Message in a Bottle [LGBTQ+] [ONC 2024]

Letter #5

Dear Eli,

Don't apologise. You cannot help it when unexpected events occur, but I do hope everything is alright. I do not matter if your letters are delayed, just knowing they are coming is enough for me.

You have every right to be mad at me due to my lack of response. It is not my intention to cause you any distress, but there are some things I cannot and should not talk about. My life is ... complicated, to say the least, and the last thing I want to do is get someone else entangled in it all. I wish I could say more, but I cannot.

Not yet.

I would understand if you no longer wanted to correspond with me since I can hardly tell you a single thing about myself. There are things I can share, though. Hopes, dreams, wishes, the sorts of things that most people do not want to hear anything about, but the things that I hope you might. It might not be the same, but we can get to know each other in a deeper way than the surface-level things that everyone knows of.

Perhaps it is my own fault for asking you about your family when I cannot offer the same information. Although I cannot share about my family, as much as it pains me to, I can gladly tell you about school.

English was always my better subject, if you have not already guessed. I always loved how much words can convey, and how easy it is to tell a whole story in just a few words or a lone sentence. There is a sort of magic to it, though not everyone understands that. At my last school, the other children used to ridicule me for the way I loved to read. I do not read as much as I would like to, though. Not anymore.

Your interest in the sciences and mathematics is a noble one. I agree that there is still so much to learn about the world and so much more to discover. Maybe you will be a part of it one day. I hope so, then I could say I knew someone who helped change the world.

Why do you doubt that you could be a part of it all? If you are dedicated enough, and it sounds as though you are, then you can do anything you wish to. That is the philosophy I have always had. The only thing stopping you is you.

I hope you will write back, though I will understand if you don't.

Yours,

Samuel.

~~~

First Published - March 23rd, 2024