Chapter 3: What the Letter Said
His footsteps moved through the kitchen.
Cabinet opening.
The familiar sound of him dropping his keys on the counter.
I didn't move.
The letter was still in my hands.
Two pages, front and back, in his careful handwriting.
I had only read the first paragraph.
The rest of it sat there, waiting.
I made myself read.
*"There's something I never told you.
Something I should have said before things went this far.
I'm sorry.
I didn't know how.*
*"The night I met you in that bakery — it wasn't an accident.
My mother had been pushing me toward someone else for months.
A woman she approved of.
Someone from the right family, the right background.
I was supposed to meet her that morning.
I had already agreed to it.*
*"But I walked in and saw you standing at the counter, and I couldn't make myself leave.*
*"I told my mother I wasn't going.
She was furious.
She told me I was throwing my life away.
She said things about you — things I should have told you about.
Things I let her say without stopping her.*
*"I thought it would pass.
I thought once she knew you, she'd understand.
But she never tried to know you.
And I kept protecting you from what she was saying by pretending it wasn't happening.*
*"That was wrong.
I was a coward.*
*"There's one more thing.
Before you, there was someone else.
It was serious, or I thought it was.
Her name was Diane.
We were together for two years.
My mother loved her.
When it ended, my mother blamed me, and she spent a long time trying to get us back together — even after I met you.*
*"I don't know if she ever stopped.*
*"I'm writing this the night before our wedding because I almost told you three times today and couldn't.
I'm going to burn this letter in the morning and find a way to say it to your face before we walk down that aisle.*
*"I love you.
That part has never been complicated.
But you deserve to know the rest."*
I folded the letter along its original crease.
He hadn't burned it.
He hadn't told me.
"Hey." He appeared at the end of the hallway, still in his coat.
His face shifted the moment he saw me on the floor.
"What are you doing down there?
Are you okay?"
I held up the letter.
His face went very still.
"Where did you find that?"
"In the wedding box." My voice came out steadier than I expected.
"Behind the photographs."
He didn't move toward me.
He didn't move at all.
"How much did you read?"
"All of it."
The coat came off.
He set it on the chair beside him without looking at it.
Then he walked down the hallway and sat down on the floor across from me, his back against the wall.
"I should have told you," he said.
"Yes."
"I tried to."
"I know.
You wrote it down." I looked at the letter in my hands.
"You just didn't say it."
He was quiet for a moment.
"Are you angry?"
I thought about it honestly.
"I don't know yet.
Tell me about Diane."
Something moved across his face.
Not guilt exactly.
Something older than that.
"It was over before I met you," he said.
"That part is true."
"But your mother kept trying to get you back together."
He looked at the floor.
"Yes."
"While we were dating?"
"Yes."
"While we were engaged?"
A pause that lasted one second too long.
"Yes."
I set the letter down on the carpet between us.
"Did she contact Diane after we got married?"
He looked up at me then.
And I saw it — the answer he hadn't decided whether to give me.
"I need you to tell me the truth," I said.
"All of it.
Right now."
He opened his mouth.
His phone rang.
He looked down at the screen and his jaw tightened in a way I had never seen before.
He turned the phone face-down without answering.
"Who was that?" I asked.
He didn't answer immediately.
And in the silence, I already knew.
May you like
"Was that her?" I asked.
"Was that Diane?"
