Tommy
The house had become unbearable. A week ago, my father had been smug, convinced that the town would fall in line with his plans. Now, every day seemed to peel another layer of control away from him. His temper snapped at the smallest things — a misplaced newspaper, a delayed phone call, a tie knotted wrong. The booming voice that once commanded respect now trembled with anger, the edges fraying.
"Idiots," he muttered as he slammed down the phone that morning, the sound echoing off the study's paneled walls. "Useless, dithering idiots. How hard is it to push through one small planning application?"
I lingered outside the door, pretending to pass by with a book in my hand. Through the crack, I saw him pacing, red in the face, veins standing out at his temples. The two men in suits had returned, but even they exchanged wary glances as he barked at them. He promised favours, threatened consequences, waved his hand as if the world should bow to him.
But it wasn't working. Aunt Stephanie's campaign had teeth, and he knew it. People were standing up, questioning, resisting.
And it was eating him alive.
I kept my face carefully blank when he stormed past me on his way out, muttering about council members and "spineless businessmen." Mother trailed after him, lips pressed tight, as though she could smooth his fury by sheer silence. The house felt like a tinderbox, one spark away from going up in flames.
I wanted nothing more than to escape.
And then the letter arrived.
I found it tucked beneath the edge of my plate at breakfast, the envelope smudged from travel, my name written in Emma's careful, looping script. My heart stumbled in my chest. For a moment, I couldn't breathe.
"Who's that from?" my father snapped, his sharp eyes cutting to the envelope.
I shoved it into my pocket before he could see more. "A friend from school," I muttered, reaching for my toast with shaking fingers. "Just — about a group project we're working on."
He gave a dismissive grunt, already returning to his muttering about deadlines, and I excused myself the first chance I got.
The woods had never felt so much like salvation. My feet carried me down the familiar path, each step loosening the weight of the house until all that was left was the pounding of my heart. When I reached our clearing, I sat cross-legged on the blanket I'd left folded in a tin box beneath the brush — our unspoken ritual — and finally, finally opened the envelope.
Her handwriting danced across the page, steady and sure.
I've never written a letter like this before…
I traced the words with my thumb, as though the pressure of her pen might still be warm. My chest ached. She told me about the new house, smaller than their cottage, with peeling wallpaper in the kitchen. She described the noise of her siblings as they adjusted, her mother's fussing, her father's silence.
It doesn't feel like home, she admitted. Not yet. Maybe it never will. But I wanted you to know we're safe, even if I don't feel steady inside myself.
I read the line three times, my throat tightening with every pass. Safe. That mattered. But I could feel her loneliness bleeding through the words, as sharp as if she sat beside me.
She wrote of the woods, too. How she missed them already. How she dreamed of our spot and woke with tears on her cheeks.
And then, scattered in the middle of her careful sentences, a line that undid me:
You made those weeks bearable, Tommy. You made them precious. I don't know how I'll manage without seeing you every day.
I crushed the letter to my chest, my knuckles white around the fragile paper, as though pressing hard enough might fuse her words into my skin. My eyes burned until the tears finally spilled, hot and blinding, streaking down my face. I dragged in ragged gulps of air, each breath catching in my throat, but nothing eased the hollow ache tearing through me.
For a long, punishing stretch, I couldn't bring myself to look again. I just sat there, shaking, clutching this single piece of her like it was all that kept me from breaking apart. The letter smelled of paper and ink, but in my heart it was her — her touch, her breath against my cheek, her laughter woven through the summer air.
The wind stirred the canopy above, branches sighing like they carried the grief I couldn't voice. Their rustling steadied me, not enough to heal but enough to keep me from splintering completely. With trembling hands, I forced my fingers to loosen, smoothing the crumpled page open again.
My chest ached as my eyes caught the shape of her handwriting. Each curve and stroke felt alive, as if she'd poured pieces of herself into the ink. I drank them in greedily, terrified and desperate, because a part of me feared this letter might be all I would ever have left of her.
She teased me, too, in her way —
How do bears like their sandwiches?
With lots of honey!
She said that I had better be studying and not brooding in the woods like some tragic figure. My laugh came out broken, but it was a laugh all the same.
At the bottom, her words grew smaller, almost hesitant.
Write back. Promise me you'll write back. I don't want to lose this — lose us — to silence.
My hands shook as I folded the letter carefully, as though it might shatter if I held it too hard. She hadn't written love, not yet. Neither of us had. But it pulsed between every word, undeniable.
I lay back on the blanket, staring up at the canopy above, the sunlight breaking through in golden shards. My father's rage, his deals and schemes, the whole world felt far away. All I had in that moment was her voice, carried across the page, steadying me the way the North Star steadies sailors.
"I'll write," I whispered into the leaves, as if she could hear me. "Every week; every day, even. You'll never lose me."
The letter crinkled against my chest, my lifeline.
For the first time since she left, I didn't feel hollow. I felt tethered. And no matter what storms my father raged, no matter how far Emma was forced to go, I had her words.
I had her.