Every Day in May (grand prize winner) ✔

May 30th

Where are you Merryn?

It will be morning soon and there's been no sign of you—no hurried steps in the hallway, no rush of cool air under my door as the rug you lift to retrieve your letter flops back to the floor. You've usually come and gone twice by this time.  What's happened to you?

If I do nothing to fill these empty hours, I'll go crazy, so as idiotic as it may be I'm going to answer my own question:

I refuse to leave without you. 

Wherever you are—if you've been caught, if you're in any kind of trouble—I'll find you.  I've been looking at old maps and I've narrowed down the location of the Dissent factory to three possible sites.  If your brother's holding you, I'll get you out.  If my father has you, I'll kill him before Jeffers and Graden have the chance to. 

You always tried to impress upon me the danger I'm in both from my father and from the Dissent; the truth is your own life has been in jeopardy this whole time every bit as much as my own—and it's my fault.

There are a million things I've wanted to ask you: What are your friends like? Do you still sing? Why are you doing all of this for me?  I'm done asking you a question a day in the margins of a piece of notebook paper.  The next question I ask will be spoken out loud, and you will be standing in front of me when I do.

It is going to happen.

What I've wanted to tell you, what I should have told you already, is that I feel it too—we were born with half a day between us, but that day still connects us.  Always.

I hope this letter not only answers my own question, but also manages to answer the one you had prepared for me today. I'm sorry you're not here to ask it yourself, but regardless, there is only one answer I'm willing to give to you, whatever your question:

I'll go wherever you wish me to, as long as you'll go with me.

I pulled away from you, from your letters for a while. I read them, but I didn't respond. My only excuse is that I was in shock.  As much as I've dreamed of people finding out I exist, to have it happen twisted my stomach into knots.  I was scared, Merryn, scared of everything that might take place, but I was never angry with you.  How could I be, after everything you've done for me?

Tomorrow is it.  If you don't come, if you aren't here to tell me what the plan is, then it's a good thing I've already devised one myself:

My plan is to find you, wherever you are, so that we can make our escape. 

Together.