“Please…” She pauses and swallows hard. “Just read it.”
I peel it open and pull out a folded piece of paper.
I look at her as I unfold it, but her eyes never leave the sheet of paper.
When I move my gaze down to the letter, to the words written on the paper, to the signature at the bottom, my heart clenches inside my chest. “H-how did you get this?”
Tears are in her eyes, and I’m so fucking confused.
These are my words. The very personal, heartfelt words I wrote right before my surgery. The words I wrote to my donor’s family. The very words that didn’t feel good enough. This is the first time I’m actually seeing them with my own eyes, but these words are ones I can never forget. They are forever engraved inside of my mind.
“Indy?” I ask. “Why do you have this?”
“I went to see Adam’s family.”
“Okay…”
I look down at the letter again, and my eyes latch on to my signature.
My Eternal Gratitude.
AB
“His mother wanted to show me the two letters she’d received from the recipients of Adam’s organ donations,” she whispers and her voice cracks. “One letter from a thirty-year-old woman who received his heart and…this.”
This. Mine.
I glance down at the letter and then back at Indy.
Tears stream down her cheeks in steady waves, and I’m too fucking shocked to react to anything.
Her fiancé was my donor.
Her fiancé was my donor.
Her fiancé was my donor.
Over and over again, my mind gets stuck on that one reality.
Oh my god.
Because of her fiancé dying four years ago, I gained my sight back.
His death, his eyes, they gave me my life back.
And, in an instant, everything makes sense.
Why I couldn’t stop seeing her.
Why I painted her.
“God, Indy,” I whisper her name like a prayer. “I don’t know what to say.”
Because I don’t. It’s too much to wrap my head around. It feels like some kind of cosmic joke. Like the stars aligned just to fuck with me.
I am in love with her, so damn deep in love with this woman, yet I can’t shake this feeling that I am a part of her pain. I know I didn’t have a role in Adam’s death, but I feel accountable for the agony that’s sliding down her cheeks right now.
“I’m so sorry, Ansel,” she says through another onslaught of tears. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
Sorry? Why is she sorry?
I try to stare deep into her eyes and search for answers, search for what she is thinking and feeling, but she keeps averting her eyes from mine.
Fuck, can she even look at me now without thinking of him? Without it causing her pain?
I see her drawn, defeated shoulders painting a picture of her heart. And in her blue eyes, I see her mind has built new walls with her so lonely, so sad on the other side.
I want to remove those walls, brick by fucking brick, but I know I can’t.
Not when I’m the cause.
“This is so hard,” she whispers. Tears flow unchecked down her cheeks and drip from her chin. She’s too sad to cry out or wail, and she just stands there, still as a statue, while the magnitude of her hurt sweeps over her.
This is so hard. She is in pain right now, and it’s because of me.
My heart feels like it falls out of my fucking chest and onto the floor. I look away, and then I look at her again.
“I’m so sorry, Ansel.” A sob spills from her throat, and she lifts up her hand and swipes the tears away from her cheeks. “I don’t know what to say. It’s just too overwhelming. Too hard. I can’t…”
Too overwhelming. Too hard.
The walls of her apartment are closing in around me, and my heart is pounding so loud in my ears, I can’t hear anything else.
It doesn’t matter how much I love her. Knowing I’m carrying a part of her dead fiancé with me is too hard.
I have to get away from here.
Her tears, her pain, the photograph, the fucking letter… It’s all too much.
I can’t, she said.
“I’m sorry, Indy,” I whisper and set the letter and the photograph on the kitchen counter. “I’m just…so fucking sorry.”
Next thing I know, my feet are moving toward her door.
And I’m opening her door and moving down the hall and to the stairs.
Then, I’m outside. And my feet are pounding against the pavement and my heart is beating so loud it might have actually invaded my skull, and I can’t do anything but keep walking.
When my phone starts ringing in my pocket, I turn the fucker off.
And instead of taking the subway, I hail a cab because I just need to get out of here.
Away from Brooklyn.
Away from the girl who can’t look at me anymore without it causing her pain.
Indy
Before I know it, before I can process what’s happening, the letter and photograph are back on my kitchen counter and my front door is closing.