Free The Love Letter by Brenna Aubrey

I never expected to pull a mystery out of a self-addressed stamped envelope. One yellowed page removed from a novel. In my hand, it flapped in a sudden breeze that rose up that November morning. One page. Torn from a book. Something I’d never read before. At the time I couldn’t know that this page would change my life forever.
    My own spidery scrawl leapt up at me from the snowy paper of the envelope: Dr. Mark Hinton , followed by my post office box at the medical school. As a new doctor about to finish my residency, I had sent out a stack of SASEs to medical groups around the country who were looking for physicians in my specialty. Though I’d already accepted a position to practice with a prestigious local group, I’d been curious to know what was in the envelope. It was odd, though. I thought I’d got the last of them back months ago.
    The fragment came from pages 307 and 308 of some unidentified book. The top of the sheet had been torn so that I could not see the title of the work. I read it, front and back. The style of writing was old-fashioned, as if from a classic. I felt I should recognize it, but the fact was that I only did well enough in my undergraduate English courses to maintain my GPA for medical school.
    That’s how I’d met Justine. She’d been my English tutor. An unwanted memory invaded my thoughts—the slim arch of her neck as she bent over my term papers, shaking her head in mock horror and wielding her red pen like a scalpel. I could watch for hours the way she twirled a long strand of her honey-colored hair around one finger.
    Wind stung my eyes but I stood glued to the spot. I shook my head, determined to clear it of the bothersome thoughts, and concentrated on my surprising “fan mail.” Or a blackmail letter, maybe. In the movies, sometimes, threat letters were cut and pasted from magazine pages. Was this a kind of threat?
    In the text on the page, a gentleman had entered a room to leave a note for a lady named Anne. For some reason, they could not speak. I assumed it was because they weren’t alone.
    After this man—the captain—left, Anne found the letter to be a declaration of his love. Unjust I may have been, the captain wrote. Weak and resentful I have been but never inconstant.
    The wind intensified, sending needles of ice into my uncovered face. Fog billowed out from my mouth, as I was still breathing heavily from my run. I retreated to my apartment and threw the mail aside to listen to my phone messages while I stretched.
    For some crazy reason, instead of listening to my mom drone on about the plans for Thanksgiving at my sister’s, I kept thinking about lines from that mysterious page.
    I am half agony, half hope. The guy had it bad. I felt sorry for him. I offer myself again with a heart even more your own than when you broke it eight years and a half ago. Don’t do it, Bro. She’ll only squash it again. Like a grape.
    It was impossible for me not to think of Justine. I gritted my teeth, sinking into a series of challenging squats. I’d spent six years putting her out of my mind. I was proud of myself. I had succeeded. Until last summer.
    I finished my lunges and went to the kitchen of my studio, where windows overlooked the Denver skyline. The Rocky Mountains cut a jagged horizon in a partly cloudy sky that promised snow soon. I’d smelled it on the air during my run, heavy and wet.
    Downing a liter of water before coming up for air, I continued to puzzle over my mystery mail. I returned to the mail pile again, in search of more pages. Nothing. Postmark? Again, nothing. I’d had the self-addressed envelopes stamped POSTAGE PAID when I’d sent them out. There wasn’t even a mark of the city of origin. No clue as to who had sent it or why. Just one page. Torn from an old novel. And I didn’t even know which one.
    ***
    Hours later, I sat in my favorite study carrel on the fourth floor of the university library with a thick copy of On Call Principles and Protocols .