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

Letter #8

Dear Samuel,

Do you really believe all that to be true?

You have never met me before and yet you create such an idyllic view of who I am as a person after only a handful of written exchanges. It is easy to pretend to be someone else in these pages, to create a false appearance in the written word because the reality is not worth entertaining.

I believe you would know all about that.

I'm having a hard time believing that the person in these letters, the person that is able to say things that resonate deeply within myself, is the same person keeping so many secrets. Your sister knows who I am, or at least she appeared to. All I wanted to do was talk to her, but she echoed the same words you have shared with me.

That now is not the time.

Then when will be the right time?

Victoria clearly knows who I am. She knows about these letters, and she knows more about me then I know about either of you. I thought these letters were supposed to be private, that's why we're leaving them in a bottle by a stream, yet that isn't true. How am I supposed to believe that everything I share with you will remain a secret?

I may have been wrong about Peter Upton being responsible for the letter, but this still feels like a laugh at my expense. An opportunity to build up trust and then shatter it for your own amusement. I told you that I do not trust easily and I was stupid to think that you would be any different.

You let me think that we really could be friends, that there was someone out there who didn't think me strange or unusual. I was a fool.

I hope the joke was worth it.

Yours,

Eli

~~~

First Published - April 16th, 2024