AllFreeNovel
Share Us
With my index finger, I slide my nail underneath the flap of one of the envelopes and open it.
Inside is a piece of pink paper, and when I unfold it, my eyes are greeted with soft and flowing cursive. The handwriting is neat and pretty, and the words written across the page match.
It’s from a woman. And she is thanking Adam and thanking his family and thanking his fiancée—me. Because of him, her life was changed. Because of him, she is able to keep living, she’s able to see her children grow up and she’s able to kiss her husband good night. Because of Adam, the heart inside of her chest is no longer sick with disease. Because of Adam, the heart inside of her chest is healthy and strong and beating.
Her words make my own heart feel full, and I’m starting to understand why Sally was so damn persistent.
Without hesitation, I open the second envelope and start reading the messy and sort of all over the place scrawl on the crinkled white paper.
I know my words could never be enough to ease the pain of your tragic loss, but I figured some words, even if they’re not the right ones, are better than no words at all.
Because of your loved one, I am a man who has received an incredible gift.
The gift of a chance at something other than the eternal solitude of never-ending darkness.
A chance that, when I open my eyes, the world around me is no longer empty and black, but is instead vivid and bright.
The eyes are the windows to the soul, and once those windows are closed, evil and loathing spread their roots like ivy. Without your loved one’s generous, miraculous gift, my windows would be forever shut, and I would never feel the beauty of painting again.
Thank you for finding it inside yourself to give something born of a situation in which you had no choice.
I stop and reread the sentence. I would never feel the beauty of painting again.
My jaw goes slack and my lips part, but I keep reading.
Until I reach the end, and I can’t seem to draw enough oxygen into my lungs.
My eternal gratitude.
AB.
Indy
Time is so much like water. It can pass slowly, a drop at a time, or rush by in a blink. The clock says it is measured and constant, tick-tock, tick-tock, part of an orderly world, but the clock lies.
The last two hours have passed like thousands of camera images shown slowly, one single tiny frame at a time. My brain is fixated on each paragraph, each sentence, every single fucking word inside the letter that’s still gripped between my fingertips and the photos I dug out of the box in my closet to join it.
Over and over again, I read it and glance to the photos that look so much like Ansel’s paintings.
And the acute shock of it all eventually turns into something else, something deeper, something unsettling, something devastating.
First, I feel sick. Stomach-curling nausea that incites my skin to break out in a sheen of sweat and forces me to run to the bathroom and empty everything I ate for dinner into the toilet.
Then, I pace my living room. Back and forth. Back and forth. No destination, just a circuit leading me from my kitchen to my bedroom. And I do that what feels like a thousand times, but all the while, I don’t even feel like I’m inside my body. I am Casper, hovering above the hardwood.
Tears drip down my cheeks in steady waves, and I decide to hop into the shower to wash off the emotion. But after ten minutes of sobbing into the hot water and billowing steam, I realize it’s a shit idea.
A pathetic and unsuccessful attempt at getting myself together.
Once I dry myself off and wrap my robe firmly around my body, I check my phone to find another missed call from Ansel.
I wonder if he knows I’m avoiding him?
It hasn’t been long since we’ve spoken, but the distance and chain of events between us make it feel like an eternity.
I don’t want to ignore him—every cell inside my body is revolting against it—but fuck, I don’t know what to say.
How do I even begin to tell him the truth of our connection?
I grab the letter, his letter, from my nightstand and read the words he wrote to Adam’s family again. The words he wrote to me.
God, how could this be?
I’ve read this letter what feels like a thousand times, and still, I’ve yet to wrap my mind around it.
I trace my index finger over his initials.
And I cry. I cry a lot, actually.
By the time I’ve pored over his words a hundred more times, I feel my heart beating inside my chest, but it doesn’t feel like my heart. I look down at my hands and wiggle my fingers, but they don’t feel like my hands, my fingers. And when I inhale air into my lungs, I might as well be watching someone else breathe.
