Her phone rang... And rang... And rang...Why aren't you answering?...
Please, Remy, just pick up the phone...
God, I wish you knew how much I missed you...
Why didn't you write?...
F*ck...
My world is collapsing... I thought when I got back, things would be different... She'd call, at least, after a year... She promised to write every day... And I haven't gotten one fucking letter...
Anger, sadness, and fear welled up within him. He couldn't lose her. Not now...I can't let you go...
He looked down at the coffee table at all the letters Remy had writtten him before he'd left for Camden. He'd been there for a year as a Missionary. It had been a miserable year, only because Remy had promised to write him a letter for every day he was gone. She promised 365 letters, all folded into hearts, just like the ones on his coffee table. He stared at them wordlessly, only breaking his gaze when he younger brother Mark entered the room.
"Hey! You've reached Remy's voicemail. Sorry I couldn't make it to the phone. Please leave your name and number, and I'll get back to you!"
Aiden dejectedly hung up his phone, tossed it into a nearby chair, and sank down onto his living room couch. He put his head into his shaking hands and breathed a deep, shuddering sigh.
Not when it meant so much.
"...She's still not answering?" Mark asked gently, practically walking on his tip-toes, as not to disturb his brother's train of thought. Aiden shook his head silently, and faced the letters again. His eye's were glassy, and his breathing slow and thoughtful.
Mark carefully and silently took a seat beside him on the couch, and followed his gaze to the hundreds of hearts that lay untouched on the table. Some looked as though he'd opened them and folded them closed so many tmes that they were about to rip at their seams... Aiden had been reading and rereading them for days. With each new dawn, Aiden sank further and further into his depression, as Remy seemingly ignored every last phone call...
"...I was going to ask her to marry me..." Aiden said quietly, almost to himself. Almost as if the thought had just barely escaped his lips. He continued to stare blankly, and he recalled how he'd panned it. A laugh escaped his lips now, bitterly thinking that it was all for nothing...
"...So, you're not anymore?"
"...It looks like she doesn't even want to talk to me, much less marry me... I've left a dozen messages... Written a hundred letters... She must've... Moved on." Aiden said, in a slow manner. As If he was piecing it together just as he said it. He looked down at his socks, and ran his hands through his long, dark hair.
"That's bullshit." Mark said flatly, putting his feet up on the coffee table, shuffling Remy's letters, and leaning back into the couch lazily. "If she would've moved on, she wouldn't have called me so many times, asking how you were. She wouldn't have sent us Christmas cards, or wished Mom and Dad a happy anniversary two weeks ago. She's crazy about you. She's just afraid...."
"Afraid of what?"
Mark dropped his feet back to the floor, and leaned forward to look at his feet, elbows on knees, just like his brother. He took a deep sigh and gently began, "...You know how she always joked with you, telling you that you'd go over to Camden, fall in love with some other girl, and you'd forget all about her?"
Aiden turned his head to frown inquisitively at Mark, and Mark, feeling his gaze, turned his head to lock eyes with Aiden. Of course Aiden remembered. He remembered vividly. Remy must've made that stupid joke every day... But, that's all he thought it was. A joke...
"She called me crying one night, saying you'd written about some girl in your letter... I can't remember her name... Rem was so afraid you'd forget about her... Maybe she just thought it was easier to forget about you before you forgot about her." Mark said, slowly.
Aiden's stomach turned and fear gripped his heart. How could Remy not know how much he loved her? How could a fear, so unfounded, cause her to break off all connection she had with him?
He silently decided he couldn't let her think that way a moment longer. He stood, grabbed his coat, and left the house without a word. Mark, who had been watching his exit, turned back to look at the piles of letters and stared at them with a mild sense of bewilderment. He could vaguely recall one incident where Aiden had told him Remy hadn't sent him a single letter. When Mark asked Remy about the lack of letters, Remy had said, in an airy sort of way, "Oh, Don't worry. He'll get them."
Aiden gripped the wheel of his car. He gripped it so tightly, his knuckles began their slow transition from tan to white.
He'd been sitting outside Remy's apartment for almost an hour. He wasn't sure what he should've done. Should he have walked up to her apartment, number 18, knocked on the door and demanded she speak to him? Would she be happy? Would she be sad? Would she be there with someone else? Was she even home? It seemed those questions and millions more buzzed through his head, making it impossible to think clearly.
A car, compact and blue, rolled into the lot and parked several spaces away. A man, tall, blonde, probably Aiden's age, emerged from the car. He looked unfamiliar, Aiden thought, thankful for the distraction.
Must be a new neighbor or something...
The stranger locked his car and made his way up the staircase to the second floor. He made his way past apartment 11... 12... 13...
14...
15...
16...What the fuck...?
17...
He stopped outside apartment 18 and shoved a key into the door knob, opened the door, and closed it behind him as he entered. Aiden's hands tightened even more, to the point where he felt the steering wheel may break between his fingers.
How... How could she do this to me?...
What the fuck ever happened to 'I'll wait for you'?!
Aiden continued to stare at the door to her apartment, his mind beginning to wander. He looked fairly home-y. How long had he been staying there? Did this guy know Remy had a boyfriend? Were they sleeping together?
Aiden's heart raced, and blood boiled at the thought. What was Remy, his smart, beautiful girlfriend of two and a half years, doing in her apartment alone with this stranger? His heart pounded as terrible mental pictures, provoked by fear and anger, flashed through his mind. He shook himself of the thoughts and lay his head on the steering wheel. He had to know what was going on. He had to know if Remy still loved him.
He had to.
Aiden suddenly and forcefully opened the door, stepped out and slammed the door behind him. He walked quickly with a sense of determination across the lot, up the stairs and past apartment 11... 12... 13...
14...
15...
16...
17...
He stopped and faced the door that read '18' in gold numbers, took a deep breath and paced himself for what he may or may not find behind this door. All the negative possibilities seem to flash through his head once again, his anger welling within him, almost rendering him senseless. He pounded on the door. He knocked so many times so forcefully his hand turned red and began to throb.
The door opened a crack, and a pair of bright blue eyes peered out at him from behind a chain. Before Aiden even had a chance to react, the door closed. The sound of locked clicking and chains unbolting could be heard, and then the door opened fully.
Aiden reacted quickly this time. He grabbed the front of the stranger's shirt and forced him up against the nearest wall, anger blinding him to his exact placement in the apartment, and anything or anyone else that may have been there.
"WHERE THE F*CK IS MY GIRL FRIEND!?" Aiden roared, grasping the stranger's shirt collar tightly and jerking him around as he pleased. The stranger began to stutter nervously.
"W-What- I-I D-Don't–"
"YOU BETTER TELL WHERE SHE IS, YOU F*CKING PIECE OF SH*T!" Aiden jerked the stranger forward to where their noses were almost touching and said, darkly, "Are you sleeping with her?... Huh?..." He gave the stranger a forceful shake, and he let out a whimper of fear.
"...Did she mention her boyfriend?... DID SHE F*CKING MENTION ME?!" Aiden threw him backwards, his head slamming into the wall.
The stranger let out a help of anguish and cried out, "I'm not sleeping with her, Aiden!" Aiden paused momentarily, trying to remember if he had told this man his name.
"I'm her cousin, dude!"
Aiden's hands relaxed slightly.
"I'm her cousin..." He sobbed, bringing his hand up to clutch his aching head.
Aiden let his hands fall from the stranger. He took a moment to recollect himself and realized he was shaking and breathing sharply. Aiden looked a little more closely at the man he had assaulted. The stranger was tall, and had the same blonde hair and blue eyes that Remy did. It was fairly easy to tell, now that Aiden saw him more closely, that he and Remy were related.
"I'm... I'm so sorry, man... I just–"
Aiden stopped as Remy's cousin started for the kitchen, still holding his head in pain.
Aiden followed him along the familiar path into the kitchen, glancing around the apartment as he went. He noticed all the essentials for moving were strewn about. Boxes, packing tape, bubble wrap, etc. Pictures were removed from the walls, wrapped neatly in newspaper and bubble wrap and stacked next to an open box. In the kitchen, nearly all the cabinets were open, and the shelves bare, all it's inhabitants placed in boxes on the counter labeled 'Kitchen Stuff'.
Remy's cousin opened the freezer door, grabbed an ice pack, and gratefully sank into a chair at the kitchen table as he placed it to his head. He looked down at his shirt front, which had been stretched so badly the shirt didn't fit properly anymore. Aiden tried once more to apologize to him, be he cut Aiden off.
"Save your breath. I should've known you'd be here sometime soon, and Remy warned me you might make a stupid assumption. That's why she was originally going to ask my sister to do it, but, she fell through. She's a bridesmaid for her friend's wedding in Hawaii... Lucky bitch..."
Aiden impatiently sat down and leaned forward. He didn't want to her this guy's life story, or about his sister's vacation. Aiden wanted to know where Remy was, why her apartment had been packed up, and why she wasn't returning his calls. But, he didn't think it was fair to attack him and not listen to what he had to say.
"... Anyway, my name is Luke. I'm Remy's cousin. She may have mentioned me. I'm the one from Arizona. It's freaking hot over there compared to–"
"No offense, Luke, but, I'm not here to talk about the weather." Aiden said, unable to bear it.
Luke nodded and gestured wildly with his free hand. "Right," He muttered "you wanna know where Remy is... I... I can't tell you. You know Remy. She's an oddball. Always has been. I remember once–" Luke stopped in the middle of his story, sensing Aiden's impatience.
"Long story short, she told me that all I am supposed to do is to..." Luke trailed off, and looked around the apartment, bewildered. He stood and walked off. Aiden, confused by his sudden departure, stayed seated, and watched him scuttle around the living room. Luke, still holding the ice-pack to his injury, wandered the apartment, looking among the plethora of boxes. Finally, he seemed to find the one he was looking for inside a larger box, and brought it into the kitchen.
The box was small, roughly the size of a box a toaster would come packaged in, only it had been painted bright yellow with a yellow lid. On the lid, a piece of white-lined paper had been taped, with the note 'Save For Aiden' in Remy's loopy handwriting.
Luke pushed it directly in front of Aiden and frowned, almost in a pitying way. "She said to give you that and, by the end, you'd know where she was." Luke looked at the floor, and amused himself tapping his foot. Aiden, anxious to know what was inside, used his silence as an excuse to leave. He picked up the box, muttered a 'thank-you' and hurried from the apartment.
Aiden drove to the river not far from Remy's apartment, a place they often went before he left for Camden. He parked and walked with the box to a secluded spot where he knew no one would disturb him. He sat down in a mossy area under a tree, and opened the box.
Inside were what must've been hundreds of letters, all folded into paper hearts. Aiden laughed inwardly with amazement. It was the letters she had promised. All 365 of them. And they were all numbered and dated in a lipstick red marker. It was all there. The day he left, #1, August 18th, 2009. Christmas. His Birthday. Their two-year anniversary. His eyes began to sting, and he wiped them on the back of his hand.
On the very top of the pile was a heart larger than all the rest, folded out of yellow paper. Aiden was written across it in red marker. He picked it up and carefully unfolded it:
"Dear Aiden,
Sweetie, I hope you can forgive me for not sending these directly to you... I know it must've been terrible to not know why I wasn't writing, or answering your calls. You have no idea how many times I almost picked up... How many times I addressed these letters and never sent them... It was the hardest decision of my life, but, I think I made the right choice... I wish I could explain it all to you right here, in one letter... But, then, that would eliminate the purpose of writing you all the others, now, wouldn't it? ;]
I want you to start at letter #1 and work your way to #365... And remember that I love you. More than anything.
Love,
Remy~"
Aiden frowned, confused. What choice? Explain what? There was only one way to find out. He picked up the letter titled '#1'.
He unfolded and the letter and read. It started out just like any other letter Remy had ever written him, with either 'Dear Aiden' or ' Aid-y' or 'Aids (Haha)' or any other silly nickname she could come up with. She talked about badly she would miss him, and how she knew this was going to be the hardest year of her life. And then he read it.
Cancer.
She said she had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
Aiden's stomach turned and a sickly taste filled his mouth. His eyes stung and he tried desperately to blink away the tears. He reread the words over and over again, looking for a fault. A misprint. It couldn't be real.
"I was diagnosed with Breast cancer. I didn't want to tell you because I knew how badly you wanted to go. How hard you worked to raise the money. I knew if I told you, you'd stay with me, and throw everything you worked for away. I couldn't take your dream from you... I'm so sorry."
Aiden cried out in anger and in sadness. Remy was facing the biggest struggle of her life, and he wasn't there for her. He should've been beside her through this ordeal... But he wasn't. He felt useless, and empty. Less than a man. Remy had needed him, and he wasn't there. He left her.
Remy, of course, knew he would react this way. She wrote paragraph after paragraph about how he shouldn't feel guilty. That it made her happy to help him complete something. To make his dream real. And that even though he hadn't been there, he had given her so much strength.
Nearly every letter made Aiden cry. After the first letter, Remy tried to make little mention of the treatments, or anything the doctor was telling her, or her visits to the hospital. She wrote silly antic dotes about her job, and her plants. Remy would ramble on and on for pages about what she felt life meant, and what happens in death. She'd ramble on for pages about how much she loved him. Her letters made him laugh. They made him want to punch people. They made him want to cry.
Letter #231 was tear stained. The ink from her pen was smudged. She had a particularly wonderful day that day. She had taken a walk in the park, gone to work in a class full of second graders, who had drawn her pictures and written her letters about how much they loved her. She had spent the afternoon with her family, just watching movies and making jokes about the past. Her writing was erratic as she had been distraught when she wrote it...
"I don't know why I didn't go in and get examined sooner... I knew there was something wrong, but I was so afraid of what it might be... If I hadn't ignored it for so long, maybe they would have a better chance of saving me. Maybe the treatments would be more effective... If I hadn't been so afraid, maybe my chances of living would be higher. My chances of seeing you again would be better... It feels like I'm already gone, when I've barely just arrived... I haven't lived, only existed."
Most of the letters from then on contained details of the adventures she had gone on. She bungee-jumped. She hiked. She climbed buildings. She got guitar lessons, and faced her fear of fish at an aquarium. She introduced herself to strangers, and gave fake names at Starbucks. And she told him how much she wished he could've been there with her for every last adventure. She mentioned nothing about her treatments. Every once in a while she'd throw in something about the Hospital, or a crazy nurse she met, but nothing about her treatment. No news of advancement or digression.
Finally, he was to letter #365, dated August 18th, 2010. He paused, realizing he was shaking. It was her last letter, and he knew that her fate was concealed within it. He wasn't sure if he wanted to know. He was too afraid.
He finally opened the letter with his shaking hands, and read from start to finish, avoiding the temptation to skip ahead.
"Aiden Brennan Larson~
It's finally here! You're flying back home today! It's been a long year, sweetie. I've missed you so much. :]
I feel like I've said everything that I need to. I love you. You shouldn't feel at all guilty for going on the mission. I was only existing until I found out I had Cancer... But, now, I've really lived... I only hope I get to see you one last time..."
Aiden's heart dropped into his stomach, and his eyes welled once more.
One last time.
No... This... This can't be it.
"As it turned out, the treatment was unsuccessful. The Cancer was in such a late stage when it was detected, that treatment was almost pointless, according to the doctor... Maybe I should've spent my last year troubling myself with going to the hospital so much. Maybe. But, I think it's okay. I think it made me a better person... Either way, I've learned a lot... Too late to worry about it now anyway, I guess, right? Haha. ;]
I asked Luke to live with me for a while, and take care of packing up all my stuff and getting the letters to you. If you're reading this, I guess he did the job right. :] Although, I am sorry you had to meet him... ;]
I love you so much, honey. And I know you love me, too. And I want you to do whatever makes you happy in life. Don't take a moment for granted... I won't forget you... I never have, even though it may have seemed like it at times... And, if we don't meet again, I'm sorry that you had to find out this way...
I'll be waiting for you to call and say you're home! You better call right when you land so I can come to meet you at your house! 7:00p.m.! ;]
Love,
Remy~"
Written on the bottom of the page, in a tidy, but unfamiliar script, was a short note.
"Remy died at 6:18p.m., August 18th, 2010, as she waited by the phone."