Sincerely, Scarlett

01: Dear Kelsey

Dear Kelsey, 

Our problem was that we had too much in common. We’d forever show up in the same place at the same time, do the same activities on sports day. I guess maybe that’s why as friends, we drifted away. You took the wrong path, I believe, to hang with the girls that tease everyone mercilessly. But you fit right in anyway, didn’t you? I’m scoffing right now. You didn’t. You were lovely, Kels. Your smile never stopped and it was so sincere. Your hair was a rich shade of brown and it was beautiful, so why’d you dye it - sorry, bleach it? To fit in more? Kelsey, the fact that you were so nice made you stand out from those bullies! The next transformation, though, wasn’t even that lovely attitude. I’m surprised those girls didn’t get to that earlier. Surprised they didn’t get to the deepest part of you – your soul. But instead, they got to your eyes. They turned the love and kindness in your eyes to a dullness I’ve never experienced. At first, the swirl of green was emotionless, but slowly, as they changed your soul and insides, they began to fill with an evilness and desire to hurt I’ve never experienced. The two emotions they created in your eyes I had never before experienced until seeing it done to you.

I’m sure you enjoyed it, though. The teasing and the hurt. I’m sure you did because you ended up to be that kind of girl. Now, as a twenty year old girl with a rich brown colour starting to show through in the bleached blonde hair, how are you coping? Without those other girls to hoist you up? What job do you have – a beautician? No wait, isn’t that Blonde Bimbo #5’s profession? Sorry for the teasing, Kels, but you changed. You changed to be like them – to be like a girl with a snooty attitude and a scowl instead of a smile, a profane language instead of an English one. I can’t believe who they changed you into. They changed you into someone I had hoped I would never be friends with. 

But I was, once. I was once best friends with you. I had once eaten lunch with you, told jokes with you, had sleepovers with you, had parties where you were the only one invited. Gosh, I miss those days, Kels. Why can’t they come back now that those girls are gone and it’s just us, left to rot on earth alone? Oh well.

Sincerely,

Scarlett

She seals the letter and rampages through the drawers until she finds it. The gray of her eyes twinkle the slightest bit in the dim lighting of the room when they land on the large jewellery box. With only two letters already sat in it, there’s much more room for more letters to be written. Her nimble fingers place the third letter of the week alone into the box. Painted fingernails with the colour matching her beautiful name. Scarlett. She sighs and that is all the sound that will probably fill the small flat – human sound, anyway. There’ll be lots of other sounds, pots and pans clanging about, the jewellery box slamming shut, the door doing the same (rarely), clicking of the keys on a laptop’s keyboard, a pencil or pan scraping across a piece of paper. Lots of sounds that won’t escape a human’s mouth. 

Oh, but the place is so empty and bare. Boxes still unpacked sit around the room, dust collecting on top of them. Over a year is enough to have unpacked but the loneliness in the flat makes Scarlett want to run away and hide. So maybe one day, she will. And then, the boxes will be all packed and ready for her. Of course, if the phone in the corner of the kitchen bench rings, then her velvety, delicate voice will then fill the silence in the flat. And maybe, she’ll feel a little bit more like home in that moment. But that’s doubted highly. And in that moment comes an unexpected noise, a whistle. A small, bird-like noise escapes her cracked lips as she begins to walk around the small area, emotion still void of her features. It’s not a natural thing in her daily life, the noise filling the air. Especially not this little whistle that imitates a bird. The noise stops so suddenly though, not a descending sound as though a bird has just flown away slowly. But like a bird has been shot down from the sky.