Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Anyway, I kept finding myself wishing she were you, but then I remembered that you think I hate you and I’ve spent twenty years convincing myself that I hate you and that’s pretty messed up when I stop and think about it.
If I were a better man, I could apologize to you—face to face, not via postage stamp.
I’m stubborn as hell. That’s something you’ll probably figure out sooner than later if you haven’t already. It’s not something I’m proud of. Maybe it’s a Delacorte thing. I don’t know.
Anyway, even if you never know this, I’m putting it in writing—I’m sorry for being such a dick. Maybe someday I’ll apologize in person. Don’t hold your breath though.
Slade (age 23)
.
Campbell—
I just got home from our engagement party, I can’t stop thinking about you (in ways I’ve never thought about you before), and it’s fucking terrifying.
I think I might actually like you, Campbell, and I don’t know what to do with those feelings so they’re probably all going to come out wrong over the coming year.
The older I get, the more I’m realizing I self-sabotage.
I’m my own worst enemy.
And you just might be the best thing that’s ever happened to me—and you’ll never know because I’m too damn stubborn to admit it.
Slade (age 24)
30
Campbell
I close the journal and sit in the guest room in a daze as the morning light filters through the curtains and everything I thought I knew is tipped upside down. A million thoughts rush through my head, ugly, hopeful, and every color in between. Part of me wants to scream at him until I lose my voice, the other half of me wants to hug him.
But mostly, I’m furious.
31
Slade
The world never fails to fade away during my morning jogs. Today, however, is an exception. With each steady stride, I think about my wife. As the latest Huberman Lab podcast plays in my AirPods, I hear none of it. My thoughts are only on Campbell. She should be waking any moment, stumbling across the journal I slid under the guest room door last night after she’d gone to bed.
My watch beeps, indicating my heart rate has remained more elevated than normal during today’s run. I’ve never been an anxious person, but not knowing how she’s going to react when I get home isn’t doing me any favors.
I round the corner to my street, spotting my white, three-story abode in the distance with its row of matching palm trees swaying in the humid breeze and the iron gate standing tall at the end of the driveway. This place has always been my fortress of solitude, but it has never fully felt like home for reasons I could never put my finger on.
Now that Campbell’s living here full-time—and despite the fact that we’re not on speaking terms at the moment—there’s a warmth about that place that it never had before.
Trotting up the driveway, I stop at the front door to catch my breath and wipe the sweat from my brow before heading in.
The faint scent of Campbell’s usual breakfast order—oatmeal, coffee, and avocado toast—is missing from the air this morning, which means either she isn’t up yet or she read my letters and lost her appetite at my audacity.
My footsteps echo against the marble as I make my way into the silent house. Climbing the curved stairs, I head to my room to shower—only in passing, I notice the guest room door is wide open.
Peeking in, I find Campbell seated on the velvet chaise in the corner, the leather book closed in her lap. She’s half bent over, her elbow resting on her knee as she nibbles on her thumbnail.
I can’t read her to save my life.
“Hi,” I say.
Her arctic blues flick up and she straightens her posture.
“What is this?” she asks, her brows furrowed. “Another one of your sick little games?”
Before I can respond, she jumps up, the journal clutched hard against her chest.
“All these years, you gave me nothing but cold, calculated hate … and now you show me this?” She chucks the book at me, and I catch it.
“I wanted you to see it,” I say. “I thought you should know the truth.”
“That you lied to me all these years? That you were too prideful to admit it?” Her eyes are flashing wildly and her tone is incredulous as she storms closer. “Is this supposed to be redeeming? Do you want me to run into your arms and tell you it’s okay? That we can just start over? What? What were you hoping to accomplish here.”
She folds her arms tight, her pretty face cocked sideways and her messy hair falling in her face.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you these things before,” I say. My father always says the best apologies are succinct and to the point, so I resist the urge to explain beyond this. If she read the entries, that should give her more than enough insight into my motivations.