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I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Maybe I want you to tell me that it gets better, even though I know that there’s no way that it will ever be okay again.
I’m sorry this letter is so short and depressing. I haven’t found time or the desire to write lately…and now I remember why.
Hope you’re okay,
Rome.Chapter 10Life changes. Sometimes it’s easier to say ‘fuck you’ than to accept it.
-Izzy’s secret thoughts
Izzy
This walking everywhere bullshit had to stop.
One day, I’d get a car…but then again, a car would come in a lot handier if I knew how to drive the stupid thing.
New goal: one day, I’d learn how to drive. Then I’d get the car. The car that I could finally afford now that my mother and father had stopped getting my cut of the houses I cleaned.
At least walking kept me in shape—round was a shape, wasn’t it?
I looked down at my too tight clothes and realized rather quickly that Rome wasn’t the only one that was depressed. I was, too.
I hadn’t realized just how dependent I’d become on the letters that Rome wrote until he’d stopped.
It’d been six long, miserable months since Matias’ death.
Each day I missed the little boy, and I’d missed that little boy’s father.
And each day I realized how selfish I was.
There I was sad about not getting a letter, and Rome was missing his son.
There was no comparison. I had no right to be so upset about it…yet my brain didn’t care.
When I’d gotten that last letter from him, I realized that I had to do something.
If I wasn’t going to get the letters, then I’d have to talk to the actual man who wrote them. I had to bring him back, because what he didn’t realize was that he was my lifeline. He was the man who was the only constant in my life and had been for quite a long time.
The man who, despite the fact that I felt like complete and utter shit ninety-seven percent of my life, made that other three percent bearable.
Which was why I found myself once again at the door to said man’s house.
My legs were tired. I’d walked over eighteen miles today and hadn’t gotten a single bit of cleaning done, but I hadn’t had any scheduled. Today was my day off, and I’d used it wisely. If I hadn’t made two long ass walks clear across the damn town—twice—then I would’ve had a much more relaxing day off.
Admittedly, I would’ve just spent the day thinking of him.
And I would’ve just wound up in the same exact place that I was in right now.
Fidgeting at the stoop, wondering if this was a good idea, I decided “fuck it!” and knocked.
I didn’t expect him to answer the door, to be honest.
After everything I’d said and done, I hadn’t expected him to give me the time of day.
But there he was, moments after I’d knocked, staring at me with such a blank expression on his face that it physically hurt to look at him.
I felt this burning urge in my chest to throw myself at him, but I thought better of it once I saw the look on his face.
“I didn’t think you’d answer the door,” I murmured, looking at him with pleading desperation in my eyes.
Rome blinked, then looked away, studying the street at my back. “I’ll always open the door for you, Iz. If you need me, and come to me, I’ll swing this door open like you haven’t broken my heart into a million pieces and slammed the door on your way out.”
It probably wasn’t the best idea to point out that he hadn’t answered the door any of the other times that I’d come, but I did it anyway.
“I’ve knocked on your door fifteen times since your son’s funeral,” I pointed out. “And each time I had to walk four and a half miles each way to get here…”
Rome’s eyes narrowed, and his eyes went over my head as if he was searching for something.
“You walk here?” he asked incredulously.
I nodded. “I walk everywhere.” I shrugged. “My parents never saw fit to teach me how to drive. They said it was something I could learn later since they didn’t have the money to send me to the school or to get me a car.”
His eyes narrowed. “A lot of parents don’t have the money to do that, yet they find a way to do it. I think your parents are just assholes.”
There was no debating that. My parents were assholes. Always had been, and always would be. They looked out for themselves, and themselves only.
I snorted. “You’re not telling me anything that I haven’t thought of on a daily basis.”
He looked away and swallowed. “I’m still really fuckin’ mad at you, Iz.”
I looked down at my hands that were twisting around each other.
