Eighteen Letters To Juan Karlos •COMPLETED•

The Second Letter

Juan Karlos jumped on the hotel bed, exhausted. He yawned, stretching, when he heard something crackle. Oh yeah. The letters. Eighteen of them, all still there, all still accounted for. Slowly, so he wouldn't wake someone up - the walls in this hotel might as well have been made of paper - he opened the second letter and began reading squinting to see in the darkness.

Dear Juan Karlos,

Every time I sleep, I whisper good night to you.

I don't even know why. But I've done it from the beginning, and maybe it helps me when the nightmares come. Jaz told me they'd go soon, that one day I'll be able to look back at my past without freaking out. But they've been getting worse. Every night.

Why am I telling you this?

I don't know really. I've locked up those memories for so long that it hurts to talk about them, even think about them. So I'm writing them down. I'm not going to tell you everything. But maybe a little can't hurt, to tell you about me, and just me. I remember when I was younger, my dad used to take me out to the park, not mom, not Camille. Just me. It was a relief to get away from it all, let my dad push me on the swings and let it actually be about me, for once. Not Camille, because that's all it was normally about, and that was never going to change.

Or so I thought.

JK frowned at the letter. He didn't understand. Who is Camille? Her sister? He held the paper closer to his face, struggling to make out the words on the fading light.

I've tried everything to get the nightmares to go away, yet nothing ever works. Not once in the past month have I had a proper sleep. Tiny little Maddie gave me one of her plastic dolls. To protect me, she said. She is the only one apart from Jaz, my social worker, who knows that I get nightmares, and this is because her room is right next to mine, so she hears me screaming.

Oh god, that sounded morbid. I should shut up. Maybe I'll cross that bit out. And then, maybe I won't, because this is a diary in my mind. You're not gonna read this, so I'll carry on writing, pouring out my life and feelings on to this page. Actually, screw that. I'm not ever, ever, going back to what happened in my past.

I'm going to stop writing now because it's half 12 and I have an exam tomorrow. I'll probably mess it up anyway, because I'm not exactly the cleverest of people, but I don't want to make it worse.

Good night.

Lots of love,
Addie

Already, Juan Karlos was beginning to know Addie.

Addie. Was that short for Addison? He turned over the envelope in his hands, searching for an address so he could reply to her after he'd finished. But he couldn't find anything.

Wait. He was in a hotel, so how on earth did the letters get here?

Juan Karlos' head began to ache, and he realized he'd been sitting there for a long time, over thinking things. Questions swam around his brain, so he put the letter back in it's envelope, stuffed it back under the pillow with the other letters, and drifted off into sleep.

He would read the rest tomorrow.