Letters

How have you been?

She’s thinking about the first time they met, standing outside the library as the heat bore into daytime. He had been wearing a blue poncho, crinkled at the edges, staring up at the sun like he’d never seen such a beautiful sight. She’d watched him bob his head to something she wouldn’t understand and wished she’d had the courage to ask him his name as the bus jostled to the curb.

I hope you’re well, of course.

She remembered sitting at the bus window trying to memorize his face when he’d looked straight at her, a smile already indenting his face, as if he’d known she was looking him.

I miss you.

The time he found the baby robin underneath a tree, cradling the tiny body in his palms, looking up for the nest. Him watching her watch him, the crackle of rain outside beating down the rest of her defenses. The memory of his blue poncho hanging in her hallway, him lining his shoes up at the edge of her door before sliding across the floors in his socks.

Will you write me back?

The first time he wrote her a letter, she’d been sitting next to him, trying to read her book. He’d finished, folded it up, and dropped it onto the page she was struggling through before standing, leaving for work, kissing her forehead goodbye. I love you, he’d said.

Do you remember the first letter I opened from you?

The last time he wrote her a letter, his shoes had been scattered across the front hallway, trying to hide his tears as he pulled the blue poncho from her closet. Her own tears as she watched him go, squinting, clutching that last letter, trying to put her feelings back into small boxes, into locked doors and hidden safes.

I’m sorry.

It’s the first letter she’s written, to him, and the words look small and meaningless. I’m sorry, she writes again. Can you forgive me?

Her hand smudges the question mark. The darkness out her window seems to pour back into the room, and she tries her best to forget everything. The memories, the emptiness. The feeling of the letter she’d just written, crumpling in her palms, nestling into her trash can. The blue in the back of her eyes as she falls asleep.