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“We understand why we shouldn’t have opened the letter. It was serving a purpose for you,” June says slowly.
“Like some sort of…Schrödinger’s Letter,” Alex supplies. “When you held back from reading it, she could both love you and not love you, and you’d never have to know which one.”
“We’ve all prepared a summary of what the letter said, and only one is true. But we won’t tell you which one.”
“Okay,” Nora says.
Alex starts.
“It was a long and thorough explanation of everything she put you through—how she blamed his longtime infidelity on you. How she knew it was wrong to blame you, but she did it anyway because she was suffering so badly.”
Nora feels herself shutter, vulnerability flashing in and out. Henry senses it, and comes in quickly with the next.
“It was just the picture of you kissing her cheek in a photo booth, the one you have a copy of in your room. On the back, she wrote, ‘You were always so sweet to me. I should have chosen you.’”
Pez steps forward. “It was a list of all the songs you sent her in the short time that you were together. Next to each, she wrote what she liked about them. And at the bottom, she wrote, ‘I’m sorry for everything.’”
Bea smiles crookedly, a note of sadness in her eyes. “It’s a short note. It says, ‘I left him. Call me.’”
June looks straight in her eyes, bottom lip trembling. “It’s a picture of a baby. It says on the back, in black ink, ‘I named her after you.’”
Nora nods. “I want all of them to be true.”
“One is,” Henry says, his posh little accent so sincere.
Nora leans back against the fountain, pushing up her sunglasses. Both hands are clasped around a steaming coffee cup.
June sidles up, shoulders hunched as if to ward off the cold.
“You know what it said,” Nora says quietly. “What do you think? Should I reach out?”
June gives a long exhale. “Nora… Even if I’m being entirely selfless… No. Even if she wrote the sweetest thing in the world and expressed remorse, she fucked you up. She chose the word of her boyfriend, a predator, over you—the woman she was dating and knowingly keeping in a lower position of power, just so she could maintain a stable sense of self. The idea of her relationship being imperfect was so threatening to her, that she had to actively victim-blame you.”
Nora nods. It’s not the answer she wants, but the answer she needs. “And for selfish reasons? Because you’re my best friend and couldn’t watch me get hurt again, I know.”
June flinches. “It’s…a little more than that.”
Nora’s stomach fills with dread. “You know more than you’re letting on.”
June’s eyes widen. “No! It’s nothing bad. And nothing to do with her at all.”
“Then what?”
June bites her lip. She takes a long moment to deliberate, then speaks. “Because if you’re going to date a couple, it should be us.”
Nora scoffs at first. “You’re funny.”
June’s eyes look pained, and she averts her gaze.
Nora sobers. “June. Are you not straight?”
June regards her carefully. “No, I don’t think I am.”
A note of panic settles in Nora’s chest. “But—but Pez. The press.”
“We went through this once for Alex, we can do it again,” June says evenly. “Polyamory isn’t as mainstream as other identities yet, but there’s a first for everything.”
“You don’t—you don’t have to do this for me.”
June gives a watery laugh. “Nora, I’m trying to tell you—I’m in love with you. Pez is in love with you.”
“No, you’re not,” Nora insists.
June gives a strangled little sob. “Okay. Please, I can’t take the rejection. We can just drop it. Pretend I never said anything.”
“I don’t want to,” Nora says. “Give me a moment. I’m in shock. Since when?”
“Since before Princegate,” June says miserably. “In the hotel. How I started looking at you after. How it’s always so natural with the three of us, warm and—and comfortable.”
“Oh,” Nora says.
June starts crying again. “I’m sorry.”
Nora grasps her face in both hands. “Hey. I’m happy. I’m adjusting.”
June nods, eyes adorably wet. “I want you,” she whispers. “Fuck Bridget. I want to be with you. I want to treat you well.”
Nora nods, tears pricking at the back of her own eyes. “Okay. I believe you. I want this.”
“You can talk to Pez later if you want to get on the same page with him. But we’ve talked about it in detail. In therapy. Down to…co-habitating eventually. What to do if two of us want to get married.”
Nora shakes her head in disbelief. “I didn’t really think…there was a real place in relationships. For people like me.” For…unicorns. Or thirds, or whatever Nora considers herself. There isn’t a word she knows, outside of the fetishes and the back-alley websites and the leering straight couples with relationship issues they want to blame on her.
“We made you a place,” June growls, a bit more assertive than she intends. “Because it’s what you deserve.”
“Okay,” Nora whispers. “I hear you. Okay.”