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Hawk pulled out the familiar cherry blossom paperweight from its hiding spot in the back of his locked desk drawer. He had moved it when Lucy offered to help him pack up his apartment, not wanting her to question its place of honor on the mantle. His thumb brushed over the plastic, wiping away imagined dust. The memories it evoked were tangled now: sweet Kenny, and his shy smile when he picked it out, and again when he had pressed it into Hawk's hand, saying, remember me, tangled now with Tim, who had been immediately drawn to the strange piece on the mantle on his first visit.
Tangled further with the merging of the two, with Hawk saying Kenny's name for the first time in a decade, all because Tim had asked. The way his heart had cracked with that confession of betrayal, never before spoken aloud. The way Tim and his endless empathy had rushed in to fill it, at a time when they would have been much better off separating. The way they had simply held each other all night on Tim's rickety twin bed. All of that was now contained within this small piece of cheap plastic. Hawk was deep in this state of reminiscence when he heard the whisper slide of paper at the door and thought immediately, achingly, Tim.
Which was nonsense.
Still, he walked to the door of his apartment and saw, slid underneath, an envelope. Heart pounding, he bent to pick it up, noting the familiar scrunched cursive. His mind blank, his thumb brushed over the letters of his name for a precious wasted moment, before he had the presence of mind to open the door and look out. Empty. He rushed to the window. And there, just exiting the building onto the street and towards a waiting taxi cab, was Tim.
As though summoned, Tim turned, looking back over his shoulder, then up, and their eyes met. Hawk's heart was in his throat. He couldn't move, frozen with shock. Unthinking, he reached up and pressed his hand to cool glass. Tim's mouth quirked up into that too familiar, pained half-smile, and he raised his hand in response. Then he turned, got in the car, and was gone.
The sight of Tim, after all this time—how long had it been? a year and a half?—was like being dropped in ice water. He'd looked— older. Maybe it was the uniform. Maybe it was the bangs, now swept to the side neatly instead of the mop of untidy hair he was familiar with. And yet he had looked, painfully, exactly the same. All of those tangled feelings, inadequately buried, came rushing back to life.
It took Hawk a full frozen minute to remember the envelope in his hand, and then he couldn't open it fast enough, scrambling for the letter opener still, thankfully, on his desk.
Dear Hawk, it started, and Hawk had to set it face-down on the desk, backing away a step and eyeing it as though it were a scorpion set to sting. He breathed out. Then he poured himself a whiskey, grateful for his foresight in saving the bar for last. He shook himself off, cursing himself for the nerves. It was just a letter. One single sheet of paper, with nothing on the back. It was probably just— nothing at all. Swearing again, he sat down, flipped the sheet over, and tried to absorb it all at once. He caught the I still love you first and shut his eyes. One more slow, deep inhale and exhale to steel himself, then he opened his eyes and began to read, slowly, from the top.
⸻
Dear Hawk,
I went into the army to get away from
you. I thought time and distance would
help. But it hasn’t. I still love you.
But I’m hoping to find something else…
maybe a deeper faith someday… to take your place.
Yours,
Tim
⸻
Well. Not writing back was not an option, despite the fact that Hawk had no idea where to address a letter to Tim. What he did have though, was Tim’s old contact information somewhere on file with HR, from which he could get the phone number of his parents, to whom he could call with a made-up excuse about— old tax files or something and request a forwarding address, and then, easy peasy, a confidential stamp on a manilla envelope and the letter slipped in between some boring-looking office files, and done. Letter sent.
Without pausing long enough to consider whether this was a horrific idea or just a very bad one, Hawk picked up his pen and started to write.
⸻
Dear Tim,
I had assumed that the promise
you’d extracted when last we spoke was a
mutual one. Now that you’ve broken it,
I hope you’ll forgive me for not holding
up my end.
I wouldn’t think replacements
necessary, for someone with as big a heart
as yours. Hold both. I have.
I’d like to see you again. If you can.
Either way, I’ll be looking for your response.
⸻
Here, Hawk paused. He wasn’t sure where he should have Tim write to. The apartment would soon be sold, the office was out of the question, and Lucy’s house—his house—was a risk, despite the innocuous content. Still, it was the best of the three. He’d just have to lay the groundwork first, tell Lucy he’d just heard from an old Army buddy, that he might be expecting a letter or two back, and then try to intercept the rest.
That decided, he added the house’s address to the letter, then paused again, debating how to sign. Tim had signed his, Yours. Generic and meaningless, to anyone who wasn’t Hawk. Hawk shook his head fondly, then took up his pen again and signed,
Always,
Hawk