CHAPTER 2 "The Words Inside"

Sophia didn't move for a long time.

She just sat there on the cold hardwood floor, back against the old wardrobe, the unopened envelope resting in her lap like something fragile. Like something that could shatter if she breathed too hard.

The room had grown darker. The winter sun was setting early, painting the walls in shades of pale gold and shadow. She hadn't turned on any lights. She didn't want to break the strange stillness that had settled around her.

Finally, with careful fingers, she opened the envelope.

The letter inside was written on two pages of cream colored paper, slightly yellowed at the edges. The ink was dark blue — fountain pen, she guessed. The handwriting was the same as on the envelope. Controlled but emotional. Like someone trying very hard to stay calm while falling apart inside.

She began to read.

"Dear Margaret,

I have started this letter fourteen times. I have thrown away thirteen versions. This one I will keep — even if I never give it to you.

I don't know how to say what I feel without ruining everything we have. You are my closest friend. You are the person I look for in every crowded room. You are the reason February doesn't feel like the coldest month anymore.

But I am afraid.

I am afraid that if I tell you the truth, I will lose you completely. And losing you completely would be worse than never having you at all.

So I write this letter instead. These words will live in this paper, in this envelope, in whatever quiet corner of the world I hide them. And maybe that will be enough.

Maybe.

It is Valentine's Day today. Everyone around us is exchanging flowers and chocolates and sweet promises. And here I am, writing a letter I will never send, to a woman who probably doesn't know that she is the only thing I have ever been truly sure about.

Margaret. I love you.

I have loved you since the autumn afternoon you laughed at my terrible joke about the library books and didn't even realize how completely you undid me in that moment.

I love the way you fold the corners of pages even though you know it's wrong. I love the way you argue about poetry like it's a matter of life and death. I love that you cry at old films and pretend you have something in your eye.

I love you. And I am too much of a coward to say it to your face.

If you ever find this letter — then I suppose the universe decided you should know.

And if you never find it — then at least I said it once.

Yours, even if you never knew it,

Edward Cross"

Sophia read it twice.

Then a third time.

By the fourth time, her cheeks were wet and she hadn't even noticed when she'd started crying.

Edward Cross had loved her grandmother. Deeply. Completely. And Margaret had never known.

Or had she?

Sophia thought about her grandmother — warm, sharp, quietly sad sometimes in ways that young Sophia had never understood. She thought about how Margaret never spoke about romance, never mentioned old loves, always changed the subject when Sophia asked why she had never remarried after grandfather passed.

Had she known about Edward?

Had she felt the same?

Sophia carefully folded the letter and placed it back in the velvet. She stood up slowly, walked to the window and looked out at the dark Boston street below.

A couple walked past hand in hand, bundled in winter coats, laughing at something between themselves. Valentine's Day. The world was full of love tonight.

And in this old house, a love story had been buried under a floorboard for God knows how many decades.

Sophia looked at the name on the envelope again.

E. Cross.

Edward Cross.

Was he still alive? Did he have family somewhere in this city?

She pulled out her phone with one hand, the letter box held tightly in the other.

She didn't know where to start. She didn't know what she would find.

But something deep in her chest — something that felt strangely like her grandmother's voice — was telling her not to stop here.

"Find him, Sophia."

She opened her search browser and typed two words.

Edward Cross.

Then she held her breath and pressed search.