Sincerely, Yours

by G. , Whitney

  Because I’m sure you need some new ones.

  I lifted the note and saw three new sets of romance stories from my favorite authors. Wiping away more tears, I selected the one I wanted to read most and crawled into bed with it.

  When I flipped the cover open, there was one last note in Ethan’s handwriting.

  If you picked this book to read first, I think it’s fair to say that I do know you very well, Rachel. I also think it’s fair to say that we both said things we didn’t mean the last time we were together, but that situation was 100% my fault.

  I should’ve told you about New York and I shouldn’t have made fun of you for being the hopeless romantic that you are.

  It’s part of the reason why I love you so damn much. (Why I didn’t know that all these years before, I’ll never know, but I do now.)

  I really would love if you could write me back whenever you finish reading it.

  Love,

  Ethan

  Track 29. Breathe (2:39)

  Ethan

  It only took me eight weeks to realize that I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. (Only one if I honestly counted the seven weeks of denial.)

  I hated my classes in New York, despised my classmates and their cutthroat competitive ways, and I missed the hell out of Rachel. She’d been beyond right about this program, and even though I was doing the required work, I spent most of my time working on my novel.

  Not a single purple envelope had graced my mailbox in weeks, and for the first time in my life, I was realizing what it was like to truly miss someone.

  Before, when we were apart, I never minded any of the times when it took her too long to answer, never cared when it took me longer than it should’ve. But after finally realizing how much she meant to me, I was going insane not hearing from her.

  I checked her port schedule for the umpteenth time, knowing that she’d received all my letters and my care package. Out of desperation, I sent an email to her alternate email address that I hoped she would check when they stopped again.

  Groaning, I clicked through another page of lecture notes, trying my best to focus on something other than the growing ache in my chest. Knowing just how long Rachel was capable of holding a grudge, it would be next Christmas before she finally caved and sent me a holiday postcard.

  Fuck …

  My Dad’s name crossed my screen via Skype, and since I’d ignored ten of his recent calls, I decided to finally give him five minutes.

  “Yes?” I answered, waiting for his face to appear on my screen. “If you’re calling about the Harrison numbers, I emailed them to your personal address since the file was flagged at your work email.”

  “That’s not why I’m calling,” he said, his voice soft.

  I brightened my screen a bit, unsure of what to make of his expression. His face was slightly pale, and he looked far more vulnerable than I’d ever seen him.

  “Did something happen to Mom?” I asked.

  “No.” He smiled. “Although she did want me to let you know that she’s alive and well. She would also appreciate a phone call directly from you from time to time, instead of pages of text messages.”

  “Noted.”

  He cleared his throat. “I was doing some cleaning in the attic today,” he said, holding up a sheet of paper. “And I came across this.”

  I squinted at the sheet and made out the words I Hate My Next-Door Neighbor. “You found my old essay?”

  “I found a ton of them,” he said. “And then I went to your room and found your um—your box of all the essays you’ve submitted for publications and copies of stuff you sent for your mom to read and I um …” He paused. “I’m sorry.”

  “For going through my shit?”

  “No.” He smiled and wiped his eyes. “Anything under my roof is my shit. I’m sorry that I pushed you into majoring in Business.”

  “It wasn’t all you. I’m good at it.”

  “But you’re great at writing,” he said, his expression wistful. “I’m sure I’ll always wonder what could’ve been down the road, if you took over my business one day, but that’s not your burden to bear anymore.”

  “I was following up until that last sentence, Dad. What are you trying to say?”

  “You’re making the biggest mistake of your life by being in business school right now,” he said. “You don’t belong there at all.”

  “You mean you want me to pursue the pansy-ass penmanship shit?” I smiled.

  “Yes.” He laughed. “I think your true passion is in the pansy-ass shit, and I don’t want you to regret not taking a chance on your real dreams like I did.”

  I decided not to tell him that I’d already decided to do that, that I’d drafted one hell of a withdrawal letter from this terrible-ass program weeks ago. “Good to finally get your approval on something for a change.”

  “Don’t get used to it.” He shook his head, still laughing. “Oh! By the way, I can’t believe that even after all these years, and you telling me that you and Rachel Dawson were finally on good terms, that you both still resort to mailing petty ass letters when you’re upset. I owe your mom five hundred bucks because you’re both full-grown adults who haven’t learned how to deal with your differences.”

  “What are you talking about?” I sat up a bit straighter. “Rachel sent me a letter?”

  “Yeah.” He flipped through a few papers. “A postcard actually. Want me to read it to you?”

  “Please.” I motioned for him to show it to me as well.

  Dear Ethan,

  I’m sending this letter to your home address because I refuse to send anything to you in New York. (& also because I doubt Greg will forward this to you anytime soon.)

  You don’t belong in business school. You know it, I know it, anyone who knows anything about you, knows it.

  Although I appreciate the well-wishes you’ve sent me, I will not give you the same.

  I hope you’re absolutely miserable in business school, and I won’t be writing you again until next Christmas, even though I won’t be on this boat.

  How does that fill?

  Forget You,

  Rachel

  P.S.—I realized that I used the wrong “feel” hours after I wrote this, but I can’t afford to let a postcard go to waste. THEIR.

  Track 29A. Begin Again (1:39)

  Ethan

  Later that day, I sat across from my academic advisor and waited for him to finish reading my withdrawal letter.

  Shaking his head, he took off his reading glasses and sighed. “Mr. Wyatt, please know that Hudson University won’t take too kindly to you leaving the program within the first quarter,” he said. “Our team worked really hard to make a spot for you in the accelerated program, and an early departure might make it harder for us to consider you again someday.”

  “I doubt I’ll be back someday,” I said. “Can I sign the official withdrawal form, please?”

  “If you insist.” He handed it to me, and I signed my name on the dotted line in seconds.

  “Thank you.” I stood to my feet and headed to the door.

  “Mr. Wyatt, is there another program you’re chasing?” he asked. “If so, I can talk to the deans about getting you to reconsider and we can add something else.”

  “I’m not chasing something else,” I said. “It’s someone else.”

  Back Then: 18½ Years Old

  Ethan

  Dear Ethan,

  I want you to know that I really enjoyed all the time we spent together over the summer. The sex was really hot and amazing—especially when we did it in your car, but I think the two of us can be more than fuck buddies. (You seem like a deep guy who’d be into more, right?) Anyway, since I’m out of state at a different college, I think this is the best way for us to communicate for the time being. I know you’re into letter writing, so I hope you’ll find the time to write me back and perhaps we can become friends (and hopefully a little more) with time.

  With Love,

&
nbsp; Alicia

  P.S.—Did I mention that the sex was really hot? We can do it whenever you want on the holiday breaks when I come back into town.

  P.P.S.—As long as you write me back.

  I rolled my eyes and crumpled her letter. I was done dealing with anyone from my past, and from what I remembered, our “relationship” hadn’t been much of a relationship at all. We barely talked about anything substantial, and she never wanted to do anything except have sex (I didn’t mind that) and gossip about other girls. The only reason I put up with it was because I didn’t really have anyone else to talk to.

  College was officially my fucking reset button. I had no desire to date anyone seriously, and I wasn’t interested in staying connected to anyone I’d met over the summer. The only people in my life were my newest roommate (who had a crazy girlfriend who screamed all the time) and my parents.

  Tossing the rest of my mail onto my desk, I rushed across campus to the business department for the first day of class.

  “Nice of you to join us on your own time, Mr. Wyatt,” the department head said. “I guess since you’re an SBU Scholar, I’ll look past the fact that you’re thirty minutes late.”

  Laughter filled the room.

  I looked at my watch and realized I’d never set it to the right time. “My apologies.”

  “No worries,” he said, still smiling. “I have a feeling that this is going to be a very interesting year for you. Seeing as though you already feel like you live in this building and all.”

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  He picked up a purple envelope and handed it to me. “Be sure to tell your friends that your mail should go to your dorm room, not your major’s department.” He looked away from me. “Now, back to what I was saying about the intensity of this program, ladies and gentlemen. If you think the next four years are going to be easy, you have another think coming.”

  I tuned him out as I read the return address on the envelope.

  Rachel Dawson

  Semester @ Sea—The Eurodam V.S.

  Wing B. Room 221.

  Ugh.

  I hadn’t heard from Rachel since the day we argued in the bathroom. She’d permanently shut her window and covered it with newspaper, and I’d done the same to mine.

  Despite the fact that we’d always run into each other every day of our lives, we’d somehow managed to avoid each other right after we graduated.

  I debated burning her envelope the second I returned to my room, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I left it unopened on my desk for an entire week before curiosity finally got the best of me.

  Dear Ethan,

  I’m writing you this letter because I hope you’re miserable in your major. (I still don’t understand why you’re majoring in business instead of writing, but I don’t care enough to ask you why.)

  I know you’re wondering how I was allowed to do Semester at Sea as a freshman, so: I was able to talk to the dean about studying abroad for my first year of school and they agreed to let me as long as I take my seminar in art classes and keep a 3.5 GPA. (Who’s smarter than who, now?)

  :::Truce moment:::

  Okay, in all seriousness, this ship is not what I thought it would be. I’ve been onboard for two weeks and in that time, I’ve gotten seasick, homesick, and motion-sick. I’m the only freshman here, and I didn’t realize that most of the people are juniors and seniors, and that most of them have already been friends for years and are taking this trip together as some sort of last hurrah before they graduate.

  Our first stop will be next week in London, and I feel like I should be a lot more excited for that than I am, but maybe it’ll come with time. (If I see any of those writing pens that look similar to the ones I used to burn when we were younger, I’ll consider getting them for you. Maybe. It depends …) After London, we’re sailing around the coast of Europe, and then we’ll be at sea until we arrive in Australia.

  I signed up for three years, but I plan to reapply for Semester at Sea for my senior year as well, unless they tell me that I can’t do it anymore …

  Anyway … I hope you’re doing well (but not too well) and I hope I wrote down your address correctly and you get this before the semester starts.

  I know you hate me (and I definitely hate you), but if you ever find the time, would you mind writing me back?

  Forget You (In Advance),

  Rachel

  P.S.—Could you like, once and for all admit that you were an ass to me from the moment we met? I feel like I might hate you slightly less if you finally admitted it …

  P.P.S.—I won’t really hate you slightly less, but it would be nice if you finally told the truth about that.

  I reread her letter a couple times and sat down at my desk to pen a response. I sent it via express mail in the morning, and a week later, she sent me another purple envelope.

  Before I knew it, not a month went by without her signature purple envelopes arriving in my mailbox, and after a while, I looked forward to hearing about her travels and her troubles. The letters were short at first—a half a page here, a full page there, but after the first semester, our letters were always at least five pages each.

  I told her everything about my personal life, and she told me everything in return. I stopped correcting her spelling and she stopped ending her P.S. notes with insulting questions.

  Every now and then, I’d date someone new who would question me about the purple envelopes that came like clockwork in the mail, but I vowed to never explain myself until our relationship lasted longer than Rachel’s and my letters did.

  Sometimes she’d take too long to write back, so she’d call me at three o’clock in the morning on her phone day—Sunday, to give me her life updates. (We agreed to always act like these phone calls never happened.) And sometimes, instead of saying, “I know you’re still working on your next letter, Rachel,” and hanging up in her face, I talked to her until sunrise.

  Sometimes I took too long to write back, so I’d send small packages with postcards and chocolate—telling her I was studying for an exam, but my letter was on the way. (Sometimes she’d write back, “Keep your next letter. Send more chocolate!”)

  Even after all the letters, I still couldn’t bring myself to call her a friend. She was still an enemy. I was just keeping her close in a completely different way now.

  Track 30. This Love (3:53)

  Rachel

  I sat on the top deck of the Eurodam at dawn, looking out at the port of Sitka, Alaska—the very city I’d lived in before my family moved to the suburbs of Salt Beach. Since our scheduled trip to Moscow was canceled, the program was letting us stay here for two weeks, but I had yet to get off the ship.

  My father had written me and told me that he (and Stella) received the notification about Alaska, and were staying at a bed and breakfast in town “desperately hoping to speak to me together,” but I had yet to respond.

  I’m never responding to that one.

  I held up my mother’s sealed letter and decided it was finally time to open it, since, for the first time since she passed away, I officially had no one else I could talk to.

  Dear Rachel,

  I’m writing your letter FIRST because I have the most to say to you and I don’t want to leave out anything. (I know you’re having a hard time with me being sick, but I promise that I’ve done everything in my power to make sure that you’ll be fully taken care of emotionally when I’m gone.)

  I’m including a much longer, ten-page letter behind this one, but for now, I want to tell you three main things.

  First, you’re beautiful, and despite how those stuck-up girls on your block used to treat you, I guarantee that most of it was out of jealousy. (I’m not just saying that to be saying that either.)

  Second, I’ve told your father not to mourn my passing for more than a year. I know him down to his marrow, and if he mourns for longer than that, he’ll lose you. I’ve given him a list of women (women I know) should he choose to follow my
words and date, and I’ll be up high cheering him on.

  Third, I want you to travel. A LOT. I want you to see every corner of the world as soon as you can. I know I’ve said the words, “Make sure you study abroad in college” countless times, but I really want you to do that. It’ll help you discover some things about yourself, and it’ll expand your perspective of the world.

  And later in life—much later, if you’re still single, do me one huge favor: If Ethan Wyatt (Yes, that Ethan Wyatt) is still single, go out for coffee with him a few times.

  You’re going to roll your eyes, I’m sure, but I think the two of you would make the best of friends, or even a great couple one day. The moment you pushed him down those stairs (I’ve always known that he didn’t “trip over his shoelaces” like you claimed.) and the moment you two started sending those very first hate notes to each other, I knew there was something there.

  I’m laughing right now because I’ve never seen two people so obsessed with what their “enemy” was doing. I never told you this, but during the summer, when you’d go off to art camps for a week or two at a time, Ethan would always come over and ask when you were coming back. He would (of course) talk me into making him hot chocolate, since you weren’t there, but he admitted that he had way more fun with his “number one enemy” than any of his friends.

  Anyway, go out with him for coffee sometime when you’re in college, so I can look down and see if I was right.

  Don’t forget to read my longer letter behind this one with more specific advice about life, but feel free to keep this one in your wallet.

  I love you forever and I’ll be with you always.

  Love you,

  Mom

  I read her words and the longer letter behind them ten more times, wiping away tears with each read. I folded the letter and made a copy in the study room, then I tucked it into my jeans and headed down to Deck Three. I scanned my ID at the port and rented a bike—pedaling all the way to where my dad said he would be eating breakfast every morning.