I touched my jaw.
I had quoted the damn letter while with Amelia.
Rage boiled deep inside me. The kind of rage I hadn’t felt in a really long time.
I put my hand to the letter and felt the emotion sweep over me.
“Amelia, you have to go,” I said. “You have to fucking leave right now.”
“I’m not leaving,” she said. “Please tell me what this is. This letter has changed my life.”
“What?”
“Josh, I found this letter the night I came to interview you. It was outside in an alley. From the second I read it-”
“I was drunk,” I said. “I dropped it. It fell out of my pocket. It was never supposed to be seen by anyone.”
“But I saw it,” Amelia said. “Just me. I never showed it to anyone. Okay? I’ve read it a hundred times. I have it memorized. Josh, who is she? Who is Delilah?”
“Don’t ever say her name,” I growled. My hand curled around the letter and I picked up the pages and shook them. “Don’t… ever…”
“Josh,” Amelia said. “Please. It’s me. It’s us. We’re alone together. We’re older now. We don’t have to hide anything. I love you, Josh. I’m in love with you. Back then I fell for you in a different way. But right now…”
“I said to leave,” I said. “I don’t want you here anymore. You’ve done nothing but try to pry into my life. All for an interview or some fucking story. And that’s what this is to you.” I shook my hand again. “This is a story. Right? You want to read this and make up an ending and write something and get rich and famous.”
“No,” she said. “Not even close.”
“Tell me what this means to you then,” I said.
“You love her,” Amelia whispered. “You love Delilah. You love her like I’ve never seen someone love someone else. You love her so much that it makes me jealous. Because I want you to love me like that. I’ve never read anything like this letter in my life. It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever read.”
I stood in silence as I stared at her.
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
I slowly shook my head. “Leave.”
“No.”
“This is my apartment. I said to leave.”
“Tell me who she is. Where is she now? What happened? I’m here, Josh. I don’t want to be anywhere else but here.”
“It’s too late,” I said. “For you. And for everybody else.”
I threw the letter across the kitchen and watched it hit the floor.
I was holding back.
Everything.
The emotion.
The truth.
I was protecting Amelia one more time.
Because going all in for her was a mistake. Falling in love with her was a mistake. Her finding the letter was a mistake. And her falling in love with me was a mistake.
“No matter what it is…” Amelia started to say.
I closed in on her, my body against hers.
“Get the fuck out of my apartment. And stay away for the rest of your life.”
“You don’t mean that,” she said.
“Try me,” I said. "I said it once before and I meant it then. I mean it now too.”
“I’m in love with you, Josh. I can’t just walk away.”
“Fine. If you don’t leave, then I will.”
“You’re going to leave your own apartment?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
“I didn’t mean to find that letter. I didn’t mean for anything to happen. It has nothing-”
“It has everything to do with the letter,” I said.
I walked away from Amelia and kept to my word.
If she wasn’t going to leave, then I was.
I sat down and reached for the bottle of whiskey.
I threw it back and officially killed it off.
“Another?” Azor asked me with a grin.
I shook my head. “I still have to get home.”
“You’re not driving, my man.”
“No, I’m not fucking driving,” I said. “I’ll walk. Or get a ride.”
“You can crash here,” he said. “We’ll keep running with this mural idea. This is fantastic. We’re bringing our demons to life right here, Josh. This is huge for us. Sasha wants to buy it.”
I laughed. “You’re a whore, Azor. You called her already?”
“Snuck a pic.”
“Better than sending a pic of your dick to her, huh?”
Azor belly laughed. “I’d need a bigger phone for that.”
“Good for you, friend.”
“Friend, huh?” He put down the paintbrush and wiped his hands on his shirt. “You know, it’s not all that often you show up and demand to paint with me and get drunk. In fact, I don’t think it’s ever happened.”
“Is that a problem?”
“You’ve got that look in your eyes again, Josh. I vaguely remember what happened the last time. You sort of lost your edge and almost ended up in jail.”
“That was a long time ago.”
Azor grabbed my shoulder. “Not all that long ago.”
I shook him away and stood up. I wiped my lips. The whiskey had done its job by getting me drunk, but it didn’t finish the rest of what I needed. Which was to forget. About Amelia. About the letter. About Delilah. Something told me that wasn’t going to ever happen.
“What are you doing, Josh?”
“Calling for a ride,” I said as I fumbled with my phone. “I’ve wasted enough of your time.”
“Wasted? Look at this. Look at what you did.”
I looked over my shoulder.
Not only had I shown up to Azor’s place unannounced, demanding whiskey, but I completely ruined his current project. It was a bright project. Lots of greens, blues, and yellows. An abstract kind of landscape with row homes, hopscotch and old basketball hoops. I took it that he was painting where he came from. Capturing the happiness from what used to be a rough place for him.
It took me a few sips of whiskey and a few more thoughts of Amelia before I grabbed a paintbrush, turned it around, and went to work on the painting. I destroyed it. I added black and red. I painted pointed and random shapes all over it.
I wanted Azor to get pissed at me. I wanted him to punch me. I wanted him to knock me
