Time Flies (Book 4) [l. hemmings]

Chapter 26

I LOVE YOU

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Michael's P.O.V.

Today's the day.

I'm finally going through Melissa's things, deciding what needs to be kept, and what I'm going to have to throw away.

It's a huge step for me, in my opinion at least. It's finally time I start to move on. I finally worked up the courage to go through her things without crying.

I continue looking through Melissa's drawers, which I haven't done since she passed.

Opening one of the drawers, there's a bunch of envelopes, and I already know what these will be.

When Melissa died, she didn't leave anything for us. We had no explanation as to why she would do this.

I don't get why she'd leave it here though. It's been eight months and I've only just been able to go through her things.

I grab all of the envelopes and go sit on the bed.

There's a note on top is the envelopes and I take a deep breath before reading it.

'I assume Michael will be the one to find this, so hi baby, I love you so much. It may be weird that I didn't leave this note out, but I figured all of this being thrown at you would've made it even harder to cope. I wrote you and Ella a bunch of letters. They all have what they're for on the front. I just want to make sure Ella still hears from her mum throughout her life, even though I'm not there anymore. I understand if you just want to throw these out, maybe it's better if you do. All I want is for you to move on, Michael. I want you to find somebody else, don't mope around about me forever. I'm so sorry I left you like this. But after both of my parents passing, and losing our little baby, it was finally my breaking point. I had to do this babe. You know how shitty I've felt over the past year, and... I just snapped. I feel like this is better for me. Maybe you're mad that I just left you two, but I wouldn't know. I'm so sorry, Michael, I just needed to go. But hey, if all that shit about guardian angels is real, I promise I'll be by you and Ella all of the time. I'll love you forever.

Love, Melissa'

Half of the ink in now smudged due to the tears that have hit the paper.

I look through the envelopes reading all of what Melissa wrote.

Ella's sweet sixteen. Ella's first love. Ella's first heartbreak.

I stop reading through Ella's, and move to the other pile, ones for me.

When you're sad. When you miss me too much. When you fall in love with somebody else.

I toss all the letters farther away from me and I bring my hands to cover my face as I try to hold in my sobs.

"How could she?" I cry. "How could she!"

It isn't fair. She can't just do this. She left behind a whole bunch of letters of things she'd want to say at that time. If she wanted to, why wouldn't she just stay?

"Why wouldn't she just fucking stay?" I quietly choke out.

I reach to grab a random letter, this one has 'When you've decided to move on' across the front.

I rip it open, even though I haven't decided to fully move on.

'So I see you've decided to move on. I'm so proud of you, Michael. I don't want to say anything in this letter that will stop you from moving on. Because you deserve to move on and be happy. Now that you're moving on I really want you to go out and find somebody else. Somebody who will be good to Ella, okay? If you haven't taken your ring off yet, I guess now's the time. Make sure Ella understands what's going on, she's so young, it'll be confusing. Please-