Rewrite

Gracia had given him the letter a few weeks after the funeral.

Roy had always hated getting letters from Hughes, mostly because he had only received them back when he was away at war, and he hated anything that had to do with that time of his life. Usually when Hughes wanted to keep in touch, he would use the phone, and Roy wasn't entirely sure he hated that.

She hadn't opened it, she had said. Just that she had found it jammed down behind a drawer in his desk while cleaning it out—she had to pause a moment to control the tears—and since it was addressed to him, she thought she'd bring it over.

The letter was surprisingly short, and strangely old. It read like this:

Roy, I'm just going to get to the heart of the matter. But before I do, I just want you to know that I feel horrible for not telling you in person, and horrible for not telling you sooner, and horrible for telling you, and horrible for not being there with you, and horrible for all the reasons why I might never being with you again.

You see, Roy, I love you.

I don't really have a follow-up to that, sorry. I just want you to know that I mean it—yes, I mean it in that really uncomfortable way. If you can understand, I felt like a liar before, like the worst friend in the world, for feeling like this. And now I just feel like I never should have started this letter.

He had thought to share his feelings and wrote the letter, changed his mind and stopped, changed it again and prepared the envelope, then finally decided not to send it after all and stuffed it into the back of his desk.

Roy found himself simultaneously wishing that the letter had never been found, that Hughes was there right now, that he had known before it was too late.

In a snap of fingers that he might or might not regret later, the letter was gone.