Letter 20/365
TW: More details about SA. Please skip this chapter if that topic triggers you.
***My love***,
I don’t know if it’s because I’ve written you 19 letters already and this 20th one has me feeling vulnerable, but there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you.
Something I need to tell you about me, about my past, about my struggles.
I know this is something I should have talked to you a long time ago, , but every time I tried, the words got stuck in my throat. I still have trouble talking about it, even now.
I think I’m only able to tell you this now because they are words on paper. I can write them down and let them go. Because I won’t have to watch your face fall apart, or watch the tears as they stream down your face.
I’m thankful you never forced me to talk about it, that you never pushed for more answers.
But you deserve to know. You deserve every piece of me, even the broken ones I’d rather keep hidden. Maybe it will make you understand me more, or let you in on why I have made you feel less than on certain occasions.
When I kept you at arm’s length in the beginning, when you begged me to fuck you and I couldn’t, it wasn’t because I didn’t want you. It wasn’t because I didn’t feel like it needed to happen between us. You have no idea how hard it was for me to not make love to you right from the beginning.
I had to know you were real. I had to know you loved me before I gave you the last parts of myself I hadn’t let anyone touch since her. I don’t even want to write down her name.
Since the hospital.
She was a nurse, someone I trusted. She was the one in charge of my care for multiple shifts. I was stuck in that bed, burned and bandaged, drugged to the point where I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t fight back. I’m kind of surprised I remember any of it.
But I remember her hands smothering my screams. Her hands, touching me everywhere. I remember feeling trapped in my own fucking body. I remember the shame that came after, and how small I felt, how weak.
I said nothing, afraid of what people would say. I kept it to myself, dreading every time I saw her face walk through that door.
Eventually, it was my dad who caught her. Walked in and saw everything.
He lost it. Hired the best lawyers. Told me I was going to testify. I didn’t even get a say. I was still drugged out of my mind, still trying to figure out how to live with the aftermath of that accident, and he was already making plans. Already laying down the law.
That was just another crack in our relationship. It was just another time I realized he was so desperate to control everything. He didn’t even stop to think if I was okay. I think, maybe he needed someone to blame. Maybe he needed a villain in his story, and he made mine his.
Maybe it was easier to throw everything he had into that case than it was to face the fact that my mom was gone.
Testifying in court? It almost broke me.
I stood up there and told a room full of strangers what happened to me. Like it was just a story. Like it didn’t rip something out of me every time I said the words out loud.
It made me stop trusting people. Made me start building walls so thick even I couldn’t always see past them.
And then there was you. You with your eyes so full of sadness it felt like looking into a mirror. You scared the shit out of me, Alina.
Because I knew that it would never be fucking with you.
It would always be making love to you.
If I let myself have even a taste, I would never be able to walk away. If you only wanted me for a little while, for a way to escape whatever haunted you, it would have destroyed me.
That’s why I waited, why I needed you to say it first. Because I couldn’t survive giving another piece of myself to someone who didn’t want to keep it, who didn’t deserve it, who I didn’t want to give it to.
I haven’t been with anyone, not like I’ve been with you, since the hospital. I didn’t think I ever would be again.
But everything in my head, all the control I have over my heart and my actions, falls apart in the face of you.
You’re it for me. I don’t want anyone else. I don’t even want to think about another life, another body, another soul against mine that isn’t yours.
You made me feel seen again. You made me feel wanted, not because I was broken, but because you truly see me.
I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to deserve that.
I love you. More than you’ll ever know.
***Zaid***
I set down the letter and give myself a second to breathe through it. It still shakes in my trembling hands. Elena sets down her cup of coffee on the table and looks at me with a small smile.
“Everything okay?”
I shake my head, laughing. “You ask me that every time I read a letter.”
She shrugs. “They always have you crying.”
I fold the letter and set it back in the envelope. I usually read them alone in my room, but I had been struggling with some extra homesickness. I decided to read the letter during breakfast with Elena today to combat some of those feelings.
I blow out a stream of air to calm my voice before I speak. “I don’t know if I deserve him.”
Elena snorts and I look at her incredulously. She laughs when she sees my face. “You can’t be serious, can you?”
“I am.”
“This is how I know you’re young. If we only loved people when they deserve it, relationships wouldn’t last very long. Maybe right now, he’s the anchor, the deserving one, but that might change in a few years. Life happens, circumstances change.”
I look at her, nodding along, though I don’t truly grasp the meaning of her words.
“Worry about the love that you can give, he will worry about the love he gives you, just be there for each other. Right now, focus on the person you are for yourself. Who do you deserve to be in this life?”
We finish breakfast as I ponder her words, as we sip the last of our coffee, I turn to her. “Does your friend still have that art studio available for me to use?”
Elena’s face lights up and she nods. “Yes. I can call him if you want to use it today?”
I nod and she beams. I haven’t painted since W arrived in Florence, doing some introspective work instead. But I think now I have the inspiration I need. An entire collection comes alive in my head and I want to have it done by the time we get back home.
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