Her Artifacts Lost, Volume 1 - The Vanishing Vial

To The Man Who Stuck To Me Like A Shadow

I spent four and a half years trying to get you to feel something. Anything.

You were so cut off from yourself. I knew what that was like. I had been climbing out of that hole my whole life.

So if you wonder if I still love you: I do.

I have once described you to others as the epitome of the American Dream.

Even after experiencing such cruelty, neglect, and misguidance in your childhood, you isolated yourself and committed to your dreams. From the age of eight, you decided to take control of your life.

You wanted to be a programmer of games. And you made that dream a reality. Trust me. Now it's time to start building towards that independent studio. Once you get on solid ground, the boys will need a strong leader. We both know he isn't cutting it (you know who you are you dumbass).

I couldn't be more proud of you. I hope you know that. And I hope you feel that even if no one else expresses it. That you feel my pride. Even in my absence.

You did an incredibly difficult and brave thing. Leaving your home with me, and going to California to pursue work in the AAA industry.

It cracked you open because it took you out of your small world. And your world widened too quickly. I believe that's in part why your mental health declined.

Nothing in your world could hold up your old sense of self. The only thing left holding up that old you was me. And I knew that.

For me, our relationship broke me. Because for four and a half years I experienced the same hell of my childhood. With you.

Wanting to heal you destroyed me. Trust me. Neither of us made it out alive.

I almost died seven times in the four months after our breakup. The operating system known as my psyche just failed. It collapsed. I had healed by transcending my trauma. Leaving you and receiving medicine from that wretched quack was the final step.

I had to leave. Not only because of my son, Allister. But also because you have some other woman waiting for you.

You likely already know her. And she, like you, has done a lot of growing.

Go after her. Be the man for her you wanted to be to me.

And have that daughter. Rose Audrey Washington. And that son! Because the next iteration of your family line will need you to live and get your shit together so you can be a good strong Father.

I believe in you Mach. I couldn't be happier to say that we no longer stand in each other's shadow.