Silence crashes down between us.
My brain is screaming that I shouldn’t ask. That I don’t get to know. That this is a line you don’t uncross.
But my heart is already breaking for reasons I don’t understand yet.
I close my eyes. Then I open them.
“What did it say?”
She hesitates. “Ella…”
“Just tell me.”
She exhales slowly. “It’s from someone named Maddison. And she sent him some keys. Said she couldn’t see him face-to-face because it was too hard.” Ashton swallows. “She said she still worries about him. That she’s still in therapy. That she hopes he is too.”
Something tight and sad moves through me.
“She said she loves him,” Ashton continues softly. “And always will.”
My chest aches.
“And then she said…” Ashton’s voice drops. “She said, ‘What we lost will be found. We will never stop looking.’”
The room feels like it’s tilting.
I sink into a chair.
Silence swallows the room whole.
Ashton’s eyes flicker to mine. “Okay… what the hell does that mean? What did they lose? Why would he need therapy? What are these keys for?”
My stomach twists into massive knots. Questions buzz like angry bees in my head. Therapy? Love you always?Never stop looking?
I shake my head, stepping back like the letter might explode in my hands. “We shouldn’t have read this. Oh, my God, Ashton, what did we do? He’s going to know. He’ll know we opened it. I’m going to have to move. Change my name. Go into witness protection.”
Ashton looks around, already in damage control mode. “Ok...I can fix this.”
“You can’t fix federal mail tampering!” I hiss.
“Yes, I can,” she says, pulling open my junk drawer like she lives here. “I’ve got a new envelope in my bag, and I’m pretty sure I can match the handwriting on the front. We’ll repackage it, slip it under his door, and boom. Crisis averted.”
My chest is tight, like guilt is strangling me from the inside. “I can’t believe we did this. This was his. His private… hisprivatepain, Ashton.”
She gives me a sideways look, softer this time. “And now you know a little bit more about what he’s carrying. That’s not nothing, Ella.”
I bite my lip, staring at the envelope in her hands, my conscience twisting like a knife. Because no matter how wrong it is, Ashton is right. What’s in that letter is notnothing.
And it scares me—terrifies me, actually.
Minutes later, Ashton is hunched over my kitchen table like she’s defusing a bomb, tongue caught between her teeth, pen in hand.
“Don’t talk,” she mutters. “You’ll jinx it.”
“I’m already jinxed,” I whisper back. “I’m actively committing mail fraud.”
“Details.”
She makes a few more careful strokes, then leans back and holds it up.
