ENG 210- Creative Writing

Letter to someone else

assignment: Write a letter to someone who will never see it/you will never send this letter, etcetera. 

Dear Julia/Vinnie/Richie... Whoever you are, now.

You messed me up. Bad. Sometimes it seems so unreal and just absolutely unbelievable how fake we seemed to be. How our story started, how it ended. Everything about it seems fake and flawed and, truth be told, that's what we were.

So incredibly flawed.

I used to dream about you. They were good dreams that in the end turned sour. Sometimes I still do, sometimes you cross my mind and it's a war to get you back out. Everything started sweet, we were simply online friends. I was from a smaller town in Michigan, you in some smaller town outside of Ithaca, New York. You were going through a breakup. I didn't know you all that well, we just shared a few similar interests. I was trying to be supportive and a good friend, like I did for everyone. I don't even remember how long ago this was, maybe the end of my freshman year and the beginning of my sophomore year it really took off. We got to know each other a bit more, eventually we were 'dating'. We'd start movies at the same time and facetime each other while we watched, text all day and night, you get the picture. There may have been something there during the majority, but it wasn't love. You came out as bigender and eventually completely trans, which wasn't an issue at all. I don't see that kind of thing. I accepted you and if anything, I helped you through.
More time went on. We would break up and get back together so often... I tried to look back and count how many times. I counted seven. I should have seen the first time what was really happening. I don't know how you viewed it on your side, but one thing I know for sure is that it was toxic as hell. I'm sorry to say that at one point I thought it was real- I'm almost sure it was all just a game to you. But at that time, I was young, civil, sweet and innocent. I didn't understand. I was just grateful you weren't some gross old man in someone's basement. Something happened at some point, it was like a switch had been flipped. You fell into a deep dark depression, and I tried to help you as much as I could because, regardless of what either of us felt, I still saw you as a friend and I worried about you. A lot. I cared. You shut me out, you'd ignore me for two weeks at a time, reply a few times over the course of 24 hours, and then you'd be away again. It was an absolute fucking roller coaster for me. I was scared, I knew you self-harmed, I knew that you wanted to kill yourself. So imagine a sweet, innocent girl in Gaylord Michigan worried sick every day that someone she cared so deeply about, had done something to themselves. I actually worried myself sick, I would lock myself in the bathroom and cry until I had rid of what was in my stomach. I couldn't sleep, and if I did, its because I was so fucking exhausted of overthinking and worrying.

Imagine living through 4 months of that your junior year of high school while you were taking 2 college classes, an AP, you were in a musical and you were studying for the SAT and ACT. Imagine having a full plate and not being able to function properly because you were worrying about someone who lived 746 miles away (if you didn't go through Canada), who didn't care about you at all. Who didn't care about you, who didn't love you, who could care less about your entire existence.

You see, you fucked me up big time. There are so many other ways, so many other things I could say and show you. You made me feel like I didn't matter, that I was actual dirt, that I could let people walk all over me. I felt like I couldn't be loved, especially after what you said to me. I still feel like I don't, I feel like that no one will ever love such a fuck up like me, I can't even trust anyone anymore. You put scars on me physically and mentally, that one day I'll be sitting with my child on the beach during the summer, I'll be with the one that actually gives a shit about me and who cares, and I'll be holding a small child in my lap who will look at my arms and thighs and point and ask what those pale lines are. And then I'm going to think back to my shitty high school years and what you and other people did to me to make me feel like I deserved that and the pain. I'm going to think back to you and what you did, what everyone else did, and I'm either going to have to look into the eyes and lie to that child, or I can tell them the truth. And honestly, I'm terrified. I'm scared of the future, and how you still have an effect on me even if our last interaction was two and a half years ago.

You messed me up, more than I'll ever be able to explain and show. 

Fuck you.

Sincerely,
Bethany Berger