Message in a Bottle - Nicholas Sparks [108]
Later that afternoon, Garrett woke up alone. Noticing that Theresa’s clothes were gone as well, he grabbed his jeans and shirt. Still buttoning his shirt as he left his bedroom, he quickly searched the house for her.
The house was cold.
He found her in the kitchen. She was seated at the table, wearing her jacket. On the table in front of her, he saw a cup of coffee, nearly empty, as if she’d been sitting there for some time. The coffeepot was already in the sink. Checking the clock, he realized he’d been asleep for almost two hours.
“Hey there,” he said uncertainly.
Theresa glanced over her shoulder at him. Her voice was subdued.
“Oh, hey… I didn’t hear you get up.”
“You okay?”
She didn’t answer directly. “Come sit with me,” she said instead. “There’s a lot I’ve got to tell you.”
Garrett sat down at the table. He smiled tentatively at her. Theresa fidgeted with the coffee cup for a moment, her eyes downcast. He reached over, brushing a loose strand of hair away from the side of her face. When she didn’t respond, he pulled back.
Finally, without looking at him, she reached into her lap and removed the letters, laying them on the table. Apparently she’d gathered them up while he slept.
“I found the bottle when I was jogging last summer,” she began, her voice steady but distant, as if recalling something painful. “I didn’t have any idea what the letter inside would say, but after reading it, I started to cry. It was just so beautiful—I knew it had come straight from your heart, and the way it was written… I guess I related to the things you wrote because I felt so alone, too.”
She looked at him. “That morning, I showed it to Deanna. Publishing it was her idea. I didn’t want to at first… I thought it was too personal, but she didn’t see the harm in it. She thought it would be a nice thing for people to read. So I relented, and assumed that would be the end of it. But it wasn’t.”
She sighed. “After I got back to Boston, I got a call from someone who’d read the column. She sent me the second letter, one that she’d found a few years ago. After I read it, I was intrigued, but again, I didn’t think it would go any further.”
She paused. “Have you ever heard of Yankee magazine?”
“No.”
“It’s a regional magazine. It’s not well-known outside of New England, but it publishes some good stories. That’s where I found the third letter.”
Garrett looked at her in surprise. “It was published there?”
“Yes, it was. I tracked down the author of the article and he sent me the third letter, and… well, curiosity got the best of me. I had three letters, Garrett—not just one but three—and every one of them touched me the same way the first one had. So, with Deanna’s help, I found out who you were and I came down to meet you.”
She smiled sadly. “I know it sounds like you said—that it was some sort of fantasy—but it wasn’t. I didn’t come down here to fall in love with you. I didn’t come down here to write a column. I came down to see who you were, that was all. I wanted to meet the person who wrote those beautiful letters. So I went to the docks and there you were. We talked, and then, if you remember, you asked me to go sailing. If you hadn’t, I probably would have gone home that day.”
He didn’t know what to say. Theresa reached over and placed her hand carefully over his.
“But you know what? We had a good time that night, and I realized I wanted to see you again. Not because of the letters, but because of how you treated me. And everything just seemed to grow naturally from there. After that first meeting, nothing that happened between us was part of a plan. It just happened.”
He sat quietly for a moment, looking at the letters. “Why didn’t you tell me about them?” he asked.
She took her time answering. “There were times when I wanted to, but… I don’t know… I guess I convinced myself that it didn’t matter how we met. The only thing that mattered was how well we got along.” She paused, knowing there was more. “Besides, I didn’t think you’d understand.