Page 337 of Every Almost

She is the love of my life, Kit. There’s no smaller way to write it.

Now the part I need you to hear.

I miss you, Katherine. Every single fucking day. I think about you and what your life must be like constantly. I hope it becomes enormous, that you become the anthropologist you were always going to be. And I hope you find someone who sees you, someone who lets you show up and shows up right back. I hope you have a ridiculous, full,loud, wonderful life, and I hope you know that everything good in it, you earned.

I'm watching from the stars, Kit-Kat. That's not even a joke anymore. I'm up here, and I'm watching, and I'm so proud of you. I've always been and always will be.

Just one more thing.

I’m going to ask her to marry me, Kit. Soon, in fact.

They have marriage out here, it turns out, and it's a beautiful, strange thing and I'll tell you all about it one day but the point is I'm going to ask her, and I hope she's going to say yes, and the only thing wrong with any of it is that you won't be standing there.

I wish you could be here when I ask. I'd pay good money to see your face afterward with that look you get when you’ve known the answer for ages and have been waiting patiently for me to catch up.

I want you to meet the woman I’m going to spend my life with. I know she would love you. She already does, a little because you helped us get here, Kit. You were the first person who made me understand what it meant to be chosen, and I know that’s why I recognized it when it happened again.

So I'm telling you here. On paper. With Frank and Helen's kind of letter, the kind that's real whether it's ever delivered.

I found my whole life out here, Kit. I just wish it hadn't cost me you.

I love you, more than the sky, the stars, and universe.

Always, and then some,

Charlie

Charlie let the pen remain on the paper.

She could hear Reyna’s fingers moving over her datapad beside her. She’d been on the same page of the report for at least fifteen minutes, but she hadn’t looked over once.

Charlie read one line again.

I’m going to ask her to marry me, Kit. Soon, in fact.

Her heart thundered against her ribs.

Charlie put the pen down.

Reyna’s hand stilled.

“Are you finished?” she asked.

Charlie nodded.

Reyna turned off her datapad without even checking where she’d left off.

She looked at the pages, then at Charlie.

"Okay?" Reyna asked, quietly.

For a while Charlie didn't say anything, and neither did Reyna, whose hand had never left her back.

“Do you want me to read it?” Reyna asked.

Charlie covered the letter with both hands.

“No!” Charlie shrieked.