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Chapter One
Noelle
Thedoortomysmall one-bedroom apartment slammed so hard I thought it split in two. Andrew, my amazingly terrible boyfriend, had found yet another way to make me hate myself. I curled into a ball on my bed with tears in my eyes, wondering when this hell I was living would end. It wasn’t like I had planned to date another dick. Every time I thought I’d found someone who made sense in my world, it fell apart. The first few months were amazing, like usual. Then he showed his true colors. Prioritizing his friends over time with me, acting like I was crazy for questioning why he’d disappeared for days without so much as a text message. We lived in a small town in upstate New York and rumors were flying for weeks now. I denied them. Then a letter showed up on my desk at work. A letter that I didn’t expect and one that wouldn’t let me deny the truth.
For years they came, their frequency changing constantly. Lately they would come weekly, sometimes it was monthly. Never had I gone longer than two months without one. I kept them all. Something deep inside me wouldn’t let them go. I knew it was crazy, fantasizing about a secret admirer that I didn’t even know, but I couldn’t help myself. Nights like these usually led to dark days of me doubting every decision I’d ever made, but those letters kept me sane through all of it. In the beginning, it scared me a bit how much he knew. I imagined a stalker following me around and watching me, and it was worrying but also exciting. On my eighteenth birthday, the first letter came. It was in a pink envelope with nothing on the front but my first name. I entered my bedroom at my parents’ house and there it was, sitting on my pillow. I had assumed it was one of my siblings, but when I opened it, I knew that couldn’t be the case.
Noelle,
Fuck, I feel like I’ve waited a lifetime to send this to you. I’m not even sure it’s a good idea to leave it for you now. If anyone knew, I’d be chastised and judged, but the truth is I keep finding it harder and harder to stay away. You are the other half of me. The thing that I know will make me whole and yet I can’t bring myself to tell you face to face.
I need you to know how special you are. I need you to know you are loved. I need you to know you are mine.
He didn’t sign it. I reached for my nightstand and pulled the old worn letter from the top of the pile and read the last line to myself.
“I need you to know you are mine,” I whispered to myself.
My voice sounded foreign to me. Strained from screaming and stressed from the tears that invaded my soul. Andrew wasn’t the man for me. That was clear by the pictures of him in bed with Lucy Monroe, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was I had a man who loved me. I just didn’t know him yet.
I jumped at the sound of my phone ringing. I shook myself from my misery and did my best to put on a happy face in hopes my sister would think everything was fine.
“Hey, Eve.”
“What happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“Noelle, I hear it in your voice. What did he do?”
I fell back onto the bed in defeat. If it had been my sister Holly, then maybe I’d stand a chance of fooling her, but Eve was too empathetic for her own good. Two words and she could see right through me.
“The rumors were all true,” I choked out as she let out a sigh. “I just don’t get it, Eve. What the hell is so wrong with me that I can’t seem to find anyone worth dating?”
“You know it’s not you, so don’t even say that.”
“It’s getting harder and harder to believe that.”
“Listen, we all knew from the beginning that Andrew was a total ass. I’m not going to say I told you so, but I told you so.”
“You just said it.”
“I can’t help myself sometimes. Even if I thought he was a dick, that doesn’t mean he is allowed to treat you like shit.”
“I’m just so naïve sometimes. It’s like I want to see the best in people, but then they show me who they are and I am left kicking myself in the ass.”
“Are you sad because you loved him?”
“No. I didn’t love him. I’m not even sure I liked him. Men suck.”
“Yes. Yes, they do. I don’t know why you’ve been on such a kick lately about being in a relationship, anyway.”
“I just don’t want to be alone forever.”
“You won’t be. Everyone has someone special.”
“Easy for you to say. You have Rio.”
“Ha! Please. I haven’t seen him in years.”
