your face…

I think about you night and day. This place is not a good one. There are twelve of us, and they only let us do our laundry twice a month. They feed us strange foods, the same things almost all the time, and we can’t bathe alone, because they say there’s not enough hot water. This other guy and I always shower together, and we both fucking hate it. I still have all the clothes from your house. I wish I had something of yours with me. How is it possible that I have nothing of you?

It hurts, Evie. I don’t want to seem like a pussy, but I hate how much it hurts. I’ve never felt like this before. Not even with the hospital stuff. I think I understand now why people use drugs. I need something to numb my brain. Don’t worry, though. I’m still okay. I try to dream of you when I can sleep.

It’s been almost a month now, Evie. I’m coming to you soon.

In college, one of my favorite classes was beginners’ astrophysics. I liked learning the different theories about reality and the universe, even if there was a lot of math. Tears fall now, as I blink down at his words. The words my Landon wrote for me.

In another universe, he took a bus that day. Maybe it was a day when I was home, after I’d withdrawn from the semester for “mono” and before I got sent off to Aunt Raina’s up in Massachusetts. Landon knocked on my door, and I answered in pajamas and a robe.

He held his arms out, and I fell into them. Then I told him everything.

2-10-07

Are you getting my letters? Ev, I almost hope you’re not. I don’t want to worry you.

I tried to come see you the other day. The man here, Kevin, wife of Marge, a truck driver and waste of air asshole, caught me and he kicked me. I think one of my ribs is broken, but it’s okay. Those things heal. I read about it in the library and got four rolls of tape from a supply closet at school. With it taped, it’s easier to breathe.

I really hate this fucking place. The other day, one of the other guys puked. No one will change his bed sheets or let him do the laundry. The people here are fucked up. I don’t know that much about the human brain, but I can tell there’s something wrong with them. If I wasn’t focused on you, I can see how someone could get pretty down and out here. Winter doesn’t help. I hate the constantly gray sky. I hate winter. Did I ever tell you that? I’d love to move to fucking Florida. Key West, maybe.

Ev, I miss you in my bed. I miss the softness of your lips, the heat of your mouth. I miss my name in your voice.

Please, Evie. I want to see you. I’m so scared you’ll forget me. Please say that you haven’t.

Landon

I don’t go back often—really, ever—but for a few moments, here in the cradle of my bedroom, I let myself be her again. The devastated girl. The girl who broke her parents’ heart, who wrecked herself, who failed to reach the boy she loved. The girl who went to the Harvard health services center two weeks after starting freshman year and fell apart so thoroughly that she got escorted to the mental health clinic. The girl who didn’t kiss a single boy in undergrad. Who went on research trips on holidays and interned in the summers. The girl who didn’t have a close friend again until med school, who banned wine until a year ago because drinking made her “too crazy.” Who became Catholic for a full two years just for Confession. I was that girl. I was her. For Landon.

2-24-07

I miss you Evie. I miss you more than anything. I love you. I want to cry but I think it’s because I’m so so tired. I’m going to try to sleep tonight. I’m going to try to come see you again. I hope you’re okay. I hope you’re not getting my letters because if you are and you don’t reply I think that would be worse. Please don’t forget me, Evie. I need you to remember and I think I even need you to hurt the way I hurt so much for you. Please hurt for me, and I will fix you. Don’t really, though. Just feel good. Maybe you should think of other things. I hope you’re not hurting for me. I’m sorry that I even said that. Please sleep and eat for me and enjoy living and please take care of yourself. Please take the best care of yourself. I’m sorry I’m so tired, not making sense.

I love you.

I found these letters in the bottom of a dry cleaners bag on Dad’s side of the closet, late at night, the night before I flew to Boston.

It was early March.

My parents had told me they’d support me in my choice, on one condition. Before I told Landon, I had to spend at least eight weeks with Aunt Raina. Take some time to myself. Add an extra level of surety to my plan.

I’d spend some time with Raina—a Harvard-educated psychiatrist and my mother’s lifelong best friend—and then, if I still wanted to, I could come home and reach out to Landon. In the meantime, they’d told me, they were keeping watch on him, and he was okay. They had told him that they wanted us to take a break. If he respected their wishes, and he still wanted to, he could see me again in a few months.

When I found his letters in my parents’ closet, I knew that wasn’t true. I wailed and raged. My parents held me while I cried, while I lashed out and threatened them and lost my mind. Then they put me on the plane—because they felt they had to.

“We will get him back, Evie. While you’re away. We’re not lying, we just haven’t done it yet. Let us handle this. I know it doesn’t seem good now, but we will handle this. We want to talk to Landon. Really know what’s going on in his head. Try to trust us. If he wants what you want, we can help.”

His letters crushed me. I felt as if I was deserting him, but I trusted my parents. I trusted DHS, that they would want the best for Landon. If my parents wanted to foster him again, I thought that they could get him out of a group home. They’d told me that they would adopt him if that was what we really wanted. My mother looked me in the eyes and promised that she’d find a way.

So I went to Cambridge, with our baby. I let him go on not knowing the truth.

I didn’t see his other letters until my junior year of college. After all the chips had fallen. After it was broken—our love story.

3-22-07

Things here have gotten worse. The trucker lost his job and he’s been home more. There are twelve kids here, the two women (the wife and her sister Lindy), plus the man. There’s something wrong with this guy. I’m hanging in here because some of the kids are younger. They need someone here who isn’t fucking nuts. But I don’t know how much longer I can do it, Evie. I got some blankets on my bed again. At night I get under them and try to remember you. Sometimes it helps me sleep. I found your school’s calendar on the computer lab computer, and I printed it. At least I can try to picture what you’re doing. Evie, I love you so much. I miss everything about you. You’re so good, Evie. Don’t forget how good you are, and don’t feel bad about not writing me. I’ll find you down the road, okay? I hope your friends are being good to you, and concert band is fun, and Emmaline is giving you the hugs I wish I could. I wanted so much more than this, Evie. One day I’ll come and find you. One day soon.

March 24, my parents’ request to foster Landon again was turned down, basically because of how they’d shipped him out at Christmas. On March 25, they filed the first of many papers to adopt him. They had planned to wait, but his March 22^nd letter spurred them on.

4-3-07

I sent the newspaper a letter. Tipped them off. I didn’t trust DHS to get the other kids out of here.

Ev, I’m leaving this place. I can get my GED if I don’t finish. If you find out I left, don’t worry, okay? I know I said skipping town is dangerous for people in my position, but I’m more bulletproof than average. I took the SAT in January and I got a 1600. Colleges will take me.

I want to see you, Evie. I want to touch you. God, I want to talk to you. Ev, I need you.

I love you. It hurts so bad that I haven’t heard from you, but I feel better when I think that probably means you’re doing well. I hope you still remember me. I hope you know I’m getting out of here for you. One day, I’m going to come find you. Until then, I remain yours. Every part of me. Forever.

Landon left that day. We didn’t know it at the time—I didn’t know it until tonight—but apparently, he ended up in Knoxville. My family didn’t hear from him again until the day he showed up at our door, that next Christmas. Emmaline answered. By the time she told my dad, Landon had gone.

It didn’t matter. It was too late. September had come, and it had gone, and with it, any chance we might have had to have a life together.

So I thought.