ChapterFive
945 Words
Two Years Earlier
Bluebird Pages, after hours
The bookstore smelled like cinnamon and ink—like memory.
The only light was the soft yellow lamp on the counter, casting a warm glow over the front tables. Outside, Main Street had already gone to sleep, the bakery next door dark behind its curtains. The rest of Salado had folded in on itself, quiet and still.
Except here.
Jack sat on the floor between the fiction shelves, legs stretched out, back against a display stand. Around him, scattered like fallen leaves, were sheets of notebook paper. Some folded, some still open. A few crumpled. Most dated.
Every one of them started the same way:
Emma,
I don’t know why I’m writing this.
I shouldn’t be writing this.
I hate that I’m still writing this.
He ran a hand through his hair and looked up at the ceiling. He didn’t know what he expected—some sign, maybe. Something to tell him whether sending them would do any good. Whether she'd even care.
The soft creak of the floorboards gave him just enough warning before Gram’s voice broke through the quiet.
“You’re either waiting on a ghost,” she said gently, “or writing to one.”
Jack looked up, startled. Gram stood in the doorway between the office and the front room, her cardigan wrapped around her shoulders, a steaming mug of tea in her hand.
“I thought you’d gone home,” he said, already gathering papers into a messy pile.
Gram stepped closer, unbothered. “I was about to. Then I saw the light still on and figured someone was having a long night.”
Jack gave her a sheepish look. “Sorry. I should’ve asked if I could stay after hours.”
She waved off the apology and crouched beside him, knees cracking softly. “This place has held more heartbreak and healing than people know. You’re not the first to sit here and try to sort through something.”
He hesitated, then offered her one of the folded letters. “I’ve written her a hundred times. Never sent a single one.”
Gram took it gently, but didn’t open it. Just rested her hand on top of his for a moment. “Sometimes the writing is more important than the sending.”
“But it doesn’t change anything.”
“Maybe not for her,” she said, meeting his eyes. “But it might for you.”
Jack looked down at the papers again. “I don’t even know where she is anymore. Last I heard, she was in Washington. Working in marketing or publishing or something...”
“You still care.”
“I shouldn’t.”
Gram smiled faintly. “Love isn’t always tidy, Jack.”
He sighed, shoulders slumping. “I guess I thought if I kept writing… maybe one day I’d figure out what I’d even say if I saw her again.”
“Then keep writing,” Gram said. “And when you’re ready, you’ll know what to do with the rest.”
She stood with a quiet groan and placed the mug beside him. “Chamomile. For the ache.”
Jack managed a small smile. “Thanks, Gram.”
Before she turned away, she paused and added, “And Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“If you ever do send one—start with the one that tells the truth.”
Jack watched Gram’s cardigan disappear through the office door, the soft creak of the old floorboards fading behind her. The tea steamed quietly beside him, forgotten for now.
He let out a long breath and looked down at the pile in his lap. So many unsent words. So many near-confessions and rewrites and half-hearted apologies. He shuffled through until he found the letter with the corner folded down.
He didn’t even remember doing that. Maybe it had been Gram. Maybe it had been instinct.
Carefully, he unfolded it.
Emma,
I don’t expect you to ever read this. Hell, I don’t even know if I’ll send it. But I think I need to say it anyway.
The night you left, I let you go. I told myself it was the right thing. You had dreams, a whole life ahead of you, and I was just this guy from a dusty town with a bookstore and now a broken family.
But the truth? I didn’t fight for you. Not really. I let the silence grow until it swallowed us whole. I thought if I said nothing, it would hurt less. I was wrong.
I’ve been wrong about a lot of things. But not about you.
You were the best thing to happen to me, and I never told you that. Not in the way you deserved.
I miss you. Even now. Even when I shouldn’t.
– Jack
He stared at it for a long time, the words blurring a little.
That was the one.
He’d written dozens of letters—rambled ones, angry ones, hopeful ones. But this was the only one that told the truth without hiding behind sarcasm or distance. The one that didn’t beg her to come back or explain why she left. Just… said what needed to be said.
And even now, two years later, he still hadn’t mailed it.
He folded it carefully and slipped it into a new envelope from behind the counter. Wrote her name on the front.
Just her name. Nothing else.
Then he tucked it into the bottom of the stack and gathered them all into a box, sliding it beneath the checkout counter like it was a secret.
He’d come back to it when he was ready. Maybe.
- Writer
