Done Adulting Vol. 1 Ch. 53

Dearest Jamie,

I’ve tried to think of all the reasons you haven’t written me in so long, and the reason I want to accept as the truth is every moment brings you so much happiness your hand cannot hold a pen. I want to believe that. We’re so far apart. I want to believe so many things, at least as many as I fear.

I received the report from Marsha’s home visit, and what relief it was to see she found you safe and loved and loving in turn. I needed to know that. Becky and Amanda seem to understand you, or at least be coming to it, no easy feat as I know.

Every day I still think on you. I don’t think you realize the light of soft joy you bring to those you let in. It’s not the ecstatic kind, which never lasts, but a deeper hue of fulfillment in having gained the trust of someone worth counting as a friend and more.

I’ve kept my promise. I take the names from where I keep them and read them. It’s like a prayer, I suppose. I’m not sure who I’m praying for when I read those names. Them; you; me; this whole world and all its broken hearts. I say your name too.

Are you using my gifts? Have you given your bear a name yet? A token of my love for you; it doesn’t seem much now, but I hope it gives you some comfort.

I know it is not over, the time of change in your life when you are trying so hard to come to terms with a new world and yourself in it, nor is it likely to end for some time more. I loathe to interrupt what progress you’ve made and how I may set it back seeing you or even writing this letter. But much longer without you, and name me for a liar, Jamie, and know me for one too. So I am keeping my other promise and planning to visit as soon as I can.

Do you have a soft word for me? Give me leave to hope for that at least.

Your forever friend,

Cheryl

She hesitated before dropping the letter in the outbox. Was it right of her to tell him anything but good things? What right did she have to spoil whatever happiness he’d managed to carve out by making him worry about her? Guilt trip him into writing more often? She decided to sleep on it and put the letter back in her desk.