It was 6:14 a.m. and I was awake.

In fact, I hadn’t gone to sleep.

After my knitting group left, I paced the apartment, cleaning, straightening, turning the TV on, turning the TV off, trying to read The Brothers Karamazov and failing, though to be fair, I was only reading The Brothers Karamazov because I’m a bit of a masochist.

I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn’t.

The notebook rested on the desk in my bedroom. It looked angry. Its presence felt like a rabid raccoon perched at the edge of the wilderness, ready to lunge forward and attack me until I succumbed to madness.

I realized in the wee morning hours that ignoring the notebook was futile.

Therefore, around 2:30 a.m., I surrendered to madness and opened it to a random page near the front. On the page was a poem.

For Ashley—

I expect man,

You are woman

Resplendent

Resilient

Refined

I turn

Before you see

The way

You affect me

It was lovely, simple, and sad. The next one I recognized, and it made me sigh, thinking back to the day I’d first heard it.

For Ashley—

Fire burns blue and hot.

Its fair light blinds me not.

Smell of smoke is satisfying, tastes nourishing to my tongue.

I think fire ageless, never old, and yet no longer young.

Morning coals are cool; daylight leaves me blind.

I love the fire most because of what it leaves behind

Then, I read another one, then another. Soon, an hour had passed and I was still reading. Some of the passages were poems; some were letters. I skipped over the ones that weren’t addressed to me and was astonished to find that toward the center of the book all the poems and letters started with my name.

Ashley Austen Winston,

You don’t know how deeply you cut when your intentions carry no knives.

---

Ash,

When you cried, I learned what helplessness tastes like. Because all I could do was swallow.

---

Ash,

I want to give you a book so I can watch you read it. Your lips move. I watch them as I watch you. I want you to speak to me. I want your lips to move for me.

- Drew

---

For Ashley—

You are my Sugar

Sweet to taste, sweet to see

Cravings last until

Your body surrounds, comforts, and ignites

Your skin velvet, your hair silk

Your tongue honey

---

Ash,

Your sheets, still a white pile on the table, know that envy keeps me from washing them. You left an impression, deep creases where you lay your head, where they cradled your body. It was only three days, but they memorized your scent, they carry it even in their stillness.

Were they too gentle? Was their touch too light? Do you remember how it felt when they held you? Or did you never commit it to memory?

Was I too gentle? Was my touch too light? Do you remember how it felt when I held you? Or did you never commit it to memory?

- Drew

---

Ashley,

I caught a bear today in the new trap. We’re taking it a hundred miles north. That’s a hundred miles closer to where you are. I’ve decided units and measurements of distance are bullshit. With you there are only two distances that matter:

Here.

Not here.

You are not here.

- Drew

---

Dear Ashley,

I’ve been reading your e. e. cummings. I hear your voice in my head when I read his words, and it’s a peculiar kind of torture. I can’t seem to stop doing it. I love your voice, even when it’s a peculiar kind of torture. I miss you in a way that causes words to fail me. They are as inadequate and empty as I am.

I wonder, did you like your body when you were with my body? Do you carry my heart with you (in your heart)? He speaks of carving out places, but I didn’t feel like I was given a choice. I removed nothing. I made no room for you.

Yet you arrived. I saw you. You spoke. That was it. I gave up nothing, but I lost everything.

- Drew

---

Sugar,

Tonight the silence sounds like a scream. If you were here, we could chase it away with our whispers.

- Drew

---

Ash,

I walked to our field today.

It was cold and the flowers are gone.

All color is absent.

Did you take them away when you left?

Why would you do that?

- Drew

---

For Ashley—

Your indifference feels like the end

Of a life without meaning

A life without being

Must eventually stop

Else the being

Loses its life

---

For Ashley—

If I told you I love you now

How many seconds would it take

How long would you allow

All that I am to break

I turn away

Before you can see

How badly I need you to stay

With me

---

And so I passed the next several hours sitting at my desk poring over Drew’s field notes, reading them over and over. At first I tried to keep an emotional distance from the words, from his thoughts, from the depth of emotions he’d hidden so masterfully during our time together.

He might not have been good at playing make-believe, pretending, or lying, but he was damn good at hiding.

I cried a few times, smudging the skin under my eyes with soot from my fingers. The chair grew uncomfortable; I ignored the pain, strangely feeling like it was deserved.

In the end my soul was moved. There really was no other way to describe it. Reading Drew’s thoughts was like being catapulted into the heavens against my will. He loved me, or so he’d written. He needed me, but he’d never said it. Never out loud.

I reflected on our time together, seeing things more clearly through this new lens of enlightenment, and—though he never said the words— realized that he’d shown me in a million different ways. With every look, embrace, and desperate need to shoulder my burdens, he was telling me that he loved me.

I flipped back to some of my favorites, the ones that made me feel like I might faint with overwhelming swoony joy. But as I re-read the passages, a balloon of doubt subtly worked its way into my consciousness, and tied to it were so many questions.

Why had he hidden himself from me? Why push me away? Why not fight for me? He wasn’t a coward. He was the bravest man I knew. And why send it to me now? With no explanation, no letter, no nothing. And why in tarnation did it look like he’d tried to burn it?

Restlessness seized me. I needed to talk to him. I needed to see him, but I knew that wasn’t possible. Seeing his words in black and white, ink on a page, written in his hand, made them feel real to me; maybe more real than if he’d said them out loud.

Spurred by this thought, I grabbed a pen and a piece of paper and began to write him a letter.

My Drew,

I love you. I love you desperately. I don’t have your way with words. If I could, I would write you poetry. Instead, you’ll have to settle for my haphazard thoughts and explanations for my behavior.

I am so sorry that I’ve been blind, that I didn’t understand the extent of your feelings. I didn’t see you clearly, and that’s my fault.

When we were together, when we met, I admit that I was in a fog. I was blind to everything but my own grief and mourning my mother before her death. During those six weeks, I was focused on making every moment with her count. She was my mother and I loved her, I do love her, and I couldn’t see beyond my own heartache and sorrow.

That’s not an excuse. It’s the truth.

Regardless, I feel like I’m one of those stupid, enviable romance novel heroines. The ones that have been hit with a vanilla ninny stick, devoid of personality and blind to the gift before them. I was doomed to wander in ignorance until the last thirty pages of the book.

Part of me is actively rooting against my own happy ending because the fictional hero deserves better than a girl who is blind to his love and devotion.

But this isn’t a novel. I suck at interior design. I don’t always use the tissue seat covers when they’re available in public restrooms (sometimes I’m in a rush or I’m feeling lazy); but I always wash my hands.

I wake up with morning breath and frequently make poor fashion choices. I read too much, I eat too many cookies, and I have a yarn problem (meaning, I own more yarn than I could possibly knit into finished objects; there is NO WAY I’ll use it all before I die, yet I’m still buying more yarn. I probably need an intervention). I also own only one pot.

I feel it’s important that you know these things about me because I am flawed.

I jump to unflattering conclusions. I’m a little judgy (something I’m working on). I’m a coward and I don’t tell people how I feel unless I’m pushed beyond my doubts. I hate how I look because I look like my father.

And I understand that you are not an alpha billionaire plagued by ennui. It annoys me that you leave your socks all over your house. I do not think dirty socks are going to help in a zombie apocalypse. Also, what is with the ketamine under the sink in the bathroom? It’s creepy.

I also find it irritating when you tell me what to do or talk to my brothers without first talking to me—like arranging to have me fly back on the day of the funeral, that really pissed me off. You take too much on yourself. Why do you do that? Why do you insist on carrying the burden for everyone else? Don’t you understand that I need you to need me? How can I give if you won’t take?

Also, you might not be good at playing make-believe, but you are a master of avoidance. Work on that.

I wonder if you stayed silent for so long because you feared my rejection? Or maybe you feared I would grow to resent you if you’d asked me to stay in Tennessee? Regardless, I understand that you are also imperfect. I understand that you are brave, but that you are human and not immune to fear.

I understand that you feel things deeply, maybe so deeply the feelings become paralyzing.

I understand that about you and I still love you desperately. I love you beyond reason. I want to be with you right now. I want to live you.

Love, Ash

I didn’t give myself time to think about what I’d written.

I folded it, placed it in an envelope, affixed a stamp, wrote out his address—surprising myself when I knew it by heart—and jogged downstairs to mail it. I fitted it through the mail slot and watched it flutter away until it landed on a pile of other letters.

I stared at the mail slot for several minutes. I wondered if any of the other letters were love letters.

Slowly, I made my way back to my apartment. When I reached the second landing, I allowed myself to think about the letter. The thoughts within were sporadic and likely poorly organized, but all the words were true, and I that’s what mattered most. Honesty.

It was only when I’d made it back inside my place and shut the door that it occurred to me that Drew might not write back. Maybe Drew had sent the notebook because he’d moved on. Maybe it was his way of releasing me, letting me go.

I thought about that for a minute then rejected it. If Drew sent me the book, it was because he wanted me to read it. He wanted me to know his feelings. He wanted me to respond. Maybe he’d waited the two months because he wanted to give me more time to mourn my mother. Time to heal. Time to see.

I nodded at this train of thought; in fact, I jumped on this train of thought like a love-train-hopping hobo. My steps were lighter as I walked to my room. I picked up Drew’s notebook on the way to my bed and placed it on my bedside table.

I gazed sleepily at the burnt leather binding as I drifted off, images of Drew, me, and our future as love-train-hopping hobos filling my dreams.