Dear Tori

by Renee Fowler

  I’m suddenly confronted by a new memory. Not one I lost from my accident, just one forgotten from earlier childhood. I’d been sitting in the barn with a calf, crying then like I’m crying now, upset because I finally figured out that sending letters to heaven was a sham. At the time it felt like a cruel joke. I was angry and sad at the same time, and too young to understand why my dad had lied to me.

  Brandon hasn’t deposited a letter in the mailbox for weeks, so maybe he’s already figured it out. Was he mad at me the day it finally dawned on him?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Tori

  “Next year we’ll grow our own,” Maggie says, hoisting a large, bright orange pumpkin from the crate. She waddles with the weight of it, and sets it gently on the tamped down earth.

  I set the last of them out out nearby, and stand back to survey the area decorated with evenly spaced pumpkins, corn stalks, and friendly looking scare crows. “It seems so disingenuous.” I say.

  Laughing, Maggie wipes off her hands on her dirty jeans, only staining them dirtier. “I don’t think the little kids will notice or care that they didn’t grow here.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “You’ve got another letter at the house.”

  I climb back on the tractor, and wait for Maggie without saying a word.

  “You’re really not even going to open it?” she asks.

  “I don’t see the point.”

  Maggie snatches the key out of my hand before I can start the tractor and drown out the rest of her speech. “I talked to Buck, and it’s not what you think.”

  “He wasn’t selling drugs?”

  “He was more like… a go between, you know?”

  “A middleman?” I ask.

  “Sure, I guess.”

  “Sort of how we’re buying these pumpkins from another farmer, and selling them here.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Except we’re selling pumpkins, and he was selling drugs. Big difference.”

  Maggie rubs her nose, leaving behind a smudge of dirt. “We wouldn’t be sitting here right now, discussing selling pumpkins or anything else if it wasn’t for Noah, and you know it.”

  “He lied to me for months, Maggie. Everyday. He looked me straight in the eyes and lied through his teeth. You don’t have any idea what that feels like?”

  “I have a pretty good idea what it feels like.” Her bitter laugh peters out to a sigh. “Honey, your dad hid that loan from me for years.”

  “That’s different! He did it to protect you. He didn’t want you to worry.”

  Maggie widens her eyes at me, clearly frustrated. “You know I love you like you’re my own, but you are one of the most hard headed people I’ve ever met in my life.”

  “Well, I do have a metal plate in my head now.”

  Maggie starts to crack up. We both do. After the laughter fades away, Maggie says, “Tori, he loves you. He’s sitting in jail right now because he wanted to help you. To help us. He’s not a bad person, and you know that. The least you could do is go talk to him.”

  Nodding towards my lap, I blink back tears. Am I ever going to stop crying? It’s been weeks, and that wound through the center of my chest is just as bloody and raw as the night Trevor showed up on my doorstep.

  Maggie slides her arm around my shoulders, and hands me the key back so I can start the tractor. We putter back towards the house against a vicious, frigid wind.

  “It’s going to be a bad winter,” I say, because it’s simply easier to talk about the weather.

  When we get back to the house, Maggie hands me the most recent letter without another word. I carry it back to my place, and set it in a basket on the counter with the others. It’s not that I don’t want to read what he wrote, but for some reason I can’t. It’s easier to stay mad at Noah than to let myself miss him.

  Lola comes over to nuzzle against my legs, and I drop down to my knees to wrap my arms around her. “You’re gonna be old by the time Noah comes home.” What is three years in dog years? I can’t even figure it out, but it’s going to feel like an eternity.

  I was alone for more years than that after I left home. I had acquaintances, but no real friends. No actual connections with anyone, and it didn’t bother me much. Even those two years I was with Christian, there was always this distance between us. I was alone, but I was okay. Now I’m alone again, but I’m far from okay. How am I going to get through all these days without Noah?

  I lurch up to my feet and tear into the envelope. I want to see what he wrote, even if what I need is to hear his voice, to have him here in the room with me, to feel his arms wrapped around me.

  Dear Tori,

  I guess you’re still ticked off at me. Either that or the mail is running really slow. I don’t blame you for being mad. I expected it. I hear from Maggie things are going well at the farm. I hope Lola’s being good for you. Tell her I miss her, and I guess it goes without saying, I miss you too. You’d think after all those years apart, I would’ve gotten used to not having you, but I never did.

  I wish I had a way with words. I keep thinking if I can find the right words to make you understand, I can still fix this somehow, but maybe not. Three years is a long time, and I can’t really expect you to wait around on me. Maybe I’ve loved you since I was sixteen, but you’ve only known me for four months. I’m starting to think we were just never meant to be together in the first place. Everytime it looks like things might work out for us, something else happens.

  As long as you’re happy, that’s all I care about. I hope you can remember that, Tori. I know there’s so much about us you can’t remember, but we’ve made some pretty good memories these last few months. Whatever happens, don’t forget about those.

  Love you forever,

  Noah

  I tear through the rest of those letters he’s sent from jail, my eyes flying across his familiar handwriting. When that isn’t enough, I dig out the older letters, the ones my dad never gave me. In one big shuffle, they’re all out of order now. I don’t know which ones came first or last, and it’s all so overwhelming.

  Why did he continue to write to me for so long? He’s sitting in jail right now, and he’s going to be sitting there for the next three years, for me. I can’t wrap my head around it.

  I’ve wished for my memories back so many times before, but in that moment I actually pray for them to return. I clutch onto that bracelet he gave me like a rosary, while I beg and plead with a higher power I don’t even believe in.

  I want it all to make sense, because the things Noah has done make no sense to me whatsoever. Why does he love me this much? He took a huge risk, for me, and I feel so unworthy.

  By the time I’m finally finished crying, I’m wrung out and exhausted. I think about writing him back, but I don’t know what to say, and I suppose I’ll see him before that letter would arrive in the mail anyway.

  ***

  The day I go to visit Noah I wear the soft green sweater he bought me, the one he said is the same shade as my eyes. I also wear the bracelet he gave me, complete with all the charms except one. We still haven’t run across a rainbow yet.

  The first word that comes to mind when I see Noah is haunted. He has circles under his eyes, and a shadow of scruff along his jaw. His complexion is sallow, but maybe it’s just the tan uniform and the fluorescent lighting.

  I try to speak, but I’m sobbing too hard. The mascara was probably a bad idea. I must look like a racoon.

  “Babe, please don’t cry.”

  “Why didn’t you talk to me?” I finally manage. “We could’ve figured something else out.”

  Noah takes a pointed look all around, and shushes me.

  I give him a quick nod to let him know that I understand we can’t speak freely here.

  “I was wondering if you were ever going to come see me,” he says with a wry smile.

  “I’m sorry, Noah. I was just so pissed off.” I almost wish I could muster up a bit of that anger now, beca
use this bitter sadness and regret is so much worse. This is as close as we’re going to be for the next three years, and he’s sitting over there trapped because of me.

  “I figured you’d be mad,” he says.

  “I wish I could remember, Noah. I really do, because I can’t make sense of it. I don’t understand what I did to deserve this.”

  His head hangs down below his shoulders. “Tori, I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean… why do you love me this much?”

  Noah lifts his soft brown eyes to mine. “Because I do.”

  “But why? I don’t understand it.”

  “Because you’re beautiful and perfect.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You are to me, and you’re a good person. I wouldn’t leave Lola with just anyone.” He attempts a smile, but it falls flat. “Tori, you were the first person that gave a shit about me in so long, I couldn’t remember. I guess that’s why.”

  “That can’t be true.”

  “When I first got dumped off on Buck’s doorstep, he didn’t know what the hell to do with me, and I’d been shuffled around to more schools than I could count. I’d already gotten held back one year, and it was about to happen again.” Noah pauses to shrug his shoulders. “You sat with me in that library for months helping me caught back up, and you never made me feel like a dumbass for not knowing shit I should’ve already learned, and you were just… nice. I dunno, Tori. It was like, you believed I could do it, and it made me start to believe it too, because up until then—” He lets out a long sigh. “I had pretty much accepted the fact that I was going to be a fuck up. If it wasn’t for you, I would’ve ended up in here years ago. Hell, I’d probably be dead by now.”

  “You were the first person that believed in me for a while too,” I say quietly.

  “This isn’t the way I wanted things to turn out for us, Tori. I hope you know that.”

  He’s talking like this is the end. After the silent treatment from me these last weeks, he probably thinks it is. There were a handful of days where I’d almost convinced myself I was through, that he had crossed a line I couldn’t look past, but seeing him again, and hearing his voice, I can’t deny it anymore. “I’m not going anywhere,” I say blinking back fresh tears. “But you better not make me regret it, Noah James. No more lies. No more hiding things, even if you think you have a good reason.”

  Noah scrubs a hand across his forehead and visibly relaxes. “I love you, babe.”

  “I love you too.”

  What Noah did was wrong, and he did lie to me, but maybe it’s like Maggie said. Nothing is black or white. All I know is, I love him. Even though I can’t remember all the reasons I fell in love with him in the first place, it doesn’t change how I feel now, and I can’t imagine those feelings ever going away or fading.

  God, these three years are going to be an eternity.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Noah

  The day I get out, it’s bright and sunny, an unseasonably warm, late September day. Tori is waiting for me, and I’ve never seen something so beautiful in all my life. She’s wearing a white sundress that swishes above her knees as she walks fasts in my direction. Her lips are shiny and pink with some kind of lipstick that she probably should’ve done without. I’m only going to kiss it right off her.

  It’s been three years since I’ve held her, and smelled her hair. God, she feels so good in my arms. Her lips taste so sweet. I’m hard as a fucking diamond, and I swear I wouldn’t mind laying her across the hood of her truck and screwing the daylights out of her right here.

  We’ve wrote letters, and talked on the phone. She visited plenty, but having her pressed up against me again, running my fingers through her silky golden hair, staring down into her pretty green eyes, none of it feels real.

  After we’ve kissed and said I love you a dozen times, making quite the spectacle of ourselves, we finally climb inside her truck. Tori drives, and I barely take my eyes off her the entire time, not until she turns off the main road. I notice with a nauseous dread we’re headed up the narrow, rutted road that leads to the falls. “Why are we going up here?” I ask, trying not to sound as anxious as I feel.

  “I wasn’t supposed to say anything. Maggie and Buck wanted it to be a surprise, but they’re throwing a little welcome home party for you.”

  It still sounds unreal to hear those names together, Maggie and Buck. Her stepmom and my uncle are together, and have been for a couple of months. Tori and her brother are unphased by it, and I suppose it’ll sink in for me eventually too.

  “And I don’t know about you,” Tori continues, “But I don’t want to sit through cake and ice cream before we get to be alone.”

  Tori grins at me, and I find it difficult to return the gesture. I haven’t been back to the falls since that night, and it’s the very last place on earth I want to return to. I keep my eyes fixed on her as we rattle past the water tumbling over a sharp drop and frothing far below. She maneuvers the truck over a small bridge, and along a winding, gravel drive that ends in an empty parking lot.

  It’s the middle of the day, and I guess she was counting on this place being empty, because as soon as the truck is rolled to a stop, Tori is all over me.

  “I was wondering why you were wearing a dress,” I mumble against her neck, my hands already sliding beneath the hem as her knees fall on either side of my hips.

  “I wanted to look nice for you.”

  She doesn’t just look nice. Tori is gorgeous and perfect, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on, a sentiment I try to express, but I’m finding it difficult to form coherent words.

  Her lips are pressed against mine in one long, hungry kiss that goes on and on. The whole time she whimpers against my mouth, and rides the edge of my hardon with a wild desperation. I’m not the only one feeling the strain of that three years apart.

  The windshield is facing the woods, and there’s no one else around, so I slide the slender straps of her dress down her shoulders. She smells like sugary vanilla. Her fingers twist in my hair as I draw one of her pink, pert nipples into my mouth. She tastes even better than she smells.

  “I missed you so much, Noah. You have no idea.”

  “Oh, I have a pretty good idea.” My hands slide up the outside of her thighs, and I grip her ass hard. I want to strip her down, touch and taste her everywhere, but that’s not possible in the cramped cab of this truck. “By the time I finish with you tonight, you’re not going to be able to sit straight for a week.”

  Tori giggles. Leaning back, she reaches between us for the button of my jeans. She’s biting her lip as she pulls me free of my clothes. My fingers tug impatiently at along the elastic of her panties. After a bit of awkward maneuvering, we finally manage to pry them down her legs.

  She whimpers into my mouth as she lowers herself onto me. I groan loud at the feel of her. She’s hot, wet and velvet wrapped around me tight. I’ve never felt anything so good in all my life, and it takes every shred of self control I have not to come immediately.

  Her forehead is pressed against mine, and I am lost in the depths of her pretty green eyes when I whisper close to her mouth, “You ready for me to put a baby in your belly, Tori?”

  She opens her mouth, but doesn’t speak. It’s a strangled, squeaky sigh.

  I hope she really is ready like we talked about, because there’s no holding back for me. I’ve waited three agonizingly long years to be with her again, but we’re going to be together for the rest of our lives now. We’re getting married soon, and we both figure it’s time to start working on that baby for real. We’ve already wasted so much time. These last three years, and all those years after her accident. Now we can finally get on with the life we were supposed to have together all along.

  We sit together just like that for a long time, my face buried in her hair, and my arms wrapped around her tight. I don’t ever want to let her go, but we can’t stay like this forever. Maggie, Buck, and B
randon are waiting on us. I pull the straps of her dress back up, and kiss her again.

  After we are both dressed again, Tori climbs out of the truck.

  “Babe, we need to go if they’re waiting,” I call out through the open window.

  “We’ve got a little time, and this won’t take long.” She comes around and opens the door for me.

  A ball of ice settles in the pit of my stomach. The gentle warmth of her hand in mine does little to thaw it. “What are we doing?” I ask, as she leads us further away from the truck.

  “I’m ready to put that last charm on my bracelet.” She shakes her other hand so the charms jingle quietly. “It’s a nice sunny day. We’ll be able to see a rainbow from the top I bet.”

  I bet she’s right, but I don’t want to go anywhere near that edge, not with her, not again. “Tori, we’ll find another rainbow. Let’s just go.”

  She pouts. “Oh, come on. I was just here with Abby and the kids last week. We took Lola too.”

  I never could say no to Tori, and if she was able to overcome this fear, I suppose it’s time I faced it too.

  Gravel crunches under our feet, then it’s the dusty scrap of dry earth as we start on a narrow footpath that cuts through the trees. The sound of rushing water growing louder grates my ears. My hand closes around hers tight as we approach the spot where it happened, the worst night of my life. Hers too, she just can’t remember it.

  With the noonday sun burning high overhead, there is indeed a faint rainbow formed in the frothy spray at the bottom of the falls. If this place wasn’t tainted by such tragic memories, I might say it was beautiful.

  Tori nuzzles against my neck and sighs happily. “There it is. Our rainbow.”