“Stop! Please Aleks, stop! Can you even stop?" I try to snap him out of the vicious mood he's in, but he won't listen. "You won't stop, will you?" I whimper, ducking behind the couch to avoid the flying lamp he had thrown at me. "No, I won't, and you can't stop me either!" he snarled at me, a dangerous glint in his eyes, and grabbed me. "Please stop!" I beg him, but it's no use.
Stop! Please Aleks, stop! Can you even stop? You won't stop, will you? Please stop!" The words echoed in my head. I just wanted it to stop. Sighing, I made up my mind. I grabbed a pen and some paper, and started to write.
~My Love,
I won't be home again, you'll never see me again either. I don't know why I'm writing, I guess I still care enough about you that I feel you should know what's going on. I'm leaving, for good. Maybe someday you'll have a brief moment of clarity, will look around yourself, and barely conscious, for the moment is starting to pass, you'll say to the air, "Isn't something missing?" Ha, like that would happen. The hardly conscious part, yes that'll happen, but the part about caring about me, even the tiniest bit? No way that'll ever happen. You won't cry, or even care for my disappearance. You forgot me long ago, or at least the love. You still remember me, but only because I know your secret, and because you need a target to throw hits and objects at. Am I that unimportant, so insignificant? Am I only something that you can take your anger out on? Of course, that's all I am in your eyes. Don't you see that there's something missing? I highly doubt it.
Even though I'm the sacrifice, the target, you won't try for me, not anymore. You tried before; now, you leave me exposed. Middle school? Piece of cake with you by my side, first as friends, then as a couple. Freshman and Sophomore year? Easy, because you still stood up for me, even though our relationship had started to take a nosedive. After that? School was my personal hell. I've held onto my hopes, and nearly died to know you love me, yet I find myself alone. Jumped in the street, left to die, trying to get to your house to ask why you've left me to fend for myself. When the ambulance arrived, I was hardly breathing. On the way to the hospital, my heart stopped. Did you know that? I was dead for a sliver of time, all because of you. Now, I have to deal with the stares, the judgemental people who only see the scars, physical, emotional, and mental.
There isn't anyone who would miss me once I was gone. All my relatives except my parents are dead. They didn't mind me staying with my uncle when he bought our house instead of moving with my parents. They don't even try to contact, so that means they won't know I've left this town, or even this country if I decide to. They probably don't even know that my uncle died two years ago.
Don't try to stop me, or come after me. I know what you do to yourself, and others. You're a raging alcoholic, a dangerous drug addict, and abusive towards anyone close to you. Don't worry, I won't tell the cops. Maybe someone will, because you need to be stopped. It's not my problem anymore.
Aleks stormed in, fury and fear in his eyes. Moments before I had caught him drinking and doing drugs, the first time I had realized just how far down he'd fallen into the pit he was digging himself into. I had bolted, trying to hide. However, he knew all my hiding spots, so he found me easily. He grabbed me and hurled me against the wall, as if I were weightless. Dazed, I tried to steady my breathing, and cried out slightly when I moved my head. As the world blurred, I saw him walking to me; a terrifying glow in his eyes; his hair looked psychaotic, and a sadistic grin appeared on his face. Moving too fast for my muddled brain to keep up with, my once sane, beautiful Aleks kicked me in the temple, and the world went dark.
I shuddered at the memory. I had woken up the next day with a pounding migraine, and I was purple and blue head to foot for weeks, for he had beaten me senseless. I brushed my fingers over the large scar running down my side, one of many others, where he had raked a broken beer bottle down it. It's the only evidence left of that night, other then my memories and his, if he even remembered what he did. I shivered again and continued writing.
Isn't something missing? Of course there is. You are missing all of your sanity and compassion. I am slowing losing my will to live, and I'm already missing my happiness. Again, I've nearly died from all that you've put me through, and I don't think you know the extent of the damage I have had to deal with. The bullies from school aren't the only ones who beat the living daylights out of me you know. Or I guess you didn't before this letter, but now you will. My emotions have killed me; I feel nothing but emptiness now. I may of lived physically from being attacked, but inside I'm dead.
If I bleed, or die, or slip into a depression no one call pull me out of, I'll go through it all, knowing you don't care. If I end up dreaming about you, whether it be nightmares or dreams when everything was perfect between us, I'll wake without you there, which could be either good or bad, depending on my mood and what type of dream I end up having. I've died to know you love me, both literally and figuratively, yet you don't care at all for me. Isn't someone going to miss me, when I'm gone from this town, this past, this life? I don't think anyone will even notice, let alone care. Just let that run through your head, everything I've repeated to make the message stick in your slow brain, and maybe you'll feel the slightest twinge of regret. Maybe you can strain as hard as you can to think of one person who will miss me. Maybe you'll come up with that one person. But by then, I'll be long gone. Oh, and there's one more opinion to inform you of, in case you missed it before. The main thing that was missing in our relationship is love. I hope that you know that you caused all this. So, with nothing else to say, this is goodbye, Aleksandr Vitalyviech Marchant. -Your past love, Edwin Cardona
“Stop! Please Aleks, stop! Can you even stop? Please! You won't stop, will you? Please stop!" The words still haunt me, along with the horrible memory of the beating, and the many others. I sealed the letter in a stamped envelope and wrote his address on it. For a moment I just stared at it, thoughts racing through my mind. Will he find it? If the school finds out, will they know who it's from? Of course they will, but no one will care. All the people who find out will only think about it for a week, then something else will happen that will cause me to fade from their minds. I sighed and got up to finish packing the things I'm taking with me.
With my bags packed, I grabbed them, my passport, my plane ticket, and the letter. I walked out of my childhood home without a backwards glance. Stopping at the post office along the way, I drove towards the airport, and my new life, away from all those painful memories the house, neighborhood, and people that I grew up around caused. Aleks would always be there, but I hoped that the bad memories would become overshadowed by the good. I knew I'd always carry both, and that it would take me a long time to even be close to who I was before the mess of a relationship I was in happened. There was a bumpy ride ahead of me, but I was ready to start it.
Inspired by the band Evanescence and their song Missing. A few lyrics from the song are found in this story, and I do not own them, Evanescence does. Lyrics added for detail and/or lack of better or different wording.
