25. exchanging letters or 26. Tending an injury if you could, please!
25. Exchanging Letters
The first postcard showed up a few days after Stiles startedhis senior year. It was shot of a lighthouse at sunset, with vibrant stormclouds 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’saddress in Derek’s neat handwriting.
Stiles glanced at his phone. Derek had his number; why the hell washe getting a postcard instead of a text?
Then again, it wasDerek, 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 timewith a picture of the scariest row of cowboy dolls Stiles had ever seen in hislife.
I found the kitschiestrest 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 tostick them in.
Sometimes he’d get two or three in a week. Other times, itwould be a week or two between cards. But it was never more than a month, andit was almost always less than that. Derek never left an address or any way forStiles to contact him—his previous phone number had apparently beendisconnected, judging by the failed texts Stiles had tried to send—but he sent postcardsreligiously.
I’ve been to threecounty fairs in the past two weeks. I feel like that’s an accomplishment you’dbe 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 isthe 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 AppalachianTrail as a wolf. It might sound stupid, but that’s something I’ve always wantedto do. I didn’t think I’d get to because I didn’t think I’d ever get the fullshift.- DerekP.S. Laura should’vebeen doing it with me.
Stiles ran his fingers over the picture of the AppalachianMountains 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 spentmore time than he should’ve rereading each postcard until he knew them all byheart. Even though he couldn’t talk backto Derek, reading them made him feel better. Reading them reminded him thatDerek was okay, or at least, was trying to be okay. And as much as ithurt to have been left behind, that was what Stiles really needed to know.
When he finally graduated and moved east for college, hetook the shoebox with him. It was the only thing he regretted about choosingthe school he did: There was no way for him to tell Derek that his address hadchanged. At least Dad would save the postcards for him.
He’d been in his dorm for a week when there was a knock onhis door. Stiles answered it wearing boxers and a T-shirt that hadn’t beenwashed 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’tseeing 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. Infact, he was probably less immune now, dammit. “How the hell did you findme?”
“Your dad,” Derek said. “I called the stationto get your new address.”
“I would say that’s stalking, but I’m pretty surethat’s actually less creepy than halfthe shit you did in high school,” Stiles said. “Why didn’t youcall?”
Or text, or give meany 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 youask 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 todo with that information. That Derek would leave for his own mental health, andyet, if Stiles had ever asked him to, he’d have dropped everything and returnedwithout a second thought.
That was big.
“I would never have asked you to,” Stiles said. He needed Derek to know that, at least. “Ijust…I wanted to be able to talk to you.”
Derek shoved his hands in his pockets, and the corner of hislip twitched. “Can we talk now?”
There was something bright and tentative and hopeful about the question, and Stilesfound himself smiling in return. “Yeah, let me get some clothes. We’ve gota lot of catching up to do.”
