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I also understand why you sent it.

Tell me whether I am reading too much into “loaner.”

Ryan

I smile so hard my face hurts.

Ryan,

You are absolutely reading too much into one word.

You are also right.

It is a promise that you will see me again. I won’t arrive uninvited, create a crisis, or stand outside your apartment demanding you decide our future before I leave the hallway.

I called it a loaner because I intend to have you place it back into my hands.

I don’t know when. I won’t control that part.

I only know the road works both ways, and I’m no longer afraid of traveling mine.

Finish the book before you insult the narrator too confidently. You’re probably right, but humility would look beautiful on you.

Charm

His answer arrives on a Monday.

Charm,

Humility would interfere with my bone structure.

I finished the book. The narrator remains a coward, the ending does prove me right, and I resent how well you know me.

I held the book for twenty minutes after reading your letter and imagined placing it into your hands. You wore the expression you get when you’re trying not to appear pleased because being correct excites you more than it should.

I don’t know whether that moment will happen at your apartment, mine, a bookstore, or somewhere between our cities.

I know I want it.

I also know wanting you has never been the problem.

These letters are doing something I didn’t expect. You give me time to become angry, put the page down, and return when I can separate what you wrote from what fear insists it means. You don’t chase me when I take days to answer. You don’t send another letter asking whether I received the first.

You trust me to return to the conversation.

I notice every time.

Ryan

I hold that letter against my chest before answering.

Ryan,

I used to believe silence was an empty space I had to fill before the other person decided to leave.

Now I understand your silence contains thought, anger, boundaries, and the right to decide what you are ready to give. None of those things belong to me simply because waiting is uncomfortable.

I trust you to return when you choose.