Page 384 of Face Off

I stop long enough to read the paragraph.

It is romantic enough for Charm to cry and honest enough that I don’t resent giving it to her.

I continue.

You told me you belong to yourself now.

Jane Eyre said, “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”

I once wanted you to choose me so desperately that I might have accepted the choice before you understood how to make it freely.

I don’t want that anymore.

I don’t want to become another net, even if mine is woven from devotion instead of control. I want the woman who owns herself to look at every road available and walk toward me because she has decided I am where she wants to go.

You are free, Charm.

I love that freedom even when it keeps you four hundred miles away from me.

When you return, I need to know the steps belong to you.

That is what will make them ours.

Austen gave Captain Wentworth the sentence I have avoided quoting because it feels too accurate to be impressive: “You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.”

The man was dramatic.

He was also right.

You have been both for me longer than I know how to explain.

You are the agony of understanding exactly how much loving someone can cost. You are also the hope that knowing the cost doesn’t always mean walking away.

I remain afraid of us.

I remain more afraid that fear could become the final thing we allow to decide our future.

I look toward the photographs.

They show hockey, Milwaukee, Briggs, and the body Charm has always reacted to with absolutely no dignity. They show the ordinary life continuing around all this distance.

I select the picture taken near the windows and turn it over.

Briggs and me. Milwaukee. Proof that surviving somewhere eventually turned it into home.

I add it to the stack before returning to the letter.

I included pictures because you have shown me your life through words while I have kept too much of mine contained inside these walls.

The team photograph was taken after camp started. The man behind me making an obscene gesture is Eastman. He claims it was accidental. It wasn’t.

Briggs took the picture of me tightening my skate. He also took the one where I am laughing, although neither of us remembers what he said.

The photograph near the windows is my favorite.

That is Milwaukee behind us.

For a long time, this city represented everything I lost. It was the place I came after you, the accusation, the surgery, and the realization that starting over doesn’t feel brave while it is happening.