Chapter 6 The Truth: His Ten-Year Crush

# Chapter 6: The Truth: His Ten-Year Crush

Mia's guest room became my sanctuary for exactly nine days. Nine days of memories flooding back—sometimes in gentle waves, sometimes in overwhelming tsunamis that left me gasping. Nine days of sorting through the fragments of my life, assembling them like a complex puzzle with pieces that didn't always fit neatly together.

"You look better today," Mia observed, bringing me coffee on the morning of the tenth day. "Less like someone's been using your brain as a ping-pong table."

I smiled weakly. "The headaches are finally easing up. Dr. Chen says that's a good sign—it means the memories are integrating rather than fighting each other."

Mia perched on the edge of the bed. "And how's the Terry situation?"

The "Terry situation." Such a simple phrase for the complicated emotional landscape I was navigating. In the days since I'd left our apartment, Terry had maintained a respectful distance—no surprise visits, no pressure to return. Just one text each morning: *I'm here when you're ready. Take all the time you need.*

"I've been reading his letters," I admitted, nodding toward the stack on the nightstand. I'd asked Mia to retrieve them from the apartment—both the originals and the single rewritten one Terry had given me before I left. "They're... illuminating."

"Illuminating how? Like 'wow, my fiancé is actually a romantic genius' or 'hmm, I should consider a restraining order'?"

I laughed despite myself. "Somewhere in between, I guess."

The truth was, reading Terry's decade of unsent correspondence had filled crucial gaps in my returning memories. The letters chronicled his evolution from the entitled teenager I remembered to the man I'd fallen in love with. They revealed his struggles with his father's expectations, his genuine passion for sustainable investment, his gradual realization that wealth meant nothing without purpose.

And through it all, like a steady heartbeat, his unwavering feelings for me.

"I think I'm ready to talk to him," I said, surprising myself with the conviction in my voice. "Not to go back—not yet—but to hear his side of everything."

Mia looked skeptical. "Are you sure that's wise? Your memories are still settling."

"That's exactly why I need to talk to him," I explained. "I have all these pieces, but I'm missing the connective tissue. Terry has that."

"Just promise me you won't let those puppy-dog eyes convince you of anything before you're ready," Mia warned. "Memory or no memory, you deserve complete honesty going forward."

I nodded solemnly. "I know. That's what I'm going to insist on."

Two hours later, I was sitting across from Terry in a neutral location—a quiet corner of the botanical gardens where the early summer blooms created a peaceful backdrop. He looked simultaneously relieved and terrified to see me, his hands fidgeting with a paper coffee cup.

"Thank you for meeting me," I began formally.

"Thank you for asking," he replied. "How are you feeling? Are your memories—"

"Coming back? Yes, most of them." I paused, choosing my next words carefully. "But I still have questions that only you can answer."

Terry nodded. "Anything. Complete transparency from now on—I promise."

"I need to understand what happened between high school graduation and the Morrison Gala," I said. "Ten years is a long time to carry a torch for someone who hated you."

Terry's expression grew serious. "It wasn't exactly a torch, at least not at first. After graduation, I went to Harvard like my father demanded. You went to Berkeley. Our lives completely diverged."

"But the letters began immediately," I prompted.

"Yes." He looked slightly embarrassed. "Writing to you—even knowing I'd never send the letters—became a way of processing my thoughts. A kind of therapy, I suppose. I'd been raised to never show vulnerability, to view emotions as weaknesses. The letters were my only safe outlet."

"And your feelings for me? When did those start?"

Terry's laugh held a touch of self-deprecation. "Sophomore year of high school, when you eviscerated my debate presentation on corporate tax incentives. You called me a 'privileged apologist for systemic inequality' in front of the entire class."

Despite everything, I smiled at the memory. "Not exactly a romantic meet-cute."

"For most people, no. For me..." He shrugged. "Nobody had ever challenged me like that before. Everyone else either feared my family's influence or wanted something from me. You just saw right through me and called me on my bullshit."

It aligned with what I'd read in his earliest letters—his confused admiration for my fearlessness, his frustration that I wouldn't play by the social rules everyone else followed.

"So what happened? Why did our high school rivalry get so toxic if you had feelings for me?"

Terry sighed deeply. "Because I was exactly the entitled jerk you thought I was. When I realized I couldn't impress you with my family name or charm you like I did everyone else, I got defensive. Competitive. My father always taught me that if you can't win someone over, you defeat them."

"Hence the science fair sabotage," I noted, the memory now crystal clear—Terry "accidentally" spilling coffee on my research notes the day before presentations.

"And a dozen other petty, immature actions I'm not proud of," Terry admitted. "By senior year, I'd convinced myself that besting you was the same as winning your attention. It was stupid and childish."

"And after graduation? You just... what? Pined for me from afar for ten years?"

Terry winced at my phrasing. "It wasn't that simple. I dated other people. Built my career. Lived my life. But you remained this... standard against which I measured everything. The person whose opinion mattered even when you weren't there to give it."

He took a deep breath before continuing. "The letters started as an apology—things I wished I'd said at graduation. Then they evolved into updates, like I was talking to an old friend. Eventually, they became a habit—a way of processing my day by imagining how you might respond."

"That doesn't sound entirely healthy," I observed.

"It wasn't," Terry agreed readily. "My therapist had a field day with it when I finally told her about the letters three years ago."

This surprised me. "You were in therapy?"

"Still am. Started after my father's first heart attack in 2017. Confronting mortality has a way of making you reevaluate your life choices."

Another piece clicked into place—in his letters from that period, Terry had written about a "personal reckoning" and "finally facing hard truths about myself and my family."

"So what happened at the Morrison Gala?" I asked. "In your letters, you seemed shocked that I approached you."

"Shocked doesn't begin to cover it," Terry said, a genuine smile breaking through his anxious expression. "I'd rehearsed running into you for years, had all these speeches prepared. Then there you were, looking absolutely stunning in that emerald dress, extending your hand like the past didn't matter. I nearly passed out."

The memory surfaced fully now—me, nervous but determined, approaching the man I'd once despised because my firm needed investors for the eco-housing project. The surprising ease of our conversation. The realization that this Terry Walker was fundamentally different from the boy I remembered.

"I didn't know about the letters then," I said. "When did you tell me?"

"On our first anniversary," Terry replied. "I showed you a few—just from the year before we reconnected. I was terrified you'd think I was obsessed or unstable."

"And did I?"

"You called me 'intensely dedicated' and said it explained my terrible handwriting—apparently, anyone writing that many letters would develop carpal tunnel syndrome." His expression grew softer. "You didn't see the full collection until we moved in together last year. I wasn't deliberately hiding them, but..."

"But you were afraid I'd run for the hills if I knew the full extent," I finished for him.

Terry nodded. "When you found them, you spent an entire weekend reading random selections. Then you looked at me and said, 'You need better storage—these should be preserved properly.'"

The memory flickered at the edges of my consciousness—not fully formed, but not entirely absent either.

"After my accident," I said slowly, "why didn't you just tell me the truth from the beginning? Why the charade with the fake diary?"

Terry's expression clouded with regret. "Panic, pure and simple. When you woke up thinking it was 2009, looking at me with all that old hatred... I thought I'd lost you completely. The doctors said familiar things might trigger memories, but all your memories of me from that period were negative. I thought if I could just get you to see the man I'd become, the relationship we'd built..."

"So you decided to rewrite history."

"I made a terrible mistake," Terry acknowledged. "One I'll regret forever. As soon as I saw how confused and vulnerable you were, I knew it was wrong. That's why I started walking it back, trying to introduce the truth gradually."

"Only after I caught the inconsistencies," I pointed out.

"Yes," Terry admitted, hanging his head. "I don't have any excuse. I betrayed your trust at the moment you needed honesty the most."

We sat in silence for several minutes, the weight of the past—both remembered and forgotten—settling between us.

"The video I found," I finally said. "The one where I talk about losing a bet with myself about never falling for you. What was that about?"

Terry's expression lightened slightly. "Ah, that. On graduation day, after I gave the valedictorian speech you should have delivered, you confronted me behind the gym. You told me I was everything wrong with society—privilege without merit, confidence without substance. You said, and I quote, 'I would bet my entire future that I will never, ever fall for someone like you.'"

"And I recorded that message as what? Acknowledgment that I'd lost the bet?"

"It was your idea of a wedding gift," Terry explained. "You were going to play it at our reception—your eighteen-year-old self would be horrified to see who you were marrying."

Despite everything, I laughed. The gesture was exactly the kind of ironic humor I would appreciate.

"I've been reading the letters," I told him. "Not just the rewritten one you gave me before I left—Mia picked up the originals for me."

Terry looked surprised. "All of them?"

"Enough to understand who you were during those ten years, and who you've become since." I met his gaze directly. "The man in those letters—the real letters, not the fake diary—is someone I could love."

Hope flickered in Terry's eyes. "And the man sitting in front of you now?"

I took a deep breath. "That depends on whether he can promise me complete honesty moving forward, even when the truth is difficult or uncomfortable."

"Absolute transparency," Terry vowed. "No more secrets, no more 'protecting' you from anything. Partners in everything."

I nodded slowly. "Then I'd like to come home. Not to pick up exactly where we left off—I think we need to rebuild some trust first—but to try."

The smile that broke across Terry's face was like sunrise after a long night. "I'll take 'try' with profound gratitude."

As we walked together toward the garden exit, Terry hesitantly offered his hand. After a moment's consideration, I took it, feeling the familiar calluses from his pen grip against my skin.

"There's one thing I'm still curious about," I said. "Those coffee cup sleeves I found in your study—what were those about?"

Terry's cheeks colored slightly. "That's... well, that's a longer story. But the short version is: the first time you ever smiled at me—genuinely smiled, not the sarcastic one you usually gave me—was when I passed you a coffee in AP Chemistry after you'd been up all night finishing a project. You probably don't even remember it."

"I don't," I admitted.

"It was nothing to you, but everything to me," Terry said simply. "Some habits are hard to break, even after ten years."

As we reached my car, I realized that while my memories had mostly returned, something else had been gained in their temporary absence—a deeper understanding of the man I'd agreed to marry. The boy who had tormented me in high school, the man who had loved me from afar for a decade, the partner who had made a terrible mistake out of fear of losing me—they were all facets of the same complex person.

And despite everything, I still wanted to know him better.