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"You were fifteen the first time I saw you," he says hoarsely. "You were coming out of a movie theatre with a boy."
I'm speechless. Fifteen? Six years ago?
"I saw him reach for your hand but you pulled it away." A small smile pulls at the corner of his lips. "You were shy. He looked heartbroken."
That was so long ago that I can't even recall who he's talking about. It was before Will. It was before I dated.
"I sat in the balcony at your high school graduation." His fingers brush against mine and I'm too stunned to pull away.
"No," I whisper. He's a liar. He's saying those things to make me weak.
"You were the valedictorian. Your speech was amazing. I don't think there was a dry eye in the house."
He's making that up. He read somewhere that I was the valedictorian. He couldn't have been there.
"I choked up myself when you mentioned the brevity of life and second chances. I knew you were referring to your heart." His voice cracks.
My breath stalls. I remember that as if it was yesterday. The speech had been deeply emotional for me. It was so difficult to share with my classmates the promise of what tomorrow would be for all of us while I was living with someone else's heart inside my body.
"Then your first day at Harvard." He scans my face before he reaches in his pocket to pull out his smartphone. "I have a picture of that."
I recoil. I feel as if I'm being assaulted. "You don't," I mutter. "You can't."
He hands me the phone and I peer down. I'm there, in a pair of jeans and a pink sweater. My hair piled on my hair in a messy bun. The shot is from the side but I'm clearly walking towards the front doors of one of the buildings on campus. I pull my index finger to the screen and scroll through the images. There's one of Alexa and me. The Christmas decorations and our oversized winter jackets suggest it's winter. I'm smiling as she stands in a long line in what appears to be a shopping mall. Another is of me and Dylan at our parent's country house. He's getting behind the wheel of his car while I stand and watch him. I drop the phone in my lap. My hands are desperately shaking. There are so many images. So many years captured in photographs.
I vaguely realize that he's dropped to his knees. "I've loved you forever."
I don't protest when he rests his head in my lap. "I don't understand," I say weakly. I can't understand. He's been there, in my life, for so long.
"I first came to find you when you sent the letter." He pulls his head up so he's looking at me. "I watched outside your parent's house until you came out."
"Years ago?" I ask.
"You were fifteen. I was twenty-one." He stresses the numbers. "I went to Boston every Saturday on the train for years and years."
"You didn't." I stare at his face. How do I know he's telling me the truth?
"I took the early train there and the late train back," he pauses briefly. "When I was completely impatient from not seeing your face for an entire week, I'd book a flight on Friday night and stay in a hotel near your parent's home."
"You didn't talk to me." I'm sobbing now. The realization that he'd been so close for so many years is washing through me.
"I couldn't." He lowers his head and pulls in a deep breath. "Your father had me arrested."
"When?" The thought that this had gone on without my knowledge chills me. Why hadn't my father told me about Hunter?
"A few years ago." He pulls himself up so he's sitting next to me now. "I was at the airport, waiting for arrivals. You'd been in Europe with your mother for three weeks. I couldn't breathe anymore. I missed seeing your beautiful face so I was there waiting for you to appear."
I pull my hands to my face, covering my eyes in an effort to push my mind back to that day. "No, Hunter. No." I turn to look at him, my hand reaching to grab his suit jacket. "There was a man. He was on the floor. The guards had tackled him. I remember the chaos when I walked out."
He nods his head slowly.
"My father rushed me out. He said it wasn't safe." I pull my hand down his lapel before resting it on his thigh.
"He recognized me. I stopped him outside of your house one day months before that to explain who I was and to ask to see you." He reaches to squeeze my hand. "He told me to go to hell and that if he ever saw me again he'd call the police. He wasn't lying."
I twist my hand around his. "He called you Zander. That's why when I said I was seeing a man named Hunter he didn't connect the dots."
"I hate my name." He cringes as he says the words. "I'm Hunter. I've always been Hunter."
