"What's this?" I gesture to the parcel.
He takes a shaky breath. "Proof that Nate never gave up on you."
The words don't compute.
"What?"
"Just—" He runs both hands through his hair. "Just let me explain. Please. Before I lose my nerve."
I sit down slowly on the couch.
Ollie paces in front of me like he's trying to walk off whatever confession is burning a hole through his chest.
"While Nate was in rehab," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. "He wrote to you. Every week for two years." Ollie's voice cracks. "Letters. Long ones. Pouring his heart out about recovery and how much he missed you and how he was fighting to get better so he could be worthy of you."
My breath leaves my lungs.
"What?"
"You never got them," he continues, and now he's crying openly. "Because I kept them from you."
Everything I thought I knew about the last seven years suddenly fractures, rearranges itself into a completely different picture.
"You... what?"
"I took every single letter he sent and I kept them." The confession explodes out of him like he's been holding it in so long it's become toxic. "When the first one came, you were living at Mom's. You weren't in a good place, Nor. I was scared you'd spiral even harder. I just couldn't?—"
He pauses and walks to the sofa, before crashing down on it. I can't speak. Can't do anything but stare at him.
“We’d just lost Dad," Ollie continues desperately. "Then Jake died. Then Nate left for rehab and you couldn't eat, couldn'tsleep, could barely get out of bed. Mom and I were scared out of our fucking minds. And then the first letter came."
"So I redirected them," Ollie says. "Told myself I was helping. That I was keeping you both from dragging each other backward. That you needed to get better without the constant reminder of what you'd lost."
"Two years?" The words come out as barely a whisper.
"Seventy-three letters." His voice breaks completely.
I stare at the parcel on the coffee table like it might bite me.
“So, at your wedding," I say slowly, pieces clicking into place. “When he told me he'd outgrown what we had?—"
"I'd just told him the truth." Ollie sinks deeper into the couch like his legs won't hold him anymore. "I told him you never got the letters. That I'd kept them. And he saw you with Liam looking happy so he did what Nate does best and decided—" He lets out a breath before continuing.
"—he decided to protect your happiness. He wanted me to burn the letters and made me promise never to tell you. Then he went and lied to your face about not caring because he thought that's what would get you to move on."
Everything I believed about that night—about Nate, about us, about why we ended—crumbles to dust.
"He lied," I repeat numbly.
“Only to protect your happiness. Like he has been since we were kids, Nor," Ollie says. "Letting you think he didn't fight for you. Carrying the truth so you wouldn't have to know what I did. So you wouldn't hate me. That's why he lied. So you could be happy.”
"Happy?" I almost laugh. "I haven't been happy. I've been settling. I've been building a life that looks good on paper while feeling empty inside. I've been choosing safe over real because I thought the person I actually loved didn't want me enough to fight."
"I know." Ollie whispers. "I know and it's my fault. All of it. Itook that choice from both of you because I thought I knew better. Because I was scared and stupid and?—"
"Why now?" I interrupt. "Why tell me now?"
"Because I'm tired of watching both of you be miserable," he says. "Tired of carrying this secret. Tired of being the reason you're in LA right now instead of Eden where you belong. Tired of knowing that if you don't go back to him, it'll be because of a lie I told.”
