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The first postcard showed up a few days after Stiles started
his senior year. It was shot of a lighthouse at sunset, with vibrant storm
clouds boiling in the sky. On the back was a simple note:
It’s pretty up here. Quiet. I like the rain.
- Derek
That was it; the only other thing on the card was Stiles’s address in Derek’s neat handwriting.
Stiles glanced at his phone. Derek had his number; why the hell was he getting a postcard instead of a text?
Then again, it was Derek, and there were some things Stiles had given up on ever understanding. The only thing he was sure of was that Derek did have a reason for it.
The second postcard arrived about two weeks later, this time
with a picture of the scariest row of cowboy dolls Stiles had ever seen in his
life.
I found the kitschiest rest stop in the entire US. You’d love this place.
- Derek
Stiles snorted and put that postcard with the first one.
When the third one came in the mail four days later, Stiles got a shoebox to stick them in.
Sometimes he’d get two or three in a week. Other times, it would be a week or two between cards. But it was never more than a month, and it was almost always less than that. Derek never left an address or any way for Stiles to contact him—his previous phone number had apparently been disconnected, judging by the failed texts Stiles had tried to send—but he sent postcards religiously.
I’ve been to three
county fairs in the past two weeks. I feel like that’s an accomplishment you’d
be proud of. And yes, I won a stuffed animal at two of them.
- Derek
“Of course you did,” Stiles told the postcard.
I-40 in Oklahoma is
the most boring stretch of road I’ve ever seen in my life.
- Derek
“As long as you’re not being chased by tornadoes,”
Stiles said. “I’ve seen Twister.”
I ran the Appalachian Trail as a wolf. It might sound stupid, but that’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I didn’t think I’d get to because I didn’t think I’d ever get the full shift.
- Derek
P.S. Laura should’ve been doing it with me.
Stiles ran his fingers over the picture of the Appalachian Mountains on the front of that postcard. “It’s not stupid at all, big guy. She’d have been proud of you.”
The shoebox got fuller and fuller, and Stiles probably spent more time than he should’ve rereading each postcard until he knew them all by heart. Even though he couldn’t talk back to Derek, reading them made him feel better. Reading them reminded him that Derek was okay, or at least, was trying to be okay. And as much as it hurt to have been left behind, that was what Stiles really needed to know.
When he finally graduated and moved east for college, he took the shoebox with him. It was the only thing he regretted about choosing the school he did: There was no way for him to tell Derek that his address had changed. At least Dad would save the postcards for him.
He’d been in his dorm for a week when there was a knock on his door. Stiles answered it wearing boxers and a T-shirt that hadn’t been washed in two days, because he was still unpacking.
Derek was standing on the other side, beard, leather jacket, and all.
Stiles blinked four times before he realized he wasn’t seeing things. “What.”
Derek smiled. “Hi, Stiles.”
Okay, well, more than a year of not seeing Derek’s stupidly rare, stupidly beautiful smile had not actually made Stiles any more immune to it. In fact, he was probably less immune now, dammit. “How the hell did you find me?”
“Your dad,” Derek said. “I called the station to get your new address.”
“I would say that’s stalking, but I’m pretty sure that’s actually less creepy than half the shit you did in high school,” Stiles said. “Why didn’t you call?”
Or text, or give me any way of talking back to you?
“Because I couldn’t go back,” Derek said. “I needed time, and I couldn’t go back. And I couldn’t risk hearing you ask me to.”
Stiles paused. “Wait. Are you saying…if I’d asked, you’d have come back to Beacon Hills?”
“In a heartbeat.”
Derek answered it so frankly that Stiles didn’t know what to do with that information. That Derek would leave for his own mental health, and yet, if Stiles had ever asked him to, he’d have dropped everything and returned without a second thought.
That was big.
“I would never have asked you to,” Stiles said. He needed Derek to know that, at least. “I just…I wanted to be able to talk to you.”
Derek shoved his hands in his pockets, and the corner of his lip twitched. “Can we talk now?”
There was something bright and tentative and hopeful about the question, and Stiles found himself smiling in return. “Yeah, let me get some clothes. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”