Love, Utley (Love Letters #1)

For a long time— for too long— I thought about Hannah. I told myself I’d hear from her.

We never exchanged numbers during the week we knew each other, but she knew where I lived. She had to have. Everyone knew where I lived.

And even after that year, when I graduated and got drafted, she could’ve found me. It’s not like my life was a secret. I was one of the highest-paid defensive tackles in the league. I’ve been on magazine covers. On talk shows and news shows and at celebrity events.

If she wanted to, she could have found me in seconds.

There were a few times over the years, a few nights when I was feeling especially lonely, that I’d search her name.

But she didn’t have any social media, or at least none that I could find. And even though my buddy, Nate Waller, went into the tech business, I could never bring myself to ask him to look.

He would’ve done it if I asked. He knew how much her leaving fucked with my head.

But if he found her, and I know he could’ve found her, then what?

I just show up on her doorstep?

Beg her for answers?

What if she’d been married?

I stare at her name on the paper.

Still Utley.

Hopefully that means she’s single. Or at least not married.

Just like I never got married.

It’s not like I stayed celibate all these years. But I did make a point to only date women who didn’t remind me of her.

Which, now that I think about it, probably saved me from marriage. Because no matter how much Hannah shredded my young heart by disappearing like that. A part of me always recognized that she was exactly the type of woman I’d want to spend my life with.

Not that any of that matters anymore.

Because when Hannah looked at me today, she looked at me like she didn’t even know me.

EIGHT

HANNAH

“Good night,” I call back to Mom and Chelsea.

They’re going to stay up and watch another episode, or more likely three, of the new makeup artist reality show they found. It’s entertaining, but unlike the two of them, I have an alarm going off in the morning.

Between the dining area and the kitchen is the staircase leading upstairs, but I take the short hallway next to it and head toward the back of the house.

My bedroom is the only one on the main level, across from one of the two bathrooms. The first and third generations of the family have bedrooms upstairs, sharing the other larger bathroom.

The floorboards, a light wood that is original to the house, creak beneath my feet.

I pass our little laundry room, and then on my left is the bathroom, and on the right is my bedroom.

It’s a small room, but it’s a corner room, so I have one window overlooking the side yard and one to the back yard, giving me lots of light when I happen to be home during the day and want to hide away with a book.

The space was actually meant to be a study, not a bedroom, so the entire wall that the door is on is covered with built-in bookshelves.

I step into my room and shut the door, and as always, it feels like I’m walking into my own personal library.