Page 146
Good lord I hate my shoes
Got rained on today and other than Hawaii with you, kind of like the best day ever. It might be Hawaii. I don’t know, why don’t you meet me in Prague right now and jog my memory.
I’d really love to be eating you out right at this moment.
To be honest, me too. I sigh and pick up another.
Seriously you fuck like a demon. My own personal demon. It has to be that good for you too. Your body is like a love letter to everything I’ve ever wanted. There is zero way I’m going to tell you you’re perfect in person but here. Sure. You’re perfect. At least I can say with absolute certainty, your tits are.
There’s one that’s front and back of actual stationery from the Blue Bell pub in Cardiff. The one I pick up says 3 of 3. I scramble to find the first and second one in the series.
He’s been writing to me the way I’ve been writing to him. Not the blog but my email.
His handwriting is rushed on this one as if he didn’t think about what he wanted to say, it poured out of him.
1 of 3
God dammit, Kate. Katy. Katydid. Kaiser. My Kat. Harpy.
I want to call you but until you contact me, I’ll wait. But the moment you do, there might be a floodgate situation. I’m sitting here at the Blue Bell pub. My favorite pub in Cardiff. I just carved both our initials in the bar without incident, mind you. But I wanted you to know that you’re with me. Always with me. I should have put you on that tree in Dhaka as well but wasn’t sure I really liked you at that point. Bear with me, Harpy, I feel long-winded.
I lean back against the bunk and my hand shakes. My heart is racing and the smile on my face could not be any bigger. This was right before Copenhagen. Right before he flew to Rhinebeck and saw my bathroom photography show. Right before he flew to the Seychelles to get me.
I’m falling for you, not the idea of you but the reality of you. I hate that we fought. I also reveled in it, because I cared enough to fight. I’ve walked away from every woman who’s ever fought with me. I’m not walking away from you. I’m more at home, more connected to you when I’m writing and reading your words than I’ve ever been anywhere. Apparently, the place I’ve spent my life searching for really is next to you.
“Oh, god. And I left. He didn’t make it real easy to stay, but this is the man. Not the performance for his parents or the show or even for me at certain times. This is mine.”
I breathe in and out and flip over the page.
I want to be the guy you make me. I want to talk to you, hold you. I know all of this was a game and a joke, or at least I thought it was. You’re ridiculous. And perfect. You’re so screwed up in your head. I’m so screwed up in the heart. We can balance each other out and be something. I don’t think I make sense in the world without you. Maybe you’re fictional and I’m imagining things you aren’t, but let’s find out.
I scramble to read the last two pages. My eyes moving as fast as comprehension will allow.
2 of 3
If we hate each other in a month, then we’ll sell the ring and go our separate ways. I want to make you happy and put your life in focus the way mine is when I think of you. Let’s be together. Wherever you want. As long as it’s Boston. I can’t be away from the Garden for more than two months at a time. You have to be a Celtics fan. Please do your homework for our life together. Watch Game 7, Hawks vs. Celtics, May 22, 1988. Bird, Ainge, Parrish, McHale, Johnson. All you need to know. And I’ll become a Philadelphia Independence fan. You’ll have to educate me a bit on hockey.
The beer is starting to take hold but don’t let that sway you from watching game 7 ASAP.
I’ve spent a lifetime defining myself by what I don’t want, and now all I can think of is what I do want. Matching bowls. A couch we took forever to pick out and end up hating. Right now, I don’t feel lost. That’s pretty significant from a guy who set out a long time ago to get lost. I thought I’d be pissed about it, but I was apparently just waiting to be found. In a desert in Utah by a gorgeous, beguiling, and way too complicated woman.
3 of 3.
Turns out I dreamed of you, Harpy, but just didn’t know it. Liquor’s a dangerous muse. Damn, I want to touch you, be with you, make you feel valid. I know this all sounds ridiculous. We’re strangers. I’m an asshole. You’re neurotic. I’ve grown attached to the distant. Being unreachable and called it cavalier. I pretended I was this worldly man with no real address. And you knew instantly that I wasn’t. Thank you for seeing me.
It’s time to abandon paths and schemes and just leap with me. Let’s both feel things we’ve never felt before and allow it to happen. Someday I’ll tell you all of this. Perhaps it will be well past our window of opportunity and we’ll laugh at Ginny and Colin’s 40th wedding anniversary. But I’m glad I made a permanent record of my idiocy. I’m pretty sure I love you.
Zane
Chapter 75
You Lost Her?
ZANE
Boston
I’m lying in my bed at home staring at her pictures. I’m taking them back to Ginny tomorrow when I go see Colin. She still hasn’t read them and if she hasn’t by now, I’m pretty sure she won’t. She would have contacted me if she read them. I’m sure of it.
