“She looks like Georgia,” I mused. The woman in my painting looked like Georgia from the back. I felt a sudden sinking in my chest and I stood, walking toward the picture, a picture I’d created in desperation, setting a stage and filling it with characters from my own head. Not from Eli’s head. It had nothing to do with Georgia. But my heart pounded and my breaths grew shallow.
“She looks like Georgia, Tag.” I said it again, louder, and I heard the panic in my voice.
“Georgia. The girl you never got over?”
“What?”
“Oh, come on, man!” Tag groaned, half-laughing. “I’ve known you for a long time. And in that time you’ve never been interested in a single woman. Not one. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were in love with me.”
“I saw her last Friday. I saw her at the hospital.” I couldn’t even argue with him. I felt sick, and my hands were shaking so much that I interlocked my fingers and hung them around my neck to hide the tremors.
Tag seemed as stunned as I had been. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“I saw her. And she saw me. And . . . and now, I’m seeing this little kid.” I took off running for my bedroom with Tag on my heels and terror thrumming through my veins like I’d just been injected with something toxic.
I pulled my old backpack down off my closet shelf and started ripping things out of it. My passport, a grease pencil, a stray peanut, a coin purse with random currencies that had never been cashed in.
“Where is it?” I raged, unzipping pockets and rifling through every compartment of the old bag, like an addict searching for a pill.
“What are you looking for?” Tag stood back and watched me tear my closet apart with equal parts fascination and concern.
“The letter. The letter! Georgia wrote me a letter when I was at Montlake. And I never opened it. But I kept it! It was here!”
“You put it in one of those tubes in Venice,” Tag answered easily, and sat down on my bed, his elbows braced on his knees, watching me come unglued.
“How the hell do you know that?”
“Because you dragged that envelope around forever. You’ll be lucky if it’s still in one piece.”
I was already digging deeper in my closet, pulling out tubes of rolled art that I’d picked up in my travels and then never took the time to frame or display. We’d sent stuff to Tag’s father from all over the world, and he stuck it in a spare room. When we’d settled in, he’d brought it to us. Four years of travels and purchases, and the loot had filled the back of his horse trailer. We’d promptly deposited it all in a storage unit, not especially interested in going through it all. Fortunately, the tube Tag was referring to should still be somewhere in my closet, because he was right. I’d kept it with me, dragging it around like a prized locket that I never even opened. Maybe because it had never been opened, it never seemed right to set it aside.
“It was in a small—” Tag started.
“Did you read it?” I shouted, digging frantically.
“No. I didn’t. But I wanted to. I thought about it.”
I found the tube I was sure it was in and pulled off the lid with my teeth, sinking to my knees as I shook out the contents like a kid on Christmas. I had put the letter back in an envelope when I left Montlake to protect it, and it slid out agreeably and landed in my lap. And like that kid on Christmas, who has just opened something he can’t decide if he likes, I just stared at it.
“It looks the same as it always has, every other time you’ve sat and stared at it,” Tag drawled.
I nodded.
“Do you need me to read it?” he said, a little more kindly.
“I’m an asshole, Tag. You know that right? I was an asshole then, with Georgia, and I haven’t changed a whole lot.”
“You worried I won’t love you anymore, after I read it?” There was a smile in his voice and it helped me breathe.
“Okay. Yeah. You read it. Because I can’t.”
I handed him the letter and fought the urge to stick my fingers in my ears.
He tore open the envelope, unfolded the sheet of paper filled with Georgia’s words, and looked at it silently for a moment. Then he started to read.
Dear Moses,
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to feel. The only thing I know is that you’re there and I’m here and I’ve never been so afraid in my life. I keep coming to visit, and I keep leaving without seeing you. I’m worried about you. I’m worried about me.
Will I ever see you again?
I’m afraid the answer’s no. And if it’s no, then you need to know how I feel. Maybe someday, you’ll be able to do the same. I would really, really like to know how you feel, Moses.
So here goes. I love you. I do. You scare me and fascinate me and make me want to hurt you and heal you all at the same time. Is it weird that I want to hurt you? I want to hurt you like you’ve hurt me. Yet the thought of you being hurt makes me ache. Doesn’t make much sense, does it?
Second, I miss you. I miss seeing you. I could watch you all day. Not just because you’re beautiful to look at—which you are—not just because you can create beautiful things—which you do—but because there’s something in you that pulls at me and convinces me that if you would just let me in, if you would just love me back, we could have a beautiful life. And I would really love for you to have a beautiful life. More than anything, I want that for you.
I don’t know if you’ll read this. And if you do, I don’t know if you’ll respond. But I needed you to know how I feel, even if it’s in a crummy letter that smells like Myrtle because it’s been in my jockey box for a month.