Page 76 of Returned Mail

I laugh under my breath.

Mia,

I told them you're my accountant. I don't know why. It was the first thing that came out of my mouth.

They don't believe me.

No one believes me.

…

You're ridiculous.

Why would I be your accountant?

This keeps getting messier.

I should fold the letter, put it away, and decide whatever this is needs to end. Because we have a ten-year age gap, which might sound like nothing, but in the line of work I’m in, I’ve seen things most people her age wouldn’t dare even imagine. Also, because I’m lonely, and she is lonely. And lonely people can turn kindness into something it isn't if they aren't careful.

I know that.

Mack is watching me. I can sense him. “You're really committed to tax season.”

“Fuck off.”

This should stop, I’m sure of it, except the way I wait for mail says I'm already losing that fight.

The next letter from Mia changes something in me, something in what we have been building. Are we building something here?

I wish I could see what you see.

It feels strange to have pieces of your world without the picture.

Like listening to a movie with the screen turned off.

There are rules about what we can send. Rules about what we can show. I can't give her the base, or places nearby, any detail whatsoever, nothing that could put people at risk.

But I can give her something.

The idea gets stuck in my head and stays there all day. Through breakfast, through a gear check, through Mack giving me shit for being distracted.

That night, I find a cheap instant camera in a pile of random stuff near the resupply table. Someone ordered it months ago and forgot about it. Or traded it. Or lost interest. I ask around, and nobody claims it. So I buy it off the guy for twenty bucks.

“You got robbed,” Mack says.

“Probably.”

“What are you taking pictures of?”

“None of your business.”

He grins slowly. “Oh.”

“No.”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Don't.”