Come up to meet you, tell you I’m sorry
You don’t know how lovely you are
I had to find you, tell you I need you
Tell you I set you apart
-The Scientist, Coldplay
There are some things that are best kept hidden in the tiny recesses of your heart. These are the things that you wish you can forget if you hide them deep enough. These letters were written in a span of five years. I wrote these to the guy who stole my heart and never gave it back.
Being broken is an understatement—I was wrecked, shattered, damaged, and basically torn into millions of tiny little pieces and I’ve been trying my best to put them back together—to no avail.
It’s hard being the strong girl. People expect you to act and feel a certain way. It’s harsh when people tell you to man up and that you can get over it. It’s only human to feel, absorb, and even wallow in the pain. But one day, you will have to stop reeling in the pain and start facing reality.
Everybody deals with pain in different ways, and this is mine. Writing these has been more than therapeutic. There are times when I wish I had the guts to actually hand these over to him and then I think of how long I’ve been protecting myself just to let him break down that wall of protection once again. It’s like I’ve done nothing over the past year but build a wall around myself which may seem impermeable and resistant to others. However, when it comes to him, that wall is just a feeble, pathetic, and scrawny piece of protection which unfortunately, is useless against him.
So until such time that I can face him with courage and acceptance, these letters will remain where it’s been for the past five years-- in a little nook in the corner of my heart.
As Claire aims to leave her oppressive stepfamily behind, she befriends Zion. Will he be her ticket to freedom or a distraction in achieving her dreams?
*****
Claire Olsen has had a crush on Zion Petrakis since the first time she laid eyes on him, but he never noticed, instead only having eyes on the school's it girl, Maddie Jennings. Knowing she couldn't compete with Maddie, Claire hid her feelings for Zion, satisfied with admiring him from afar. However, when a series of events led Claire closer to Zion, her feelings for him grew from infatuation to love. And despite fighting hard to keep her feelings contained by distancing herself from Zion, he was determined to show her that he's earned a spot in her life.
[[word count: 100,000-150,000 words]]