Prologue
Some stories begin with hope. Mine, on the other hand, begins with a dead man’s letter.
I’m sitting in the Operations Room, surrounded by maps and decisions whose weight I still can’t fully understand.
The silence is overwhelming, broken only by the murmurs of the people outside preparing for the ceremony.
I know they expect me to step out and take the place that now belongs to me. However, I can’t find the strength to get up yet, at least not while I’m holding the last words of the love of my life.
My fingers tremble around the envelope as I watch it, unable to muster up the courage to open it. For months I kept the letter, afraid of what it might reveal. Or maybe I just feared that if I read it and put an end to our story, it would make his death more real.
I want to fold it and keep it in the innermost place on my desk, but today is the day I take his place, and I know that I must read his last wishes.
Finally, I break the seal and unfold the letter.
I recognize his handwriting immediately.
“Henry, if you’re reading this, it means I did what I always knew I would end up doing.”
I read the first line slowly, and by the time I finish the letter, I feel like something inside me has broken forever.
I understand now that I was wrong in everything I thought I knew about him.
For years, I admired his courage, convinced he could endure everything this broken world threw at him. I believed that he was born to lead and offer hope to humanity even when there was hardly any reason to have it.
But now, with his last words in my hands, I understand how little I knew about his truth.
And I can’t help but wonder when everything began to fall apart. Where did I fail as a partner and lover? What led him to hide the truth from me? How many times did I mistake his smile for happiness?
I desperately search between the lines, but I know that nothing could bring back the love of my life.
I wipe my tears with the back of my hand and take a deep breath to gather myself. Then I stand up, put the letter in my jacket, and walk out the door.
The sunlight forces me to squint the moment I stand outside, and the crowd erupts in shouts and applause. Everyone has come to witness the beginning of something new, but I can only think of everything I had lost to get to this moment.
I glance at the faces around me, and in seconds they cease to make sense. Everything becomes blurry, and suddenly I can only see the young man I used to be and the family I swore to protect.
The ceremony begins, and I hear my name among the cheers, but my mind is already far from here.
I’m back to the old cabin at the top of the hill.
To the night that my life changed forever.
To the days when I discovered that hope and pain could coexist.
I go back to the day I met Sam Davis.
