Love Me Back

Chapter 15

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March 21

Dear Finn,

I'm finally out of the hospital. They told me that "a boy with blue eyes and brown hair had come to visit" and that he had pushed everyone out of the way to get to my room. Goddammit, Finn, couldn't you have just waited?

You weren't the only visitor.

Bethany came too, with a bunch of bullshit about how she "didn't mean to" and that "she missed the old us" and that she wanted me to forgive her.

How could I? How could I forgive someone that stabbed me when my back was turned, someone that shot me with an arrow when I was unarmed? How could I forgive her?

I suppose that you feel the same way towards me.

Everything I did--everything I said to you--it was utter bullshit. I'm so sorry for leading you on, FInn. And even though I did love you before, you have to learn to let me go.

You can't live like this, Finn. You can't keep clinging to me like I'm a lifeline; because I'm not. I'm a sinking ship, and if you keep holding on, I'll drag you down with me.

Even if that's what you want, it's not what I want.

Maybe I'm being selfish and maybe I'm being greedy. But I can't do anything to stop it. I'm sorry. Sooner or later, you'll realize that I'm not as perfect as you thought I was, and you'll take me down from that 'perfect' pedestal and put me in the closet with the monsters and the darkness. And maybe that's where I belong.

But you need to let me go.

-Cara

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A boy opened his mailbox, and, looking at the envelope enclosed tightly in his hand, sighed. Sliding the envelope into the mailbox, he looked up at the sky.

The next day, the mailman came. He opened the mailbox and extracted the envelope, dropping it into his satchel.

The boy watched him through a window near the front door.

A few days later, a girl received a birdcage necklace in the mail. As she read who it was from, tears slid down her face. After she arrived at her room, she hurled the necklace at her mirror, where it hit the glassy surface with a bang and clattered to the floor.

She screamed, hurling everything on her desk across the room. A lamp shattered, sending shards of glass flying as the girl sobbed, hiccups riddling her body. She kneeled down and gently lifted a piece of the broken glass. Her chest heaving, she clenched her hand, the glass tearing into her flesh.

Memories flashed back in her mind.

I don't want to go back.

She took one final, deep breath, closed her eyes, and leaned her head against her mattress. Carefully, she extracted the bloody shard from her left hand, setting it down on the carpet. Sliding her hand down her face, she looked into the mirror--at her scarred wrist, her bloodshot eyes, strips of red cascading down her cheek. She looked into the mirror and wondered why she was still there.