Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 90503 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90503 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
“What is it?” He stacked a few plates.
“I reached out to Maren and asked her to call me, but there’s just silence on her end.”
“Ah.” He piled forks and knives on top of the stack. “I’m sorry.”
I shrugged. “I get it. She’s hurt. Why should she call me? She thinks she’s heard everything I have to say.”
“But she hasn’t. She just doesn’t realize it.”
“I can’t force her to listen to me. I don’t know what else to do.”
Finn didn’t answer, and after a few minutes, he stood and started carrying dishes into the kitchen. I did the same. When everything from the table was in the sink, I took a seat at the island and watched him load the dishwasher. “Want help?”
“Nah. I got it.”
I looked around the big, beautiful kitchen, with its gray-painted cabinetry, black stone counters, and polished wood floor. It was clean but lived-in—kids’ artwork on the fridge, shoes piled over by the back door, the clutter of everyday life all around. “You’re really lucky,” I said.
“Damn right I am.” He looked back at me. “But it’s not just luck.”
“What can I do, Finn? She won’t talk to me.”
“Maybe email her? She seems to check email often enough.”
“Did you tell her about the surgery?”
“Yes. And she replied the next day that she was glad to hear it and thanked me for letting her know. She said she wished us all the best.”
I swallowed hard. “Okay. I’ll email her. Can you forward me her email address?”
“Of course.”
Later that night, I lay in bed with my laptop trying to find the perfect words to say, the words that would undo all the damage I’d done and bring her back to me.
It wasn’t easy. I wrote, deleted. Wrote, deleted. Wrote, deleted. I’d never been a confident writer, and the pressure in this situation was almost unbearable. Finally, after three hours and a hundred different drafts, I gave up on perfect and just wrote from the heart.
Dear Maren,
An email is probably the worst way to say everything I want to say to you, but it’s the way I’m stuck with because I’m stubborn as fuck and waited too long to have the chance to do it in person. I haven’t been able to reach you by phone, not that I blame you for not wanting to speak to me. I’ve put you through too much already, and part of me thinks I should leave you alone even now. But I need to tell you the truth about my feelings for you, and this might be my last chance to do it.
Everything I told you the night we went to the baseball game is true.
Everything.
I never stopped loving you. I fell in love with you all over again the weekend we spent together, and I love you still. I said it was a lie only to make you hate me, so that leaving wouldn’t hurt so much.
Of course, it hurt anyway. More than I can say.
When I made the decision to come see you, it was because leaving you the first time has always been my biggest regret, and after getting the news about the tumor in my brain, you were all I could think about. I had to make things right with you. I never intended to fall for you again.
But being with you was like coming home to a place where I was more loved, more alive, more me than anywhere I’ve ever been. I should have told you about the tumor right away, but I couldn’t bring myself to ruin those perfect, happy hours we had—and I knew they were numbered. My future was so uncertain, and I didn’t want to drag you into it. I didn’t want you to feel burdened by your feelings for me. I didn’t want your pity. In my head, the only way to spare you from having to see me at my worst was to hide the truth from you.
And because I want to be honest, I will also admit that I wanted to spare myself the pain of losing you. The truth is that I don’t think I’m worth your love or all the trouble it will take to care for me. Maybe that’s because of my childhood, or maybe it’s just because I know I can be a selfish, stubborn prick and you shouldn’t have to put up with my bullshit, but there it is. So I tried to protect both of us by breaking things off.
I was wrong, and for that I am deeply sorry.
What I should have done was tell you the truth and give you the choice to be with me or walk away.
Which brings me to now. As you know, I am having the surgery on Friday, and the surgeon is hopeful he can remove the entire tumor. After that, we will wait for the biopsy to tell us if it is benign or cancerous. If it is cancer, I will likely need additional treatment like chemotherapy and radiation. It would be a long, difficult road to travel.