That mattered more than I expected. So I accompanied him. We drove in silence, the road stretching out in front of us while everything between us stayed unspoken.
I realized I wasn’t accompanying Nathan for comfort; I was accompanying him because I needed to understand what I had walked into. We stopped at a cemetery. Nathan stepped out first, walking ahead while I followed a few steps behind.
The cool night air brushed against my skin and made me shiver. A few steps in, my eyes landed on two graves side by side, different names carved into stone, the years marking their endings spaced apart, but somehow still connected. Nathan stood there for a long moment before speaking.
I stood still. “I laid them to rest with things I never said,” he added. For the first time, I saw that what Nathan carried wasn’t just fear; it was regret that had never found a place to rest.
“My first wife was sick for a long time,” he revealed. “I kept thinking there would be more time, so I didn’t say the things that mattered.” He looked down briefly. “I told myself I was protecting her.”
I shook my head slowly.
“She didn’t need protection like that… she needed you to be honest with her.”
“My second wife…” Nathan continued. “I didn’t get the chance at all.” He looked at me then. “Those letters are everything I didn’t say when I could have.”
I let out a small breath.
He nodded. Then he added quietly, “But it’s the only way I knew how to stop wasting time.”
For a moment, I understood where it came from, even if I couldn’t accept what it was doing to us. “Then stop writing endings for me,” I said.
Nathan looked at me. “If you’re so afraid of losing time, then stop living like it’s already gone, Nathan,” my voice steadied as I spoke. “Because I won’t stay where I’m already being mourned.”
When I finished, I saw his eyes fill, and in that moment, I understood something clearly… I wasn’t the one slipping away in this relationship.
We drove back in silence, but it felt different now.
The house looked the same when we arrived. But I didn’t. The drawer was still open.
The other letters were still waiting. I picked one up and sat across from Nathan. He looked at me for a long moment, as if he were choosing something he hadn’t chosen before.
Then he stepped closer, not too close, just enough. “I don’t want to lose you, Mattie,” he said softly, “but I finally understand that I’ve been losing you already by loving you like you were about to go.”
I didn’t move. “I don’t need more time with you,” he added.
“I need to stop wasting the time I have. I can’t promise I won’t be afraid. But I can promise I won’t turn that fear into a future you’re forced to live in.
I want to be here with you… while you’re here with me. Not ahead of it. Not after it.
Just here.”
That landed somewhere deep. And for the first time, I believed Nathan was there with me, not somewhere ahead, and not bracing for something that hadn’t happened yet. I looked down at the unfolded letter in my hands.
And I understood something clearly. Nathan had been preparing to lose me before he ever let himself have me. But I wasn’t going to live like that.
