The Break Up Plan

50: MARCH SEVENTEEN

Dear Gabriella,

I have no right to send you this letter, I know that but I can't help it. How are you? How is Cole? How is your baby girl? Riley, I think. Lavender visits me sometimes and she tells me all about you guys. Cole is the captain of his basketball team? I heard you were made a professor. I heard you moved. There are days when I sit on my bed and concentrate as hard as I can but I can't remember your face, Cole's either. I try to remember what you looked like the day we met, or even on our wedding day but I can't. What I do remember is the horror on your face that day in court. It's strange that I remember that moment because according to the professionals, I was out of my mind. They tell me that I was sick, that I had borderline personality disorder. They tell me that I murdered my daughter because I was sick but that's just an excuse. Nothing justifies how I destroyed my family. These days, it feels like a dream. Like a movie I watched when I was little but I can't get out of my head. There are some times though, when I can feel the knife in my hands, when I can see her body shudder and feel the warmth of her blood. It's driving me a different kind of crazy. Gabby, apologizing feels wrong. The gravity of what I did can't be undermined by an apology. All I ask now to see your face and Cole's so that when I go, I'll have an image of why I don't deserve to be alive.

I wish you both all the happiness I was never able to give you.

The letter falls from my hand and I close my eyes as a tear slides down my cheek.

I hear Cole inhale shakily and I open my eyes to watch him through blurry vision, "thank you" he let's out.

I nod, "you're welcome"

There's silence between us that I don't want to break. Cole does it instead, "do you think I should have read it that day it came?" he turns to me, his eyes glassy with tears.

I sigh, "Would it have changed anything?"

He bites his lip, "I don't know," he chuckles bitterly, "I may have gone to see him just to watch him tie the noose"

I inhale sharply, "you don't mean that"

"He killed my sister" Cole replies sharply.

He turns to face me and his face is hard, "he killed my sister and didn't even have the decency to face the consequences of his actions. He was a coward, he should have kept on living, separated from the family he ruined. He should have lived, he should have suffered longer, he should have-"

He breaks down all over again, choking on thick, heavy sobs. I wrap my arms around him as he begins to sob all over again, "how dare him?" he chokes out between sobs, "he was a coward till the very end"

I hold him tighter, rocking back and forth gently. "God, I really am my father's son"

I freeze. Slowly, I pull away and grab his shoulders so I can look at his face, "what did you just say?"

He sniffs, "I'm a coward, just like him"

"Why on earth would you say that?"

Cole scoffs, "he hurt my sister because he couldn't stand the fact that my mom was more successful than he was. So he lashed out at her daughter and hurt her"

I frown, "okay, and that makes you like him, how?"

"Instead of me to accept the fact that you rejected me, I lashed out and hurt you instead"

Oh.

I close my eyes, my hands dropping from Cole's shoulders. "That is completely different"

"No, it is not"