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I take a deep breath before gliding the scissors across the tape, careful not to pierce through the cardboard. I have a half hour to myself before Theo is due home, and just enough courage to face up to one of my last mistakes.
I let go of the cardboard flaps with a gasp. Inside the box, face up, is a hardback edition of An Ember in the Ashes with the latest cover. Theo was paying more attention than I thought when he asked about my favorite books. He even remembered when I complained about cover changes, and my disinclination to buy the new covers to match despite how much it bothers me. I find the second book in the series buried beneath other books. In fact, the entire box is filled with books from my Buy Again shelf on Goodreads. There isn’t a single book missing from that list. At the very bottom of the box is an envelope addressed with my name in a messy scrawl. I’ve never seen his handwriting before now. I pull out the card and open it to reveal the handwritten letter inside.
Marce (no, I’ll never stop calling you that),
I haven’t told you this yet, but I am endlessly inspired by you. You have the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever known, but what’s most surprising is that you don’t even know it. You’re always trying to give more of yourself to people, even if they don’t deserve it. Maybe I’m even one of those people, but you’ll probably tell me differently. Anyway, I love how easy it is for you to see the good in people, even when they’re at their worst.
I’ve been wanting to pay you back for your kindness for a while, and I finally got the idea a few weeks back, as you can probably tell by the contents of this box. I’ve never seen anyone as passionate about something the way you are about sharing your love of reading. I was in awe of you the night of your first book club. No one talks about books the way you do. It kills me that a woman with your strength ever felt so isolated growing up, but I suppose I have a lot of books to thank for turning you into the person you are now.
When you said you donate a pile of books from your own collection every month to your high school’s library, it reminded me all over again of your endless kindness for others. It’s something people take for granted, and it made me want to give you something in return. You should never be without your favorite books.
If you’ll let me, I’ll make sure each and every one of your all-time favorites are always signed by their author. Because you deserve to have special books in your personal collection.
Theo
This man is far more than I deserve. If I’m lucky, I’ll spend the rest of my life learning how to deserve him.
When I look inside, every single copy is signed by the author. Some were personalized to other readers, but others are special editions I could never afford. He knows me, I think as I place each book back inside the box and push it beneath my desk. But I know him, too.
By the time Theo arrives, my mind is turning over possibilities. More than once, he asks me what the sly smile on my face is all about, and more than once I dodge his barrage of questions. An idea bursts to life fully formed when he tells me about Friday’s last game of the season over dinner. It doesn’t take much to convince him to spend the night at his place tomorrow, but a silent question remains in his furrowed brows.
“What are you so happy about tonight?” he asks as my thumb reaches up to smooth away the tension between his brows.
I shake my head, resisting the urge to even say You’ll find out soon enough. Knowing him, there’s no way he’d let me get away with it. I distract him for the final time tonight by whispering something dirty in his ear that makes him drop his fork and drag me into the bedroom. Unfortunately for me, it only makes it harder for me not to tell him everything inside my heart.
I love you. I trust you. I have faith in us.
But I force myself to wait, because it’ll be all the more special when I do.
In all my wild excitement and grand plans, there’s one important fact I failed to consider: half a week is not nearly enough time to plan a grand gesture.
I worried over my own mediocrity for days, and then worried it would all be for nothing when I was almost kicked off Theo’s campus on my way to the practice field. No wonder it took him two weeks to pull off his grand gesture. But I’ve waited far too long to tell him how I feel as it is. I’m not waiting any longer.
The only problem with my impatience to grand gesture him back is there wasn’t much I could do in a time crunch. Let alone the fact that I’ve never grand gestured someone in my life, and that I was mistaken for a student right as the practice field came into view when an older teacher patrolling outside asked to see my hall pass. Once I explained the situation, he pointed me in the direction of the front office, where I could sign in. Unfortunately for me, that required doubling back all the way where I started from. Great.
The practice field is crowded with rowdy teenagers. No part of me is excited to push through them to get to Theo, who I’m having a hard time spotting as it is. I push myself to the tips of my toes, scanning the crowd for a tall, burly blond man, scowling to myself when I come up short.
Where the hell is he?
Of course. Now that I’ve gone through the trouble of making it to the field, he’s nowhere in sight. I’m the absolute worst at this.
“What are you wearing?”
I grab at my chest with a hand as I whip around. There he is, standing right in front of me in sweats and a hoodie, clipboard hanging from one hand as he ruins half a week’s worth of mediocre planning.
“No!” I shove at his chest with a pom-pom when he tries to hug me. “Where were you ten minutes ago? Everything is going wrong!”
“I was dropping off attendance,” he says, bewildered eyes scanning my outfit from head to toe. “You’re wearing my jersey.”
I’m not only wearing his jersey, but also face paint with his number on my cheeks. My hair is in pigtails, and the hairstyle alone was enough to age me down ten years. Coupled with the outfit, a backpack with a rolled poster sticking out, and pom-poms, it’s no wonder the staff was confused.
“I had this all planned out,” I whine. “I was going to wait until all the kids were gone, sneak in through the gate when you were alone, and perform this stupid cheer routine I learned on YouTube.”
His eyes grow bigger the longer I talk. “You learned a cheer routine for me?”
“Yes, I did.” I cover my face with my hands, careful not to smudge the paint on my cheeks. “I even watched the video again in the car because I was worried about forgetting the moves. Then you went and ruined my plans and now I forgot them again.”
I shove at his shoulder when he has the nerve to laugh at me.
