You fucking piece of shit. I can’t even say your name in the real letter. What you did has destroyed me. My innocence was taken from me. I shouldn’t have felt the things I felt at that age. No one should feel what I have. I’m your flesh and blood. But you’re his flesh and blood, so . . .
I was too small to defend myself. I loved you, and I let you do the things you did because I thought you loved me. You weren’t violent. You did those things with gentle coaxing, which is the worst fucking part. I knew it was wrong and that it hurt me, but you reassured me it was what people do. That the blood was normal.
All of this was nothing to you, but it was everything to me. It took everything. I am who I am today because of you. Don’t take that as a compliment. I’m broken. I trust no one. I’m afraid of touch. Love terrifies me because it hurts. It always hurts.
I wish I could ask you why or find out if I was the only one, but you took that chance away from me. Were you too afraid to face me once I was brave enough to ask you questions?
I’ve envisioned all the things I’d do to you if you were still alive. What I’d do to your dick. I’d make you hurt the way you hurt me. Use it as a weapon the way you used it on me. You’re a coward. A weak, limp-dicked coward. I hope you get ass-fucked for the rest of eternity with the fiery hot dick of the devil.
My heart rests somewhere in my stomach, leaving my chest vacant. I gnawed at the inside of my cheeks as I read her letter until all I tasted was the metallic bite of blood. I look over at her, and she drops my letters into her lap. Her eyes are glassy. A warm line of wetness sails down my cheek, dripping onto my shirt.
I throw the letters away from us and wrap her in my arms. She finally lets herself cry against my chest, and my heart crawls back to where it belongs.
“Oh fuck, Skye,” I whisper as I kiss the top of her head. “I’m so sorry for what you went through.”
I fear that I could hurt her one day. I can’t. She doesn’t deserve anything less than a wanted touch. I can’t be the hand that breaks her trust. She’s grown so much since she’s been here with me, and I’ll never be the same person I was when she walked into that damn church.
* * *
Hours strokedby in silence as we sat together on the couch. She’s still on my lap, curled up as if she needs to live there. I’m fine with it if she does.
Her cheeks burn with heat as she sits in a numb state of being that I’ve sat in myself. A pain so deep it freezes you. Thick, like muddy shit. You can’t trudge through it, and the more you fight it, the deeper you sink. I lift her out of the swallowing mud and carry her to the bedroom. I lay her down, crawling into bed beside her.
If the letters I read were watered down, I couldn’t handle the full-strength versions. She has 190 proof Everclear level trauma, but I’m willing to drink it with her. If she’s afraid I’ll think less of her for the things that happened to her, I won’t. As she unravels her history and reveals what makes her who she is, I’ll place her on a pedestal in front of me. Yeah, her base is cracked and held together with twine, but there she stands, strong as fuck. Stronger than me.
“What can I do to help you?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she says in a whisper. Her eyes fixate ahead. “I don’t need you to do anything but let me live where I am right now. Where my pain is so overwhelming that I’m drowning. I want you to pull me from the current, but I can’t have you do that. I need to drag myself to shore and shake off the droplets of my memories until they disappear in the sand.”
I brush the hair off her face, wiping at the sweat on her skin. I kiss her. I know she wants to get to shore on her own, but I need to help her swim. If she pushes me away, that’s fine. I’ll swim beside her, ready to help her once she grows tired.