When The Sun Rises | ✔

03 | Paper Coffin

Chapter 03 | Paper Coffin

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        With my mind still flooded with the memories her name forced to resurface, I slip my thumb beneath the adhesive tab to tear the seal. The blue and red stripes of the loose-leaf paper cast thin shadows on the envelope and a sour taste settles at the base of my throat.

        I swallow the spit pooling under my tongue. Ain't no way I am about to let whatever bullshit she got scrawled on this paper have my eyes slick and nose running. Even though, I act tough, my walls have more cracks and blindspots in them than my pride can admit. And she's one of them. My damn Achilles heel.

        Ready to get it over with and more curious than I thought I would be about what she has to say, I remove the letter. With the paper still folded in my sweat glazed hand, I pull out the chair I used to balance myself and slink into it. I sit the torn envelope on the table and carefully unfold the letter...

    
    
        Dear Keila,

        I have been trying to write this letter to you for a few days now. Actually, if I'm being honest, I've been writing it for two years.

      I need to tell you where I've been and what I've been doing all these years. But I don't know how to do that without hurting you more than I already have so I'll just write my truth and hope that it makes sense. Just try to keep an open mind and heart, okay?

        I know these last nine years haven't been the easiest for you, and I take complete responsibility for the way things turned out for us. I want you to know that no matter how bad things got I never stopped wishing you were with me and it was never my intention for you to pay for my screw ups.

        The truth is I didn't know how to deal with losing your father and being there for you at the same time. And I still don't. You were too young to understand everything that was going on back then, but I fought like hell to get some kind of justice out of that situation so when we heard back that they wouldn't be charging the officer, something inside me snapped.

        My mind just gave out on me, but that's no excuse for me not fighting harder to get you back or the things I did – and didn't do – that got you taken in the first place.

        When you needed me the most, instead of pulling myself together and being a mother, I was selfish and I checked out, and I apologize for that. I was the last thing you needed to be worried about back then.

        In case you're wondering, I've been completely sober for two and a half years. Dealing with the withdrawal and finding other ways to cope hasn't been easy. The tremors and nausea alone were enough to make me want to relapse, but I stuck it out.

        I don't know if you remember this, but I tried to call you on your birthday a few years ago and you refused to talk to me. When you did that, it woke me up to how bad things really were and I couldn't pretend you were better off anymore. 

        It was the push I needed to get some help so the next day I checked myself into a rehabilitation program. To rediscover the good in myself that you clung to that summer while I was doing my best to let go of it. The thing is that your father was and still is such a huge part of my life.

        We had been together so long that we were practically the same person, so perfectly gelled into each other it was hard to tell where he ended and I started. You couldn't see one of us without seeing the other just a few steps behind.