Chapter 14: What the Letters Said

June's POV

We carried the tub up the mountain on the seat between us, and Eli drove with one hand on it the whole way.

Back in cabin four, I set it on the table by the stove and turned on the lamp.

We read the rest together.

The second letter said the panel had loved my essay so much that they had pinned it in the visitor center.

It had stayed on that wall for a month, and I had never known.

The third said the program would pay for my college textbooks if I came.

The fourth said a girl from Ohio had asked for the empty cabin for two weeks, and the answer had been no.

"Why?" I asked.

"The key was yours," he said.

I laughed, and it came out wet.

I picked up the first blank reply card, the one from four Aprils ago, and found a pen in the drawer.

I checked the box that said I ACCEPT.

Then I signed my name under it in full and dated it four years back.

"That's not how it works," Eli said, very low.

"I know."

"You can't mail a card four years late."

"Watch me not mail it. I'm keeping it."

I put the card in my pocket, over my heart, and looked at him.

He stood on the other side of the stove with his hands hanging.

He looked stunned, still trying to take it in.

"Come here," I said.

"June."

"I'm not going to say it twice."

He crossed the cabin.

I took him by the front of his flannel shirt, and I kissed him.

His hands came up to my face and shook.

"Tonight I decide," I said against his mouth.

"Decide what?"

"Everything."

I walked him backward until the backs of his knees hit the wooden chair by the stove, and I pushed him down into it.

He sat.

His eyes went dark.

I knelt between his boots.

I unbuckled his belt slowly, watching his face, and he gripped the arms of the chair until the wood creaked.

"You don't have to," he said.

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