A Thousand Letters

by Staci Hart

  "I love you, too. More than anything."

  He turned his head to press a kiss into my palm before pulling me up to sit face to face with him. I'd never forget that moment — half of his face in moonlight, the other in dark, save his eyes that shone, looking into mine with depth I'd never be able to put into words, as much as I'd tried.

  His eyes turned down as he reached into his pocket, and when he opened his hand, what sat in his palm stopped my heart.

  He opened the black velvet box, and inside sat a ring, a beautiful ring with a large square diamond in the center and smaller diamonds framing it, the band simple and delicate and absolutely the most brilliant thing I'd seen in my life.

  I couldn't breathe as he watched me hopefully.

  "I know we said we'd wait. I know we're young, and I know things won't be easy. But I can't leave without you. I can't be without you. The thought of leaving you here … the thought of spending the next year without you is too much. I don't want to live without you, not for a second longer than I have to. Marry me, Elliot."

  "Wade," I breathed. "Of course I'll marry you. But—"

  His lips were on mine, his arms around my waist as mine circled his neck blissfully, all the 'buts' flying away on flickering wings.

  I laughed softly as he pulled away, and he laughed into my neck, peppering it with kisses.

  "I'm only seventeen, Wade."

  "Just until September, and then you're legal." I could feel him smirking against my skin.

  "What about high school? I can't exactly leave right this minute."

  He leaned back so he could look down at me with a smile on his face. "I'll go to boot camp, get stationed, and I'll come back just after your birthday. That's when we'll do it."

  My hands rested on his shoulders as I watched him. "What about our families?"

  He shrugged, and my arms rose and fell. "What about them? We can take care of ourselves. I'll have a job with a salary, hopefully base housing, insurance, the works. And I know Dad will help however he can. As for your family — who cares? Because they'll never be there for you, not like we want them to be. Not like I can be there for you. And as for high school, you can finish your classes online. Easy."

  I laughed and kissed him. "Easy to say."

  He tightened his hold on me. "We can run away. Elope. Have a huge party. Get married in a church. Get married by an Elvis impersonator. I don't care how. I just want you to be mine, forever. I want you where I am. It's that simple."

  I took a breath and let it out. "And when you're deployed?"

  "Come back and stay with Dad and Sophie. Stay wherever I'm stationed. Whatever you want."

  "You make it sound so simple."

  He pulled me even closer, bringing my body flush with his. "I love you. You love me. Everything else is details." He angled for my lips, kissing me between hushed sentences. "Wherever I go, you go. Forever. Because I'll love you forever, Elliot."

  My heart burned, lit up like a beacon for him, and he lay me down, held me, whispered his promises through the night, that one perfect night where everything in the world was right.

  It was the last night we ever got.

  The next morning, the sky had lightened only by a shade when he left me with a kiss and a promise, and I lay in bed for hours, smiling, dreaming of everything to come.

  It was what I wanted. He was what I wanted, and even though I was afraid of what we would face, it was right. I would be with him, so everything would be just fine.

  So naive.

  I climbed out of bed when the sun had broken over the horizon, the glint of my engagement ring catching my eye with every motion of my left hand. My family was asleep, so I sat in the kitchen with my notebook, sipping coffee in the quiet morning, putting all of my emotion into words of love and hope, phrasing verses in an attempt to explain the inexplicable.

  After a while, I turned my face to the sun, looking out the window, considering what would come next as I anxiously awaited my family's awakening, fashioning the speech in my mind. We'd agreed to meet at his house afterward to spend time with his family, maybe even trying to get both families together for dinner later. I smiled, imagining it all, elated to celebrate.

  My father woke first, shuffling into the kitchen to pour himself coffee — I'd made enough for everyone, as I always did. I didn't look much like him, more like my mother, her dark features and big eyes present in all three of her daughters' faces. He was lighter in coloring, shrewd in the eyes, his lips set in judgment, even when he slept, which was unnatural. Happiness was not a trait that most of my family knew, ever since my mother died while bringing my younger sister Beth into the world.

  My mother was the last happiness I'd known, until Wade.

  Dad sat across from me with the newspaper, taking every opportunity to give me his opinion on what he read. We rarely agreed, and I never said so because there was no discussion, only his opinion and everyone else's, and everyone else was wrong. But that morning I just smiled and listened, wondering if he would notice the sparkling diamond on my finger or the fact that I was floating above all of us.

  He didn't. But I didn't mind.

  Mary was next up, also unseeing. Then Beth, my younger sister and father's shadow and favorite pet. As we sat, none of them saw me. I was virtually invisible in my own home, the odd duck. Where my sisters were like my father, a little vapid and a lot opinionated, I was more like my mom: quiet, reserved, content. And it wasn't as if I didn't see them for who they were, it was just that I accepted them for who they were unconditionally. I knew there was no changing them, and they were happy with who they were. And I required no watering, no tender care. I found ways to feed my soul from a very young age, knowing I couldn't depend on them for that.

  The practice made me feel whole, self-sufficient.

  I closed my notebook, laying my hands in my lap, with a whisper of a smile on my face.

  "I have something to tell you all."

  Dad didn't look up, just shook his paper to straighten it. "Oh?"

  My sisters didn't look up either — Beth took a bite of her bagel, and Mary got up to pour more coffee.

  "Wade asked me to marry him."

  Everything stopped.

  Dad's paper dropped by an inch as he glared at me over the top. Mary turned, coffee pot in hand, looking shocked. Beth slowed her jaw, a wad of bread in her cheek like a dairy cow.

  "What?" Dad asked, the word hard.

  My smile slipped. "He … he asked me to marry him, and I said yes."

  "You've got to be kidding me," Mary said, annoyed. "You're seventeen, Elliot. You can't get married."

  I watched as my hope for their support slipped away. "We would wait until after my birthday. This … this was always the plan, though we'd always planned on waiting until after I graduated. But he asked me to come with him sooner, and I said yes."

  Dad's face was red as he huffed and blustered at me from across the table. "You said yes, as if you have any right to agree to such a preposterous thing. You can't do anything, not while you're still living under my roof."

  "Dad—"

  He slapped the table, making the coffee cups jump and us along with them. "This is ridiculous, Elliot. You're still in school."

  "I'll finish school wherever we end up," I answered, undeterred.

  He paused for a split second. "You can't marry your high school crush."

  I drew a long breath through my nose. "You did."

  He gave me a look. "I sure did, and instead of marrying John like I really wanted, I married your mother and was miserable until the day she died."

  I jerked away from the shock of his words, not that it was the first time he'd said something so horrible. It's just that it never ceased to hurt me. "Marrying her was your choice, a choice you made for what, for money? She's the reason you have all of this." I motioned to the home around us, the food on the table. "But I suppose I should say I'm happy to hear that her dying released you from your prison. Is that what you'd like to h
ear?"

  He rolled his eyes, his face still red and eyes still hard. "Don't be dramatic, Elliot. Of course it's not her fault that I'm gay, or that I asked her to marry me. I loved her in my way," he said, conveniently ignoring the rest of what I'd said. "I'm just saying that you and Wade staying together is unrealistic. You're too young to know what's real and what isn't. He's leaving tomorrow, and what — you're just supposed to wait for him? Move far away, be all alone when he's deployed? When they throw him on the front lines in Iraq? Why would you want to be a widow at twenty?"

  I breathed again. "It's my decision to make, and I choose him."

  His brow dropped, eyes leveling me. "It's not your decision to make, Elliot Marie Kelly. I won't allow it."

  My cheeks burned with anger, but my voice was even, containing a calm I didn't feel. "And how will you stop me when I turn eighteen?"

  Everything about him challenged me, his posture, his tone, all of him, and the air between us crackled with tension. "I refuse to support this. If this is what you choose, what you want? Well, then you can find yourself somewhere else to live. You can find someone else to feed and clothe you. Can he do that? Will he take you in? And is that what you want? To abandon us?" He touched his chest. "To sacrifice us for him? Because that's the choice you'll have to make. I just hope he doesn't turn you out, because we won't be here for you when it all falls apart."

  Anger and sadness and confusion rolled through me, disappointment over how everything had gone hanging over me, pressing into my chest, suffocating me. Abandon them? They would abandon me. But how could I survive without them? They were everything I'd ever known, my last tie to my mother.

  My sisters watched me through my mother's eyes, nodding their support like mob lackeys, and my father was the Godfather.

  "Why are you doing this?" I breathed.

  "Because you're not smart enough to make the decision yourself. I'm your father, and I know more about the world than you do. It's my job to protect you from that," he said piously.

  I didn't even know what to say through the shock of the moment; his words stopped me dead. It's not that I believed what he said or subscribed to what he proposed — I didn't. But what he said hit me deep, not only because some of it struck a chord — being alone, lonely while he was deployed, praying he came home to me — but because I was afraid. I felt my age, like a silly little girl with dreams too big and feelings too grown up. If I left, I'd have no one other than Wade and his family. And if he died … would Rick and Sophie keep me?

  The thought of choosing between my past and my future overwhelmed me. I didn't know how to make that decision.

  But Wade … Wade would understand. He loved me — he'd never force me to choose. I believed with all my heart that he would wait, that we could go back to the old plan. The alternative was too much to even fathom. I just had to talk to him, and we could sort it all out.

  But I was wrong. So, so wrong. And that mistake had haunted me ever since.

  5

  Razed

  Burned down

  And singed,

  Razed to ash

  And blown to the wind.

  * * *

  - M. White

  * * *

  Wade

  The living room walls closed in on me as I sat with my sisters in my arms, wishing I were strong enough to save them.

  They clung to each other and cried as I held them together as best I could. Sadie's face was in my mind, the words echoing as I spoke them … it was a moment I'd never forget, as much as I wanted to.

  As their emotions poured out of them, I found that I was numb, razed from all that had happened. A few hours, a few words, and everything had changed. I could hear the clock ticking, the sound taking on a new meaning as I imagined what would come, as I realized how little time I had left.

  Time, time, time.

  The word pulsed around me, a chant that ticked up my heartbeat with every second that passed. I didn't know how we would survive this, didn't know how we'd ever get through the next few weeks with him or the rest of our lives without him.

  It was a long time before the shuddering stopped and their breaths evened, tears ceasing for the moment.

  Sadie looked up at me, her gray eyes shining like I had all the answers. She had no idea that I didn't have a single one.

  I cupped her cheek and wiped a tear away with my thumb. "Do you want to see him tonight?" I asked gently.

  She nodded, chin quivering.

  "Visiting hours end soon, so we should go."

  "O-okay," she said, and I stood, helping my sisters up.

  "I just … I need a minute, okay?" Sadie blinked, eyes darting between us. She was so young in that moment, and I saw her as a little girl again instead of seventeen, needing my comfort after a skinned knee. If only this were so simple. If only.

  Sophie smoothed Sadie's dark hair. "Whatever you need. Just let us know when you're ready."

  Sadie nodded and left the room, and Sophie turned to me, shaking her head.

  "How did this happen, Wade? How did we get here?" The words were agony.

  "I don't know, but I feel like I've stepped into hell." I took a deep breath and let it out slow, but the pressure remained in my chest, heavy and aching. "I'm gonna go put my stuff in my room before we leave."

  "Okay. Maybe I'll make some coffee."

  "Good idea." I grabbed my duffle bag and headed upstairs. At the mention of coffee, exhaustion washed over me — I'd been awake close to twenty-four hours at that point, and adrenaline had carried me through it. But now, nearing the end of what had been the longest day of my life — and I had endured some very, very long days — I didn't know how much more I could take.

  My boots might have weighed a hundred pounds each as I climbed the stairs, turning down the hall and into my room.

  Nothing had changed except me.

  I dropped my green canvas bag into the closet, leaving it there to deal with later, parking it under my old letter jacket and other clothes that had been mostly forgotten. And I sat on the edge of the bed, looking around the room.

  Everything reminded me of her.

  There were so many reasons why I'd avoided coming home over the years, and this room was one of them. When I left, I left part of me here, part of me I'd never quite found again. War changes you that way.

  I left here without Elliot, and that alone hardened my heart. But nothing could prepare me for war. The things I'd seen, the things I'd done … when you're over there, you can't think about life back home. You can't think that everything is going on as it always did, that your friends are out working desk jobs or going to school, hitting happy hour at bars, living a normal life.

  Life inside of war is no life at all. It shrinks your world down to a thirty-mile radius, and everyone in that radius is living the same hell. There's a comfort in that. But there's also fear, fear that you'll never live that normal life again.

  My family was my only connection to that normal life, and even that at times had been thin.

  I'd poured myself into the Army, volunteering for tour after tour because it was easier than facing the life I'd left behind. I knew my Army life. I knew how to exist there. I didn't know how to be a civilian anymore.

  So, I didn't come home much. But my family and I were close despite the fact. We spoke daily in the form of text, calls, emails, video chats. They'd visited me too, everywhere but Iraq and Afghanistan, and I think they understood why, though no one mentioned it. Especially not me.

  But here, in this room, I was eighteen again. I was in love with a girl, with the girl, the one who I'd have moved heaven and earth for. And as I looked around, that past seemed so far away, like a story of a person I used to know.

  Her pictures were on my cork board over my desk. Her poems were in my nightstand. That was the window she used to climb in when she was supposed to be in her bed at home. A sweater she'd gotten me for Christmas years ago was in the drawer still, I knew, and the box in the top of the closet held
boutonnieres and notes we'd left in each other's lockers.

  She was everywhere.

  But then I considered my life for the last seven years. Considered what I'd seen. Flashes of memories flickered through my mind — an IED hitting the truck in front of us, my men, my friends wounded. My friends dead. Gunfire and the smell of mortars. The stars at midnight outside of Kardashar. The heat of the desert. The sickness of war, which hadn't changed since the beginning of man.

  I twisted the black bracelet on my wrist, the reminder of those I'd lost. As if I could ever forget.

  I'd convinced myself it had been easier without her. She'd been spared the pain, the fear she would have endured as I endured war. It was a mercy she'd ended it. I'd had no idea when I left here what the truth of my situation would be, but still, selfishly, I wanted her. I wished she'd chosen me. I wished that when the war and the world broke me, that she was there to hold me, to remind me there was still good in the universe.

  Truth was, I didn't know if there was good in the universe. And losing Elliot was just another point of proof.

  The memory of the last time I saw her crashed into me, and I closed my eyes against the force.

  As much of a snap decision it had been to propose, I knew with every atom in my body that it was right, that it was time. Our plan had been on paper since weeks after I'd met her, but as I packed my duffle bag for boot camp, that two-dimensional plan rose off the page, every detail in high relief.

  I was leaving, and I didn't know if I'd come back.

  My sisters had been crying almost every day over my departure, and Dad, though I knew he supported me, couldn't hide his anxiety. He tried, but I felt it in every word, behind every hug, in every moment. Sadie was the same age I'd been when I lost Mom, and I felt her pain, her fear, just as fresh as if it were my own.