Hollow

sincerely,

UNEDITED - To be fixed at a later date.

*

To the people in my life,

My body is no longer my own. It's a vessel of deceit and corrupted innocence and I refuse to live and breathe with contempt in my heart.

Roman,

 To the only person, I've ever grown to love. Turns out, I don't know what love truly is but what we had was as close as I'll ever get. I cheated myself of any chance at being friends by holding you at arm's length and never trusting you. I know what you would say to this, but I feel it is appropriate; I am sorry.

There were so many times when I could have been honest with you, but I was afraid. I still am but I must leave everything resolved. Hopefully, you can forgive me and forgive everyone involved as I confess with a clarity I haven't experienced in a long time. I need to tell someone. I've held on far too long and I have never trusted anyone more.

I might as well start at the beginning. When I was younger, I never really had any friends. We moved here a few years back and I was too shy to talk to anyone. My mom was old friends with Catalina, Luca's mother, from high school before she moved away, and that's how Luca and I met.

Luca was five years older than me but he always tried to include me. We would hang out with his friends and girlfriend and that's how I met Emilia, but that's another story. I had never really fit in with his friends but that didn't matter. They were constantly drunk or high and I thought it was just normal. I was eleven at the time, I didn't know any better. You are probably thinking about how dumb I am right now but that's okay, I truly was.

Nothing really started to happen until I was fourteen. Luca never really paid special attention to me until one day, he just did. It started with innocent flirting and manifested into a contagious infatuation. Maybe it was my fault for flirting back or giving him the wrong idea but I honestly didn't mean to.

One day, we stopped hanging out with his crowd and it became just the two of us. He would compliment my hair and tell me how pretty I was while we drank stolen bottles of wine in the barley fields. I thought it was fun until it wasn't anymore. I told him I thought I loved him. He said he loved me too. But he didn't.

He started to become even friendlier. Kissing and touching me in ways I didn't understand. I knew it wasn't right but I never said anything until it was too late. I lost my virginity to him soon after and from there it just got worse. He began requesting sex whenever, whether I wanted to or not. He would tell me if I loved him, I would let him do whatever he wanted. I never denied him either. So, essentially, this is my fault.

We began dating soon after his girlfriend broke up with him for something completely unrelated. I always felt responsible though, for letting him fuck me while he was still with her.

Anyway, it became a daily thing. I was always in pain and he was always drunk or stoned. And then it all stopped. For three years he had been a constant, and then ten months ago he disappeared.

For three months, I didn't hear anything from him. Luca just vanished and I thought I could finally be happy again. But I wasn't. I started having nightmares about him and I was so paranoid, afraid he might just show up one day. We had never officially broken up and it only added to my nerves.

So, I started stealing my mom's alcohol and popping painkillers like tic-tacs. I didn't care about living, didn't care if I was hurting myself. I felt numb and it was fucking great. I went back to hanging with his friends and Emilia. It wasn't great but it wasn't bad either. I thought I had finally moved on. Until he came back. I felt like I was thrown off a cliff, landing headfirst on the jagged edges of the rocks while still completely conscious. He approached me at a party and we instantly fell back into our old routine.

I hated him. Before there was a piece of me that still loved him. Through all the abuse, mentally, emotionally, sexually, I still loved him. But now it was different. He had ruined me, annihilated my self-worth and respect, my peace of mind. I was a puppet and he had all the strings.

We both started doing harder drugs, him more than I. He started coming to my house in the middle of the night, strung out on morphine, coke, heroin, anything he could get his hands on. He'd take me back to his new place and just use me in ways I don't even want to mention. It wasn't just sex. The harder stuff morphed his manipulative personality into anger and violence. He turned into a monster and I was only a thing to possess.

I finally started to try and stand up to him. I wouldn't get in his car and protested for once in my life. His response was to beat me. It was a new low, a scary low. I was a battered, submissive mess.

I didn't know what to do. I couldn't tell anyone. I blamed myself because I put myself in this situation. And it was humiliating. I destroyed my relationship with my family. Emilia was my only friend but I couldn't tell her. I reasoned in my messed up head that she wouldn't believe me. And turns out, I was right.

Then you came along. I hadn't noticed you before that day you fought with your parents. I knew who you were but I never really paid attention until that day. You represented hope to me, but I was too far gone. That doesn't change the fact that I stopped drinking as much and went back to mild painkillers. The day we met changed something for me. I can't put my finger on what but a change was there. I'm sorry to do this to you only a few months into knowing you, but I was bound to destroy whatever it was we had anyway.

My story doesn't end there. I could deal with the self-medicating, Luca's mood swings and the abuse. I was use to it. The last two days have been the hardest days of my life.

Apparently, drugs come with attachments you don't even realize are real until you're in a situation so deep there is no escape. I let a man fuck me for drugs. I wasn't forced but I didn't say yes. I didn't say anything.

Being the cause of my own sick cycle, I got that taste of reality. I had choices and I never took one.

This is my choice, my final choice.

A few hours before I wrote this note was probably the hardest day I've ever had to endure. I was so ashamed of fucking that guy, I went back to heavy self-medicating. Through the fog, I remember pieces and what I remember is too grim to bear.

I remember being held down by my arms. I remember my face being pushed into the carpet. We were at Eric Shockmen's house. The three of us: me, Luca, and Eric. His sister was out and parents nowhere to be found.

We were sitting in his living room, smoking pot and laughing. I don't remember how we went from laughing to me being naked. I don't remember who hurt me first. But I remember the fire that burned my skin every time one of them touched me. They took turns holding me down and fucking me like a doll. I was powerless and I had never felt more alone. I remember the flashes of pictures from behind me and the things they called me. Just writing it down makes me cry uncontrollably.

Why me? Why couldn't Luca have left me alone? Why did he pick me? What was so wrong about me?

This is what I have to do. I'm sorry to end things on such an unfinished note but this is how it has to be. I'm tired of living these lies. It hurts too much to breathe. I am broken beyond repair.

Tell everyone I am sorry, including Luca. I'm sorry for any wrong I've ever done. Tell him, I forgive him.

Sincerely,

Your Weepy Willow