Lucas took his hand.
“You told me when I was ready.”
“I should have told you sooner.”
“Maybe. But I understand why you didn’t.”
Douglas looked at both of us.
“I spent my whole life believing that love meant protecting people from pain. I was wrong. Sometimes love means trusting them with the truth.”
Lucas nodded.
“And sometimes it means letting them choose what happens next.”
Douglas’s eyes moved to me.
“Yes.”
We stayed together until evening.
I read him the first of the thirty-seven letters. It was the one he had written after arriving at college.
He had described the dormitory, the terrible food, and a professor who mispronounced his name. In the final paragraph, he wrote that he missed the sound of my laugh and had already thought of three things he wanted to tell me when he came home.
Douglas listened with his eyes closed.
