Free After Forever by Jasinda Wilder

back. I have to hope that you will. Because you will, right? You’ll wake up. You’ll come back to me. You love me, and you’re just…lost. Somewhere out there, trying to come back. Like Odysseus fighting to get back to Penelope.  
    I don’t know how to live without you, but I have to try. Don’t I? If you were to wake up and I’ve given up, just stopped living, you’d be so mad. You’d kick my ass. So I have to keep going. I have to pick myself up, and live. I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I will. For you. For US.  

    I love you, forever and always.
    Cade

    I lowered the letter, rested it on my knee. A bird chirped outside the window, hopping on a tree branch just beyond Ever’s window. I stared out, watching the bird, struggling to keep it together. I’d decided to keep our deal, from back when we were writing letters to each other. I’d write whatever was in my heart and head, and I’d never erase or hold back. And I read them to her, out loud. Every word, no matter how painful.  
    I was driving on my own now, and able to use a pencil again. I could draw and write. It was going to take months of work yet to get my hand back to the skill it once had so effortlessly, but I could function. I could walk, I could drive. I’d never run the hundred-meter dash, but I could move around without much problem. Getting the ability to drive back meant I wasn’t dependent on Eden anymore, but we still saw each other at the nursing home a few times a week. That was…bittersweet.  
    “I have another one,” I told Ever. “So I’ll read that.”

    Ever,
    I finally got the insurance company to pay for a new truck. A Jeep Grand Cherokee. Brand new. You’d like it. It’s green. Almost the color of your eyes, but a little darker. I wish I’d had you there to help me decide what to get. I wanted to pick something you’d love, but I just…I didn’t know what. I almost picked another F-150, but I’ve had enough of those. I needed something different.
    Your hair is getting long, you know that? They had to shave it all off when they did the surgeries on you. And now it’s almost to your chin. I think it’s actually a little darker black somehow. I think I remember reading that when you shaved your head, sometimes the hair would change a little. But then I read somewhere else that that wasn’t actually true, it was just the ends of the hair being different or something.
    I miss you so much, Ever. I miss talking to you. I miss waking up next to you. I miss the way you’d smile at me first thing in the morning. Sleepy, sexy, hair messy, like seeing me was the best way to wake up. I miss watching you put on your lotion. The way it made our bedroom smell like vanilla. I miss sleeping next to you. Jesus, I miss, most of all, the way you sounded when we made love. Your voice. How dirty you’d talk to me.  
    I’m going nuts, baby. Six months without you. Six months without touching you or kissing you. Six months, and I don’t know what to do. About how horny I am. How I ache. For you. I wake up at night sometimes, and I’ve dreamed of you. Sex dreams of you. And I’ll be on the verge of coming, just from the dream, but I always wake up, and then I remember that you’re gone and I can’t get the dream back, can’t get the feeling back.  
    I miss your skin. Soft, smooth, warm.  
    I miss you so much sometimes that I could cry. But I can’t. Don’t. Won’t. It’s stupid, maybe, but if I don’t mourn you, don’t cry for you, then part of me thinks maybe you’ll come back. And I won’t have to.  
    Come back to me, my love. Please. Come back to me, and make love to me.

    Forever yours, and yours beyond forever,
    Caden

    I heard a noise behind me, swiveled to see Eden standing in the doorway. Her hand was over her mouth and she was crying, bright silver tears sliding over her cheekbones.  
    “Sorry,” she murmured, “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”  
    “It’s okay,” I said, as though part of me