PART 2 — THE BOX
I stood frozen in my living room, staring at the old cardboard box Thomas’s lawyer had placed on my table.
“What is this?” I whispered.
The lawyer, Mr. Bennett, didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he pulled out a chair and sat down.
“Thomas instructed me to give you this box personally, but only after his funeral.”
My hands trembled.
“Why?”
“Because he knew you would never accept the truth while he was alive.”
I slowly opened the box.
The first thing I saw was an old photograph.
Thomas and I were seventeen.
We were standing outside the little diner where we’d spent so many evenings together.
I smiled when I saw it.
Then I noticed the envelope underneath.
My name was written across it in Thomas’s handwriting.
To the woman I never stopped loving.
I opened it.
My eyes immediately filled with tears.
My sweetheart,
If you’re reading this, then I’ve finally run out of time.
I know you probably think our marriage was simply my final wish.
It wasn’t.
I married you because I needed to make sure the truth finally reached you.
And because I needed to know whether the girl I loved at seventeen was still somewhere inside the woman standing beside my hospital bed.
She was.
I stopped reading.
“What truth?”
Mr. Bennett looked at me.
“Keep going.”
I continued.
You always believed I stayed here because I didn’t want to leave my hometown.
That’s not what happened.
I was preparing to leave with you.
I had already bought my ticket.
But the night before I was supposed to tell you, someone came to my house.
Someone who convinced me that leaving would destroy your life.
My heart stopped.
I looked at the lawyer.
“Who?”
He didn’t answer.
I looked back at the letter.
I was told that if I followed you, your family would lose everything.
I was told your father would be ruined.
I believed it.
I was seventeen, frightened, and stupid.
So I let you walk away believing I didn’t love you enough.
Tears rolled down my cheeks.
For fifty-six years, I had believed Thomas had simply chosen his life over me.
Now I discovered that wasn’t true.
I turned the page.
And the next sentence made my hands go numb.
The person who stopped me from following you was someone you trusted.
PART 3 — THE SECRET
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