Chapter 36: The Letter (Part Four) Multimedia

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Chapter 36: The Letter (Part Four)

Penny leaned against a pole in the unmoving subway car and slipped her hand into her purse. Her fingers closed over the smooth surface of the envelope. She heard the paper crackle as she slid the letter back and forth between her thumb and index finger.

A letter of recommendation? Seriously, David?

Maybe he'd meant it as a nice gesture. Probably.  But it had felt like a punch in the stomach the moment he told her what the letter was. There'd been a split second just before he said it - when she saw him pull out the envelope, with her name printed on the front in his careful handwriting. The thought had flashed through her mind that it might be a different kind of letter. The kind of letter she'd never gotten from him, and never would.

It was that old familiar fantasy once again - the one she'd allowed herself to entertain so many times before. It had started with that first drunken email from his personal account two years ago. Even now, she could have recited every word of it from memory.

Penny could still close her eyes now and summon up the exact feeling it had given when she first read those words

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Penny could still close her eyes now and summon up the exact feeling it had given when she first read those words. That rush of air, like she was floating, followed by about ten minutes of pure, heart-pounding joy, when she thought the words actually meant something. Ten fleeting minutes, when she was in love with David, and David was in love with her.

You'd think she would have learned by now. But no. No, when he pulled that letter out of his briefcase today,  her mind had gone where it always did. A letter. From David. Hand-written. Maybe this time it would say....

But of course it wasn't that kind of letter. Of course not. If Penny didn't have a crowd of strangers pressed all around her now, she might have smacked herself in the forehead for her stupidity. She was nothing if not predictable. Still delusional, to the bitter end.

"Anyway, good luck," he'd said as he handed it to her. "Knock 'em dead." He'd made a fist and punched her on the shoulder.

She hadn't bothered to open it at the time. She'd just stuffed the letter in her purse and managed to mumble a reply. "Thanks, boss."

And that was that. He hadn't even hugged her.

She'd been counting on that hug - that final farewell hug. The kind of hug he used to give her. The kind that lasted a few moments longer than it should have, with her face pressed into his collar bone. She could count on one hand the number of hugs he'd ever given her, but it always went like that - inhaling deeply, trying to take in every last molecule of air. Like it was the last breath she might ever take. Like she might have to live off that one final lungful for the rest of her life.

But she hadn't even gotten that from him in the end. Just a punch on the shoulder. A "knock 'em dead." A letter addressed "To whom it may concern."

At least it was hand-written, she thought with a grim smile. One last little hand-writing sample from David. Would she keep this one like the others? Would she squirrel it away in her bedside table? Take it out in the middle of the night, and run her fingers across the words?

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