Cora Carmack: Finding It

I picked up another letter.

This time, the sketch wasn’t of a beautiful sight or a grand city. It was four men in military fatigues. Their faces were detailed, realistic, alive. So either he sketched them from a picture or they were burned into his memory.

I remembered what he’d told me about his unit, and how he’d lost them, and I gave up trying to wipe away the tears that rolled down my cheeks.

I’m sorry I didn’t tell you more about me. That I didn’t open up. It’s just … I thought I lost all the parts of me that meant something when I lost these guys. They were family. That’s why I liked to jump off bridges and climb cliffs and do whatever other crazy stunt that could make me feel something. But even that had stopped working … until I met you. You made me feel more with a look than I felt jumping out of a plane. I felt more adrenaline from your touch than when I was moving into enemy territory or taking fire. I know how crazy I sound. I know how crazy this all is. And I’m probably doing it all wrong. But my only excuse is that I’m crazy about you. And life is not living unless I’m with you. You’re my adventure. The only one I want to have. So, if this doesn’t work, I’ll try something else. If the military taught me anything, it was to be persistent. To weather the storms. So, that’s what I’ll do.

I opened every letter.

My bedroom was a sea of paper, words with the depth of an ocean and sketches with all the power of the tide. When I had read them all, when the words had filled the empty spaces he’d left behind, I wrote a letter of my own and put it outside my door.

I SAT ON the swing, my heart hurdling back and forth even though I was still. What if he didn’t come? The letter disappeared while I was at work, so unless there was a mail thief in the neighborhood, he’d gotten it.

I’d given him directions to get here, but what if they weren’t good enough? Or what if I’d waited too long?

I squeezed the chain links of the swing until they imprinted on my palms. I ducked my head, and closed my eyes, trying to stay calm. This situation was mine to control. Nothing had to happen unless I said so. This was my choice.

“I’m glad you gave me directions. I’m afraid the picture wasn’t very … ah, informative.”

My head popped up, and Hunt was there, his tall frame blocking out the sun and casting me in shadow. It took a few long moments for me to focus, for me to do anything other than stare at him.

It sounds cliché, but I’d forgotten how gorgeous he was. I’d forgotten the way that smile was magnetic enough to pull the sun across the sky.

He was holding one of the pages from my letter, my attempt to sketch the playground where I’d set for us to meet.

I shrugged, the weight on my shoulders almost too heavy to lift.

“I’m not an artist,” I said. “Stick figures and squiggles were about the best I could do.”

His smiled widened, and his eyes skipped across my face like he couldn’t quite believe I was there.

“I like the stick figures. I’m guessing the tall one is me?”

God, he couldn’t even tell which one was the girl. How embarrassing.

I didn’t know what to say. I’d called this meeting. I should be the one to say something, the one to take control. But when I looked at him, my mind was full with all the things that had happened and all the things that hadn’t. And he looked at me like a man that had been starved. Of food and light and attention and everything.

“Have you been here before?” he asked.

I cleared my throat. “Not the playground, but I come to the park sometimes. It’s nice. Relaxing.”

Silence settled again, loud and uncomfortable.

I said, “I read your letters,” at the same time that he said, “I’m sorry.”

“You did?” he said. “I’m sorry if I went overboard. In my defense, the whole classroom thing was Carlos’s idea.”

Of course. Carlos wasn’t just a messenger. My favorite student was a co-conspirator.

“No.” I cleared my throat again. My mouth was dry, and words kept tangling on my tongue. “The letters were … good. I mean, excessive, yes. But they were good.”

His hands were shoved into his pockets, and I could see the way his firsts were clenched tight beneath the fabric.

“You hurt me,” I said.

His expression contorted, pain and shame written in his features.

“I know.” His voice was thick, deep. “The biggest mistake I’ve ever made. And I’ve made a lot.”

I didn’t know what the right answer was here. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.

My heart and every romantic comedy ever made told me I was supposed to leap into his arms and forget it all ever happened.

My head told me to run. To close myself off. To never let him close, never let anyone close.

And me … the me that was neither my head, nor my heart, but something else … it told me that there was no right answer. Forgiving him would be hard and painful, but so would living without him. I didn’t know if I could ever trust him again. But I knew I wanted to.

I wanted to be able to leap into his arms, and believe that he would catch me. I wanted the confidence I’d had when we toppled over the side of that bridge in Prague.

I said, “What I felt for you”—he stood up straighter, and I watched his mouth purse and straighten, riddled with tension—“it’s never been like that. Not with anyone. But you have to understand, my whole life was built on lies. And I’d felt that way for you because you were the one thing that felt true. Real .”

I didn’t know how to make it work, how to make it hurt less. All I knew was that I was done living out of fear. Afraid of everything. Of growing up and growing old. Of living and of love.

I was happy here in Madrid. It was a different kind of happy than what I’d been with Hunt, less incendiary, but it was stable. It didn’t burn me up, but it filled some of the empty spaces.

I looked into his gray eyes. I could forget a hundred things looking into his eyes, but could I forget this? He must have seen my walls weakening, because slowly, he approached me. He knelt before me on the swing, and ever so slowly, his hand touched my cheek.

“Every day. I will prove every day how much you mean to me. How real this is. You told me once that history matters, but it’s frozen, set in stone. This is part of our history. I can’t change it or undo it. But it doesn’t have to dictate our future.”

Our future.

Those two simple words hooked into my heart, and it felt almost like we’d never been apart. Like I’d just been sleeping.

I’d known I wanted to see him when I came here today, and I had thought about the possibility of us being together, but I hadn’t honestly known if I could handle it.

But now, I was making the decision. I could .

Because every time, every single time, I would choose our future over my future. Because in my wildest imagination, I couldn’t imagine how the best future without him could even compare to the worst future with him. Because even though the life I’d made here in Madrid filled the empty spaces, I didn’t burn without him. Of all the things I’d wanted in life—the places I wanted to see and the things I want to accomplish—the thing I’d always wanted most was to be the kind of person that burned .

I leaned into his hand, and said, “Jackson?”

His breaths were shallow, and I could imagine the way his heart was beating. As fast as mine, I guessed.

“Yes?”

“Do I have another dare left?”

His lips pulled into a smile, the faintest dimple showing in one cheek.

“You can have as many dares as you want.”