Love, Utley (Love Letters #1)

Only one shoulder goes up this time. “I said something foolish about how much our time had meant to me.” Foolish. It wouldn’t have been foolish. “And I wrote down my number.” The blow hits. I knew it was coming, that she would have included it, but to hear her say it… “I said something about how I know long distance sucks, but that I’d like to talk to you again. Maybe read together.” She whispers the last sentence.

I take a step back.

She wanted to read to me over the phone. Like she’d done that night.

“And then I never called.” I feel like I’m breaking my own heart.

Hannah gives me another one of those fucking shrugs. “I get it.”

“No.” I shake my head. “No, there’s nothing to get. I didn’t— Hannah, I never got that letter. If I did, I would’ve called.”

“Okay.” She says it like she doesn’t believe me.

“I would have.” I run my hand through my hair. “I don’t know what happened to it, but I never got it. You have to believe me.”

Hannah is biting her lip, but she nods.

An intense sense of loss fills me, and I fucking hate it. There’s so much time we could have had together, but instead, we lost it all.

“Why didn’t you write to me again?” My voice sounds different from a moment ago. “You knew where I lived.”

She huffs out a broken laugh. “Because writing that letter once was hard enough. And because I didn’t want to be the desperate hookup begging for attention from hours away.”

I grit my teeth. “You weren’t just a hookup. You have to know that.”

“How?” She lifts and drops her hands again. “How was I supposed to know that, Maddox? As far as I knew, I left you a letter telling you how I felt, and you ignored it.”

I clench my fists. “That’s not what happened.”

“I believe you, okay? I believe you never got the letter, but at the time, I didn’t know that. And it hurt.” Her voice cracks. “I figured you didn’t care.”

“I cared a lot.” I take a step closer.

Hannah stops me with her next question. “Did you go to the library looking for me?”

My mouth opens, but I don’t want to answer.

Because I didn’t.

FORTY-FIVE

HANNAH

I can see it on his face.

He didn’t go to the library.

I believe him about everything else. I do. But I believe that too.

“You weren’t going to meet me that night.” My heart sinks as I say it.

None of this even matters.

He never tried looking for me.

It would’ve been over anyway.

“I was going to.” He grits the words, frustrated.