My Second Chance Billionaire Lover

Sitting with her legs folded cross-legged against the cold floor, Camille was catching the dim light from the bedside lamp; it was the weight of a date, July 9th, pressing against her breasts. Actually, it is this day. Time hasn't really changed a lot for her. She could bury herself in all kinds of distractions, but it always happened. And with it comes that very familiar ache she's learned to embrace.

Slowly, her fingers would trace the worn-out edges of an old shoebox lying under her bed. Inside, they would lay nineteen letters-all sealed, all not sent. And now, she was about to add another sher.

A blank sheet of paper was pulled from the pack, smoothed over her lap, and picked up by her pen.

Dear Adrian,

How has life been treating you? Would you still recognize me today? It has been seven years, yet here I find myself writing to you as if you were just away on some long trip and that one day you would come home and read it all and laugh at how dramatic I was. But you don't, do you?

This, as you would have guessed, is my twentieth letter. I think you should feel really special now. Not even my diary gets this attention.

I wonder if you ever think about me. If you ever stop and hear a song and remember the way we used to drive around at night, our hands hanging out the window, pretending we were flying. Do you remember the last time we did that? We talked about leaving this town, about chasing something bigger than ourselves. I believed we would, but you left first. And you left me behind.

I still don't know why.

I spent the first few years thinking I must have missed something! Some sign, some unspoken goodbye hidden in your eyes-but there was nothing. Just silence. You know how cruel that is, Adrian? To disappear without a single word?

But I won't be cruel back. I will not say I hate you because that would be a lie.

The truth: I miss you.

I miss the way you used to laugh, the way you could tell when something was very wrong with me without me saying a word. I miss how you saw me when there was nobody else who did.

I can't tell where you are or what kind of life you live now-perhaps you have a world that's entirely different from mine. Yet I write.

Maybe because part of me still hopes.

Hope is such a dumb thing, is it not?

Ever yours,

Camille

She dropped the pen and took a shaking breath. She shouldn't be doing this anymore. Writing to a corpse. But Adrian could never leave her, could he? It was more of a haunting presence in the silence between breaths and quiet moments when the world slowed down enough for the memories to creep in.

As she was about to fold the letter, a loud clap of thunder broke across the night, rattling the windows. Jerked to guilty surprise, Camille's pulse skipped a beat as she turned to the window. Outside, it looked like the sky had darkened with heavy clouds swirling and rain was beginning to fall in sheets against the glass.

A storm.

How typical.

Camille left the breath she had been holding out and leaned back on the bed, the letter still open in her hands. The small lamp that illuminated her small apartment flickered and cast shadows on its walls.

Reaching up, her fingers brushed against the cheek from which a single tear had slipped away. In quick, decisive motions, she wiped it away before too much sadness could settle in.

What stared back was a woman at the window long past the girl Adrian had left behind, yet at the same time, she somehow still felt that girl.

Camille Hart had changed in many ways-from that once-soft, youthful face that had hardened with time. Her dark brown eyes now didn't brim with insane dreams, but were careful with age. Her hair, once wild, now fell in waves just over the shoulder, having been tamed enough to convince others that she had it all together.

She had built a successful career as a young intern in New York, an apartment that was small but entirely her own, friends who never proud too much about her past. By the eyes of outsiders, she had inputted on all that and moved on really well.

But this date always proved otherwise.

She turned back to the letter, fingers tightening on its edges as she whispered, "It's already time... You should be coming back, alright?"

Almost immediately after the words left her lips, a soft, bitter laugh escaped her.

How many times has she said that in her life? Whispered it into the nothingness, into her unsent letters?

But Adrian had never returned.

And perhaps the time had come to accept that he never would.

The rain began to pound on the roof, hard and fast, an impatient barrage against the windows. Camille ground her teeth and meticulously folded the letter, slipping it into the stack in the shoebox.

"This is the last one," she told herself.

She had to let it all go. Adrian Vaughn was dead. He was not coming back. And she could not keep pretending he might.

Tomorrow, she will throw the letters away.

Burn them; whatever.

Put the past away for good and move on.

That's what she told herself.

But Camille knew better.

No matter how many times she tried to promise herself to stop, the ink would always find a way to paper.

Because some love, no matter how long it's been, simply don't let go.

And some ghosts... slip back in just when you don't want them to.