Plain Sight

chapter forty-two

Juliette
___

my dearest Juliette,

It's 1:27 in the morning as I write this. I couldn't bare to sleep without finishing this letter. I've tried 6 times, but I keep throwing each one away because I haven't been able to find the right words to explain everything.

From the day we met, I knew I'd hurt you eventually. It was inevitable, but I regretted it every step of the way. The hard part was, that somewhere along the way, I began to care about you. I began to love you. It scared me, because I've never known this kind of love before, until I met you.

It stopped being just a deal for me a long time ago.

My biggest fear, was that you would eventually see me the way I see myself. A monster. But I've accomplished that, undoubtedly, you resent me. And with good reason. But you don't know the whole story. I want you to know the truth, so please, don't give up on us just yet.

I had no other choice, I had to protect my family. All of the attacks were never going to end as long as we were together, so I wanted to keep you safe. The only way for that to happen, was if you were far away from me. I knew you'd never leave if something didn't push you away. So I did just that. I pushed you away to keep you safe.

I don't know why it took me so long to realize the most important thing. You are my family. I needed to protect you. So that's why I knew I had to come up with a way to get you back into my life. The only way I could think of, was to sacrifice mine to get you back.

Every word I said to you that night was a lie. You mean everything to me. I look at you, and I just love you, and it terrifies me. It terrifies me what I would do for you.

If you're reading this letter, it means I already did it. You're all looking for me, searching for me. You think I'm missing, but it's all a setup. I couldn't think of another way that would get you to forgive me, so I decided to put myself in danger so that you would have no other choice but to find this letter and hear me out.

I knew you'd never talk to me again, so this is why I had to go to such extreme measures. My only hope, is that I don't actually die while I'm being held hostage. You need to find me. You'll find an address on the back of this paper, go here. From there, you're on your own in finding me because I don't know where they will take me.

But please, forgive me. I've tried, and tried so hard to just stay away from you. To not think about you, and to not love you. But it's impossible. Even if you hate me, or want me dead, or if you never talk to me again, I still love you. And I will never stop loving you. It's indescribable.

I choose you. I will choose you over and over within a heartbeat, without a pause, and without a doubt. I'll choose you.

Even though I never said it, I love you.

I'm so sorry, Juliette.

_______

I'm frozen. I cannot think, and I cannot stop the tears from just falling from my eyes. They just keep forming, and dropping down my cheeks, I don't know how to stop them.

My mind is running laps, faster and faster until it's all a blur, everything is blurry and I can't hear anything besides a faint ringing in both of my ears.

How can all of this be?

Was I wrong about all of it? Oh no. Tom was trying to protect me the entire time? I was sitting there, hating Tom with everything capable in me, wishing he would just die. But there he was, doing everything he could to keep me safe.