The Best of Winter Renshaw - An 8 Book Collection - Winter Renshaw Page 0,146

mail taking a good week or two to be delivered, it could be next month before she gets anything. I tried to get her to exchange emails, telling her it’d be quicker that way, more convenient and efficient, but she wanted paper letters.

She said emails weren’t the same, that she wanted something she could hold in her hands.

Pressing my pen against the paper, I try for the thirteenth time, first scribbling the date, then her name and some generic bullshit line that sounds way too formal.

Ripping the paper off the pad, I crinkle it in my hands.

Fourteenth time’s going to have to be a charm.

I have work to do and I can’t sit here penning letters like some teenage girl lying on her bed listening to the latest Ed Sheeran album.

Putting ink to paper, I manage to come up with a letter that doesn’t actually suck, and when I finish, I fold it into thirds and slide it into an envelope, ignoring the fact that my heart is racing a little bit more than it should.

I tell myself she means nothing, that this stupid letter exchanging thing means nothing, and then I get back to work.

Fifteen

Maritza

* * *

“There’s some weird letter on the table for you,” Melrose says when I get back from work. “It’s got foreign-looking stamps on it or something.”

My breath catches and the ache in my feet from running around for the last eight hours suddenly subsides. He left three weeks ago. And while I didn’t expect to hear from him immediately for rational and logistical reasons, I didn’t think it’d take nearly this long.

Rifling through the stack of mail on the kitchen table, I find a yellow envelope with my name on it. The return address is an APO. Ripping the side of the envelope, I let his letter slide out, landing in the palm of my hand, and I head back to my room, spreading out on my bed as I unfold it.

* * *

Maritza,

I’m here. I made it.

Sorry to keep you waiting. It’s been busy around here, but mostly I’ve been settling in, prepping for missions, and keeping my guys from getting out of line.

I wish I had something more exciting to share with you, but there’s nothing exciting about where I am. It’s hot and dry and sometimes it’s too loud and other times it’s too quiet.

Anyway, I told you I suck at writing letters.

Hope you’re doing well back home.

Regards,

Corporal Isaiah Torres

P.S. Send pancakes.

“He finally wrote you?” I glance up to find Melrose leaning in my doorway, arms crossed and a mischievous smirk on her heart-shaped face. “What’d he say?”

She saunters to my bed, taking the spot beside me, and I clutch his letter to my chest.

“His letters are not your personal entertainment,” I tell her. Out of respect, I’m not going to share them with anyone. His letters are for me only, even if they’re boring or ridiculously formal.

“Whatevs. Be lame like that.” Melrose gives me a thumbs’ down before standing. “Anyway, about damn time he wrote you a letter. I was beginning to think he was just telling you what you wanted to hear.”

“He deserves the benefit of the doubt,” I tell her.

Ever since I wrongfully assumed he was casting me off the day his mother was sick, I’ve felt horrible. From what I can tell, Isaiah seems to be a man of his word, and until I have verifiable proof that he isn’t, I’ve promised myself to give him the full benefit of the doubt.

“Plus, it takes weeks for these letters to go back and forth,” I say. “They’re routed to army post offices and then sorted and it’s this whole process.”

“I don’t get why you two just didn’t exchange email addresses. Instant gratification is the way of the world. Join us.”

“When was the last time you got something in the mail that wasn’t a bill or a flyer for a pizza place or a box of beauty product samples?” I ask. “This might be the only time in my life I’ll be able to get actual letters from an actual person. Anyway, he suggested the email thing, but I thought it might be nice for him to have something tangible too.”

“How romantic.”

I roll my eyes. “There’s nothing romantic about a couple of friends exchanging letters. Stop trying to make it into something it’s not.”

“But you like him.”

“Right. He’s a nice person.”

She laughs. “No, you like him.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be? An audition or an acting class or something?”

“That’s