I’d found her another trailer closer to work, so she wouldn’t have to catch the bus. The actual trailer park was a million steps above this one, and it was clean and tidy, in a very nice area. It even had a maintenance crew come around to take care of the gardens. A lot of elderly people resided there, and it appeared a picture of health in comparison to this neglected shithole.

“How are you?” she asked me as I finally made it to her.

“Good,” I answered quietly. “You ready to go?”

I didn’t want small chat. I just wanted to get this done fast and make it to Marlena’s house.

“You don’t look so good,” Cheryl remarked. “Is this about that crash with your boy?”

I glanced up at her in surprise. “You heard about that?”

“Everyone’s been talking about it. Don’t you worry, though. I’m sure he’s okay. They found a survivor already. Pulled him out of the water. I bet you it’s him.”

I swallowed hard again. “Yeah, it is.”

“Things happen for a reason.”

“What kind of reason?” I felt silly asking for answers from her of all people.

“I don’t know. Make you learn to appreciate life more, I suppose.” She puffed out a cloud of smoke before throwing it on the ground and stomping it out. “One minute you’re livin’, and the next you’re not. That’s life.”

“Yeah…”

I helped carry a few boxes, and we loaded it up in the car. Then she took a seat and waited for me. I glanced around the trailer park, remembering at one time how lively it had been with kids. My gaze fell on an old, deflated basketball sitting in the middle of a plot of grass.

I used to love watching Carter play.

I used to love Carter, period.

I still do.

A tear escaped as I thought about our moments together. He was my soulmate, and I’d been trying so fucking hard to believe we lived in two different worlds. Our lives were different, sure, but that didn’t mean we weren’t the same people.

I turned to his old trailer, saw a different car parked than the truck his father had been driving. I saw the window I used to climb in, and let out a shaky breath.

I missed him.

I wanted him.

“Do you ever think it can be too late to fix something?” I asked Cheryl as I opened the car door, my eyes still on that trailer.

“If you don’t try, you’ll never know,” she answered.

*

Marlena and Harold were distraught, but they were happy to receive the news just the same. We cried, pondering the what-ifs, and I could feel Marlena’s penetrating gaze.

“You need to stop wasting any more time,” she told me right before I left. “Love’s painful, but it’s worth it.”

When I got home that night, Melanie got ready for work and left. She didn’t want to leave me alone at first, but I assured her I’d be fine. He was alive, that was what mattered. Had he not been…? Well, I’d have been crumbling.

I sat on the bed for a long while, drowning in the silence as I thought of my next step. Moving off the bed, I pulled out the shoebox and hastily removed the letters. I tore open the last one he’d sent me and with shaking hands, read it.

Letter number: 4

Attempts at warming your heart with my Carter charm: 4

Success rate: 0

Steam rating per letter: 0/10 (because somehow telling you of all the explicit fantasies I have of you may not be suitable in a love letter)

Lovey-Dovey rating: 10/10 (I’m desperate and pathetic)

I’m not sure if you’re even reading these. I’d be at your door right now if I knew it would work, but everyone’s telling me you’re healing. I don’t think that’s true. I think you’re just distracting yourself from the truth.

What we had was real.

What fucked it up was me.

I was scared of commitment because I was scared of getting hurt. I witnessed love in the poorest form, but it didn’t matter to me as a boy. I loved my mother, with everything inside of me. Despite her mental illness, I hoped she’d get better, and when life got too hard, she took the easy way out and left behind two broken people. That was the day I shut down.

My father died last week. He had a heart attack, and just thinking about the years we wasted away being angry, I’m sad that we never mended our relationship. We could have, had I not been so miserable and determined to block people out.

It got me thinking of things.

Pain is unavoidable. It comes in many different ways for many different reasons.

I needed you because you helped me forget. Being with you, having you open your body for me the way you did, was the most selfless act anyone has ever done for me. I took you, and each time I did, I grieved my loss and fell more and more in love with you.

And I pissed it away by having cold feet.

I pissed it away by not muttering the three fucking words that I’ve been wanting to mutter since the day I saw you.

I love you.

And I hate that I have to write that down on a piece of paper, but it might get through to you enough to realize I’m certain of what I want.

And I want you. I always will.

Time apart is time wasted.

Now, for the love of God, would you answer me already?!

Tear drops fell over his words and I let out a ragged breath.

I was a fool.

*

Rome: His arm’s broken. He’s going to stay in the hospital for a couple days while they monitor his concussion and prior loss of vision. All the rest of the damage is minimal.

I let out a relieved sigh.

They’d finally confirmed his identity in the news, and it made it all the more real knowing he was okay. The plane crash itself was still under investigation, with unconfirmed reports suggesting a bird strike had caused the engine to fail. But what was even rarer than that was that the Auxiliary power breaker failed too, and shit like that didn’t just happen.

It was meant to be, I guess. And I’m not the kind of person to believe in fate like I used to, but to me, it happened for a reason. The reason that brought me to this point in time.

“You’ll need to shut that off, Miss.”

I looked up from the phone and at the flight attendant’s polite smile.

Why was she smiling?

Didn’t she know about the freaking crash that’d just taken place at the damn destination we were off to? And then, all at once, it hit me. God, we were going to die. This plane was going to crash and I’d never get to tell Carter I was sorry. But then… maybe he’d know I’d come to say it because I’d jumped on a plane to see him. My death then wouldn’t be completely pointless, right?