It was because of Josh.
I snuck back to the bed and got the letter out of my bag.
I had to tell him about it.
I wasn’t sure if the letter meant anything to him or not. But it must have meant something to write it. Those words were real. Raw. And the fact that he must have been carrying it around with him the night of his gallery…
My hands shook as I opened the letter.
I spread the pages across the counter Josh had sat me on to kiss me.
I had most of it memorized.
… nobody can know or understand the truth, Delilah. That’s the loneliest part of it all. Sitting in an empty room. Nothing on the walls. Nothing on the floors. Just a chair. And it’s me in that chair, sitting, thinking, the world around me moving. Anyone who sees me sees the nothing in the room. But inside my thoughts there’s a world. And that world is you. You are the world. The light. The life. The purpose and the reason. I don’t like to think about fairness, Delilah. To think and act upon what’s fair or not hurts myself, but it really isn’t all that fair, is it? Because you’re gone and there’s no taking that back. I can scream my love for you into the night, into my dreams, and you will never hear it. You will never understand it. The chance came and went. Just like you.
If I had just one-
I looked up from the letter and watched Josh as he slept.
I bit at my thumbnail as my heart pounded hard.
I had fallen for Josh a long time ago. But that was just some young love crush. That was me feeling a certain way about a boy. Feelings I wasn’t exactly sure of or why my body felt the way it did.
Now it was different.
I knew the feeling and knew how to identify it.
It was love.
I loved Josh.
Right now. I loved him.
But he obviously loved someone else.
He loved Delilah.
It didn’t matter when he wrote this letter for her either. This was too real to just write and forget about. Not to mention he had been carrying the letter with him. It meant something to him. Delilah meant something to him.
I didn’t like to feel jealous or hurt.
But what did I mean to him?
Josh sat up in bed and looked like a sleepy dream. His messy hair and scruff on his face, matched with him being totally naked was enough to make my knees bend a little as I reached for the counter, so I didn’t look foolish and collapse to the floor.
He ran a hand through his hair and reached for his jeans.
He stepped into them, giving me one last look at everything before he set his sights on me. The first thing he did was smile. That smile made me ache all over again.
“Morning, love,” he said in a sleepy voice.
“I made coffee,” I said.
“I can smell it,” he said. “How long have you been awake?”
“A little bit. Just thinking about some stuff.”
“Like what?”
“You know… stuff.”
Josh shuffled toward the kitchen.
I went to the end of the counter and met him.
He wasted no time in touching my face and kissing me. He kissed like a man should kiss a woman. Deep and passionate, his morning breath mixing with my coffee breath. The way he kissed reminded me of what his mouth was also capable of.
The kiss could have led to much more.
Josh broke the kiss and growled. “You’re dangerous, Amelia.”
“Am I?”
“Really dangerous,” he whispered.
“Then do something about it,” I teased.
“You already used that line on me. Try again.”
I laughed. “So, I have to use lines on you?”
“No,” he said as he stroked my cheek. “Just looking at you ruins me.”
“I’ll take that as a romantic thing.”
“You should.” Josh kissed my cheek. “What’s that?”
I turned my head and saw the letter. “Oh. That. I need to talk to you about-”
“Wait a second,” Josh said.
He moved with speed.
He stood and stared down at the letter as though it were fire. He looked hesitant to touch it.
Then he looked at me. “Where did you find this?”
I swallowed hard. “You wrote that, right?”
I wasn’t sure what the moment should have been like.
But Josh’s lip curled in anger. And with a fiery hatred, he said a different kind of four words than I expected to hear.
“You need to leave.”
Chapter 35
A Drink to Remember
NOW
(Josh)
Amelia had the letter.
The words didn’t seem possible as they registered in my head.
How the hell did this happen?
My letter to Delilah was right there on the counter. Almost in the same spot where I had written it. The night I came home and drank enough whiskey to feel nothing, then stood there and poured my heart out into a letter. A letter that was supposed to make it so I could let it all go.
Only there was no letting it go.
That was the problem with the letter.
The letter gave it proof.
Proof of how I felt.
Proof of all that had been happening in the heart that I had kept hidden and tucked away tight.
The worst thing that could have happened was someone finding the letter and reading it. Worse yet, Amelia had found the letter and read it.
“Josh, please,” she whispered. “I don’t know what that is…”
“You know exactly what it is,” I said. “My letter.”
“I didn’t know it was your letter until last night.”
“Last night?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“What you said to me. Right before we…”
“Fucked each other,” I said.
“Yeah.” She swallowed hard. “You said words to me that were in the letter.”
I touched my jaw.
I had quoted the damn letter while with Amelia.
Rage boiled deep inside me. The kind of rage I hadn’t felt in a really long time.
I put my hand to the letter and felt the emotion sweep over me.
“Amelia, you have to go,” I said. “You have to fucking leave right now.”
“I’m not leaving,” she said. “Please tell me what this is. This letter has changed my life.”
“What?”
“Josh, I found this letter the night I came to interview you. It was outside in an alley. From the second I read it-”
“I was drunk,” I said. “I dropped it. It fell out of my pocket. It was never supposed to be seen by anyone.”
“But I saw it,” Amelia said. “Just me. I never showed it to anyone. Okay? I’ve read it a hundred times. I have it memorized. Josh, who is she? Who is Delilah?”
“Don’t ever say her name,” I growled. My hand curled around the letter and I picked up the pages and shook them. “Don’t… ever…”
“Josh,” Amelia said. “Please. It’s me. It’s us. We’re alone together. We’re older now. We don’t have to hide anything. I love you, Josh. I’m in love with you. Back then I fell for you in a different way. But right now…”
“I said to leave,” I said. “I don’t want you here anymore. You’ve done nothing but try to pry into my life. All for an interview or some fucking story. And that’s what this is to you.” I shook my hand again. “This is a story. Right? You want to read this and make up an ending and write something and get rich and famous.”
“No,” she said. “Not even close.”
“Tell me what this means to you then,” I said.
“You love her,” Amelia whispered. “You love Delilah. You love her like I’ve never seen someone love someone else. You love her so much that it makes me jealous. Because I want you to love me like that. I’ve never read anything like this letter in my life. It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever read.”
I
stood in silence as I stared at her.
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
I slowly shook my head. “Leave.”
“No.”
“This is my apartment. I said to leave.”
“Tell me who she is. Where is she now? What happened? I’m here, Josh. I don’t want to be anywhere else but here.”
“It’s too late,” I said. “For you. And for everybody else.”
I threw the letter across the kitchen and watched it hit the floor.
I was holding back.
Everything.
The emotion.
The truth.
I was protecting Amelia one more time.
Because going all in for her was a mistake. Falling in love with her was a mistake. Her finding the letter was a mistake. And her falling in love with me was a mistake.
“No matter what it is…” Amelia started to say.
I closed in on her, my body against hers.
“Get the fuck out of my apartment. And stay away for the rest of your life.”
“You don’t mean that,” she said.
“Try me,” I said. "I said it once before and I meant it then. I mean it now too.”
“I’m in love with you, Josh. I can’t just walk away.”
“Fine. If you don’t leave, then I will.”
“You’re going to leave your own apartment?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
“I didn’t mean to find that letter. I didn’t mean for anything to happen. It has nothing-”
“It has everything to do with the letter,” I said.
I walked away from Amelia and kept to my word.
If she wasn’t going to leave, then I was.
I sat down and reached for the bottle of whiskey.
I threw it back and officially killed it off.
“Another?” Azor asked me with a grin.
I shook my head. “I still have to get home.”
“You’re not driving, my man.”
“No, I’m not fucking driving,” I said. “I’ll walk. Or get a ride.”
“You can crash here,” he said. “We’ll keep running with this mural idea. This is fantastic. We’re bringing our demons to life right here, Josh. This is huge for us. Sasha wants to buy it.”
I laughed. “You’re a whore, Azor. You called her already?”
“Snuck a pic.”
“Better than sending a pic of your dick to her, huh?”
Azor belly laughed. “I’d need a bigger phone for that.”
“Good for you, friend.”
“Friend, huh?” He put down the paintbrush and wiped his hands on his shirt. “You know, it’s not all that often you show up and demand to paint with me and get drunk. In fact, I don’t think it’s ever happened.”
“Is that a problem?”
“You’ve got that look in your eyes again, Josh. I vaguely remember what happened the last time. You sort of lost your edge and almost ended up in jail.”
“That was a long time ago.”
Azor grabbed my shoulder. “Not all that long ago.”
I shook him away and stood up. I wiped my lips. The whiskey had done its job by getting me drunk, but it didn’t finish the rest of what I needed. Which was to forget. About Amelia. About the letter. About Delilah. Something told me that wasn’t going to ever happen.
“What are you doing, Josh?”
“Calling for a ride,” I said as I fumbled with my phone. “I’ve wasted enough of your time.”
“Wasted? Look at this. Look at what you did.”
I looked over my shoulder.
Not only had I shown up to Azor’s place unannounced, demanding whiskey, but I completely ruined his current project. It was a bright project. Lots of greens, blues, and yellows. An abstract kind of landscape with row homes, hopscotch and old basketball hoops. I took it that he was painting where he came from. Capturing the happiness from what used to be a rough place for him.
It took me a few sips of whiskey and a few more thoughts of Amelia before I grabbed a paintbrush, turned it around, and went to work on the painting. I destroyed it. I added black and red. I painted pointed and random shapes all over it.
I wanted Azor to get pissed at me. I wanted him to punch me. I wanted him to knock me out.
Instead, being the artist he was, he appreciated it.
And we worked side by side, drinking the entire bottle of whiskey together, and turned his bright and serene landscape into a mixture of heaven and hell.
“Whatever is eating at your soul, Josh, I hope you can control it yet let it free,” Azor said.
“I’ll just drink until it goes away,” I said.
I sent Aaron a text telling him I needed a ride. The misspelled words in the text message were going to be enough to let him know the state I was in.
“Thanks for the drink,” I said.
“Hang here, man,” Azor said. “Wait for your ride. Come on.”
I opened the door and left the apartment.
The hallway smelled like old cabbage. There was noise and music coming from every apartment as I walked the concrete floor to the concrete steps.
Outside, I leaned against a black railing and waited for Aaron.
He showed ten minutes later and scrambled to get out of his car.
He raced toward me and pointed to the building. “Tell me you know who lives here.”
“I know who lives here,” I said.
“Are you sure?” Aaron asked. “Are the cops going to come looking for you?”
“Hope not,” I said. “We’d better go.”
I started to walk, and Aaron slammed a hand to my chest.
“What the fuck happened?” he asked.
I looked him in the eyes. “Delilah happened.”
We sat in the parking lot of a little burger place.
Aaron was hell bent on filling me up with greasy food and soda to sober me up.
It didn’t do a damn thing.
“I had to write a letter,” I said to Aaron. “I wrote it to Delilah. It was supposed to be my goodbye. My way of letting it all go. Letting everything go. That’s what I was told.”
“You wrote a letter?” Aaron asked.
“Hey. I kept my promise to you, brother. I go. I talk. I listen. I do what I can.”
“What happened with the letter?”
“I was supposed to write it, then get rid of it. Or keep it. Or destroy it. I don’t know. I don’t remember right now. But I kept this fucking letter in my pocket. I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t let Delilah go.”
“I still don’t get it,” he said. “I know you had a different side of your life back then. I wish I knew about it. I really did. I could have helped you.”
“No worries,” I said. “Doesn’t matter now. I got drunk at my gallery showing. After Rae stormed off with Toby. I felt like shit about that night, man. When I left the gallery. I must have reached into my pocket or something. I dropped the letter. Amelia found it.”
“Oh, damn,” Aaron said. “Does she know…”
“No,” I said. “I refused to tell her. But she kept this letter for as long as we’ve been together now. She never told me about it.”
“Wait a second. Did you sign the letter? Did she know it was from you?”
“Not until last night,” I said. “I said something I wrote in the letter. And she connected the dots. When I saw the letter this morning, I lost it. I left. I left her in my apartment. I told her to get out of my life.”
“You can’t keep self-destructing, Josh,” Aaron said. “You’ve been different since Amelia came back into your life. And now what? You’re going to hide all the truth from her? Push her away?”
“She deserves better,” I said.
“Yeah, she does. She deserves better than you. Better than this drunk asshole who storms around wanting to take his anger out on the world.”
“Thanks for being in my corner.”
“I’m your best friend. I’m always in your
corner. But I’ll also tell you how it is.”
“And how is it?” I asked.
“You need to let the Delilah thing go,” he said. “And you need to face what it really means.”
I didn’t respond to Aaron.
He let a minute of silence go by.
“You can’t come back to my house,” he finally said.
I laughed. “The warden says no, huh?”
“Thanks for asking how it’s going.”
I looked at him. “You know, you’re riding my ass about letting things go? How about you let things go too. Let go of the fact that your parents lost each other. I’m sorry they got divorced. They had the perfect marriage until it fell apart. And the same thing could happen to you and Rae. Or maybe you two will be together forever. You need to ask the question if it’s inside you.”
“So, I have your blessing to marry her.”
“You don’t need my blessing. She hates me. Because I see the truth. You two are a disaster together. The best thing about you two is Toby. That kid is going to grow up in a fucked-up house if you don’t figure out your-”
Aaron threw a right fist and got me in the mouth. I felt my lips throb and tasted blood instantly.
I laughed. “There he is. There’s my best friend.”
“Shut the fuck up, Josh,” Aaron said. “When the fuck have you ever loved anyone?”
“You really want to ask me that right now?”
“Forget about it,” he said. “I’m taking you home.”
Aaron drove and we were both silent the entire way back to my place.
He pulled up to my apartment building and didn’t even put the car into park.
“If you don’t figure it out, someone else will,” I said.
“What the fuck does that mean?” he asked.
“Rae will leave. Or someone else will get her heart. Then what?”
“Maybe you should ask yourself the same thing, Josh. Everything is in front of you and you’re blinded by the bottle.”
I nodded. “Still best friends?”
“Always,” Aaron said.
He put out a fist and I bumped mine to his.
A Letter to Delilah Page 22
