Chapter 19

“Truly?” Mother called through my bedroom door one morning. “You have a letter.”

“Okay,” I responded dully.

“Do you want it? It is from Curtis.”

Curtis? My interest was piqued, but only mildly.

“Oh, Mother,” Comfort’s voice joined hers. “She won’t read it if you give it to her. Haven’t you seen the stack of letters she still hasn’t touched? Watch—” She raised her voice “Truly, if I give you this letter, will you read it?”

“Maybe later,” I said.

“Well, we are going to read it now. You need some excitement in your life.” I heard her ripping apart the envelope.

“Comfort, no!” I called, but too late.

“It says, ‘Dear Truly, I received—”

I jerked the door open, snatched the opened letter out of Comfort’s hands, and slammed the door again.

Comfort laughed. “Problem solved. Come on, Mother, there is a bazaar in town today.”

The opened letter stared up at me, Curtis’ untidy scrawl scribbled across the page. As much as I wanted a clean break from my past, I couldn’t stop myself from reading now that the words were so easily accessible.

Dear Truly,

I received a letter from your sister. She said that you need time to recover and that you are struggling right now, but also want to be left alone. It is hard for me to imagine you alone. I keep picturing the princess from that story your father used to tell us, locked up in a tower for years. I hope you aren’t locking yourself away! You are too wonderful a person to stay hidden away forever. The world needs your goodness in it.

I am still trying to figure out how to navigate my life without you here. Everything seems so much sadder and duller. Since the Avivian border incident, Hubert has insisted that he and I have private tutors, no more group classes. He says it is for our own protection. If it was up to me, I would have you and Hubert trade places. I would be okay with Hubert locked in a tower for years and you and I having private tutors to ourselves!

I can’t even begin to describe how much I am tempted to just take off from here so I can come see you. I miss you. But I can’t make this about me. This is supposed to make you feel better, but here I am prattling on about me. I just wanted to say if you need solitude right now, I will give that to you. As hard as it will be for me, I can give you all the time you need. Take the time to recover and get feeling better. I will wait for you. You are worth waiting for.

Your Best Friend,

Curtis

Tears welled upin my eyes again. Curtis was so patient. So kind and funny and compassionate. He deserved so much more than what I could offer. He said that he would wait for me, but I knew that wasn’t true. Princes didn’t have that luxury.

I had no doubt that Curtis would go on to find a beautiful princess that would love him and provide a much more advantageous marriage than I ever could. Perhaps it would even be Aria. Mother was always telling me to find peace with my circumstances. I knew what I needed to do.

I picked up a quill and wrote back:

Dear Curtis,

You know how much I care for you. The last year of being with you has been the best of my life. It is only because I care for you so much that I know that we cannot be together. You deserve so much more than what I can offer. It isn’t fair to you to have you wait for me to heal when you deserve happiness. I have to be realistic about what a future with me would look like for you. I wouldn’t want to saddle you with that burden. I hope you know that I wish nothing but the best for you.

Goodbye,

Truly

Before I could losemy nerve, I stuffed the letter into an envelope and hurried out to catch Comfort before she and Mother left for the bazaar.

“Would you mail this to Curtis for me?” I asked breathlessly.

She took it and looked at the sealed envelope curiously. “What did you say?”

“Oh, nothing important,” I said, fighting back the tears that threatened to come.

Comfort turned back to fastening her shoes. “Alright then.”

I returned to my room and watched from my window as Mother and Comfort walked along the path out of sight. Then I turned and fell onto my bed, sobbing for hours at the loss of my best friend.