Noah just shakes his head in total disbelief…though maybe it’s in disgust. I guess it’s a little hard to tell when he’s looking up at me from beneath his sister’s bed.
I get back to searching and do my best to put her room back together. A groan pulls from me as Noah crawls out from under the bed and stops by her trash can. I’m two seconds away from telling him not to go through it, but I’m too late and the contents spill all over the ground.
“Seriously?” I snap. “Did you really have to dump it out? I hope you’re not expecting me to clean that up for you.”
Noah rifles through the mess before his fingers curl around a piece of paper. “I knew it,” he murmurs under his breath.
My brows draw down in confusion. “What is it?” I ask, crossing the room to him as he pulls himself up off the floor and drops down onto the edge of her bed.
He holds up the piece of paper between two fingers and my eyes instantly roam over it. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that it’s a letter and it doesn’t take much more to figure out who it’s from.
“We’ve been thinking about this all wrong,” he tells me. “Who’s the one person who could ruin Tully’s day without even being here?”
I let out a sigh as my heart breaks for her. “Rivers.”
Noah slowly nods and I see the hesitation in his eyes to take this any further and more so, the regret for snooping in the first place when this is clearly something very private between the two of them.
I look at the letter and I can’t help but wonder why she’d put it in the trash. It couldn’t be that bad, right? What could he have possibly said that could have had her desperately needing to run out of here to avoid speaking to me about it?
I sit down beside Noah, each of us looking anywhere but at the letter in his hands, both of us wondering how this is going to play out. Do we or don’t we?
If we do, we risk reading something we shouldn’t, but if we don’t, we risk missing important information about him, and I don’t think I can hold back. My curiosity is going to win out in the end and whether it’s now or in a few weeks, I have a feeling I’m going to end up reading the words my brother wrote to the love of his life.
“Shit,” I say, taking the letter from his fingers and holding it before me. It’s better to ask forgiveness than to seek permission.
I hope she’s not going to hate me for invading her privacy like this. Not only are we reading a private letter from Rivers, but we’ve snooped through her room.
What kind of shitty people are we?
I put the thought to the back of my mind and get busy reading with Noah leaning into my side, looking over and reading the words right along with me.
Tully,
I’ve been staring at this piece of paper for four days now trying to figure out how to tell you what the hell is going on with me, but every time I go to write something down, all that comes to mind is how much I miss you.
I finished training a few weeks ago and have been stationed at my unit since then. It’s not been easy. The training was hard and brutal, but I’d take it over the bullshit of boot camp any day!
There’s a certain type of discipline they expect from us and I’m not going to lie, conforming and not putting some of these fuckers in their place has been a challenge, but every day it’s getting easier.
What’s not easy is being away from you.
Noah and Henley have got each other and I know that they’re ok, but you…I don’t know. I hate how we left things and I hate that you’re hurting because of me. Every single fucking day your face runs through my mind. It’s like a constant loop telling me that I’ve fucked it all up.
The only thing that keeps me going is knowing how damn strong you are and that no matter what, you’re going to be alright. It might not be now and it might not be tomorrow, but eventually, you’re not going to be hurting every time you hear someone mention my name.
I don’t know what my plans are from here. I don’t know if or when I’ll be deployed and I don’t know when I’ll get another chance to come back home, but for now, I’ll be staying right here.
There’s so much shit going on in Haven Falls, shit that you couldn’t even begin to understand when it comes to my family and I need to keep away from that. I’ve had a shit ride with my father. You wouldn’t even begin to understand the kinds of things that I’ve done under his hold. I’m sure if you knew, this would be so much easier to understand, but I can’t risk getting sucked back into that life when I’ve only just broken free.