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Yours,
Henry
To: Henrybatilney @gmail.com
From: Cameron17Morland @gmail.com
Dear Henry,
Can you imagine that receiving letters was once as exciting and addictive as watching Netflix? I can. It might be exactly how I felt when I heard the ding of your email.
I don’t mind a series of shorter emails. It is easier to share ideas and play off of each other’s thoughts than to conjure screeds of detailed information. What I think makes this different than texting is that we can pause and rethink what we’d like to say—how to phrase it. That adds a certain amount of depth. Intimacy, even. Our choice of subject, the words we use to express our opinion of it, and our reaction to each other’s position.
There’s also the added benefit of saying things we’d never dare to say face to face.
But I’m getting carried away. Let’s segue gently into our pasts and the depths of our faults!
Tell me, since you have a master’s in literature, what did you write your dissertation on?
Curious,
Cameron
To: Cameron17Morland @gmail.com
From: Henrybatilney @gmail.com
Dear Cameron,
How’s this for impatient? I can’t wait to finish this email just to receive another email from you.
As for my dissertation topic . . . it is not a gentle segue into my faults. Seeing as I want you to like me, maybe we can save that deep dive for another day?
Instead, let me tell you I finished The Duke’s Sin minutes before I last wrote. Georgie left it lying on the dining table after breakfast, and I stole it back and read through my lunch break over a blueberry scone.
It definitely got sexier than I was anticipating. I had to stop when Tobias’ voice cracked asking if the duke would undress him. That scene I read at home, in the privacy of my bedroom. Tobias’ difficulty in asking to be loved ate at my heart. I wanted to swoop right in there and take him into my arms when the duke refused.
I’m not sure I appreciated how suspense-ridden the author kept me after that.
What are your thoughts on the duke? Did you want to shake him as much as I did?
Yours,
Henry
To: Henrybatilney @gmail.com
From: Cameron17Morland @gmail.com
Dear Henry,
The duke. So confident, so extroverted, so sexy.
So afraid to live his true self.
Where you want to scoop Tobias into your arms, I want to console the duke. He hides his pain better, but it’s still there. He needs someone seeing it, seeing him, understanding.
It sounds like you weren’t entirely satisfied with the ending. Why not?
Yours,
C
P.S. Equally impatient.
To: Cameron17Morland @gmail.com
From: Henrybatilney @gmail.com
Dear Cameron,
It was satisfactory enough. The duke came to his senses, after all. But it knotted my stomach. That feeling of being stuck felt too real. I should have expected this particular conflict from a historical. I’ll stick to contemporary for a while. I read romance for escapism, the achievable happily ever after.
Why do you read?
Yours,
H.
To: Henrybatilney @gmail.com
From: Cameron17Morland @gmail.com
Dear Henry,
To travel the world. To face my biggest fears. To overcome them. To fall in love.
I started reading with Lynley Dodd, discovered the awesomeness of L. Frank Baum, absorbed L. M. Montgomery, and fell in love with Austen. Jane is—was—my mother’s name. She loved Austen’s books, and my love of her literary worlds grew out of an effort to understand who mothered me in my first three years.
I feel like, in some small way, I know her now. Like I’ve grown up with values that she might have held dear.
Isn’t it wonderful, how words connect people? Make us grow? The words we say and the ones left unsaid?
Yours,
C.
To: Cameron17Morland @gmail.com
From: Henrybatilney @gmail.com
Dear Cameron,
Thank you for telling me that. I find your obsession with Austen intriguing, and now the puzzle pieces have been put together.
I wonder if your mum and mine would have gotten along well? Mine also loved books. Sometimes I wish she’d recorded herself so I could hear her voice again.
“Henry! Georgie! If you don’t settle down, you’ll go straight to bed without a story.”
I was quite the handful growing up. My sister, too. Only Fred knew how to keep order, his voice to a minimum.
There was this one time we—
The alarm just went off. Do we have time for stories?
Yours,
H.
To: Henrybatilney @gmail.com
From: Cameron17Morland @gmail.com
Dear Henry,
There is always time for stories.
X
Henry: Another evening grading essays. I’m bored. Entertain me.
* * *
Cameron: I’m at work. It’s past nine and I’m kinda worked up. You’re calling on the wrong guy for entertainment.
* * *
Henry: You haven’t failed me yet. What are you doing still at work?
* * *
Cameron: First Saturday of November we’re hosting an Ask Austen double film feature at the Arch Theatre. Our ten-minute exclusive short hit a snag in sound editing. Dialogue over processed, don’t get me started on the erotic scene. Gonna be a hard night.
* * *
Henry: I’m imagining you quietly obsessing over it until you hit the right sound.
* * *
Cameron: Not so quietly. I’ve been moaning all day.
