I’m totally lost in thought when I swing the door open and freeze, recycling bag swinging in my hand.
Martin! Is here! At my front door.
He’s mid-crouch, bending to retrieve something from the doormat and he lurches upright with a jolt. “Liam!” He’s breathing heavily and his eyes are shifty. He won’t make eye contact with me. I think he’s genuinely surprised to see me, despite this actually being my home and my doormat.
“Martin!” He’s quickly tucking the item he picked up behind his back with all the elegance of a shoplifting toddler. He noticesthat I notice, and pulls his arm further behind him awkwardly. “What are you doing here?”
“I, um, I was just…” His stammering causes my face to curl up, my brow furrows. I try to keep my eyes from darting to the hand that’s not-so-successfully hiding something.
“I was just taking the recycling out,” I declare, shaking the bag rapidly to make my point. He looks at the bag, but not back.
“That’s great. I was just…” His voice is fractured and he can’t seem to create sentences. “Would you…”
With my free hand, I motion to the hand he’s hiding behind his back. “Was that on my doormat?” I look from his hand to his face and he half-smiles and freezes for a moment before breaking his gaze. Pulling a small white envelope from around his side, he looks at it slowly and then holds it up for me. “This?” His breath catches, “Yeah, this is…”
I gently snatch it from his hand, setting the bag of recycling down with a small clank. “This is from my secret person! There’s been several times he’s left stuff for me on the doormat.” I turn from the door and step back into the living room, studying the small envelope. “Thanks for grabbing it for me. What are you doing here?”
“Yeah, well, I was just. In the neighborhood. I thought we might…”
“Get something to eat?” I finish his sentence because he’s speaking so slowly, in such broken segments, that he’ll never get to the point. “Sure, that sounds good. Let’s get some dinner.” I’m speaking to Martin, but can’t take my eyes off the envelope. “This is from my secret person!”
“Well, if it’s not a good time,” Martin starts.
“No, it’s a great time. I just finished cleaning my apartment.” I flip the envelope over. It’s just a plain, white envelope of an unusual size, like it was left over from a thank-you note set or a birthday card or something. But what really throws me off is myname: on the back of the envelope, my name is written in pencil. My secret person has only ever written in blue pen, but this is definitely pencil. “I’m going to open this,” I’m telling Martin without making eye contact.
“This seems like it’s not a good time. We can get food another…”
“Please stay.” I finally look away from the envelope to make eye contact with Martin, who is clearly nervous. His hands are out-of-place like a self-conscious actor. He keeps rubbing his palms on his pant legs, then on his forearms and then back again. “I’m glad you’re here.” I smile and he smiles back, which seems to calm his displaced hands a bit. “I’m just going to read this note real quick.”
Martin is taking a half-step back toward the door, motioning, “Are you sure? I can come back at another time.”
“This will just take a second,” I say, staring at the envelope again. “I haven’t heard from him since, well, since the jewelry store thing.” The pencil scrawl has thrown me off so much, I find myself becoming apprehensive about opening it, which is almost overpowering my eagerness to know what it says.
“Are you sure?”
“Grab a seat,” I say, motioning blindly at the single chair in the living room as I back slowly to the couch and sit, teetering on the edge with the envelope in hand. Martin shuts the door, steps around the bag of recycling, and heads toward me. He’s still moving tentatively as he finds a crooked perch on the front edge of the chair. It’s almost as if he doesn’t want to get comfortable, like he’s ready to bolt at any moment.
I rip the edge of the envelope open with a sound that startles us both. Martin becomes very still, hands on his knees.
I pull a single sheet of folded paper from the envelope and everything about it feels different, foreign from the organized way my secret person usually communicates. Unfolding thepaper, I notice the top of it is torn, like it was hastily removed from a flip-top pad and it’s all written in pencil, or rather, drafted in pencil, because it’s clear from the erasure marks that it took several passes for the author to get it right. “It’s written in pencil,” I say aloud. “It’s the same sloppy writing, but it’s written in pencil.”
At my words, Martin’s body physically droops and then he plants a quizzical look on his face. “Does that mean something?” he asks, tentatively.
“I’m not sure. He always writes in blue pen.”
Martin looks away, rubbing the crease of pant fabric along the fold of his knee. He suddenly releases the crease, stands bolt upright and declares, “Liam, I can come back at a different time. You should take your time with this note.”
I stand, heading toward him. “Please stay.” I try to plead with my tone. “I’d like for you to stay.”
He turns and looks into my eyes. The blue in his eyes catches the light. “Okay,” he sighs, looking away.
Standing there together, I read the note quietly to myself while Martin watches intently.
The note reads:
“From the bottom of my heart, I’m so sorry. I had a family emergency. Someday I hope to be able to explain the details, but until then, I’m pleading for you to trust me. I’m so sorry. I never took into consideration what would happen to us if I couldn’t be there for you. And I wasn’t there. I’m so sorry.
I enjoyed our time together on our digital date. I’m hoping you did too.