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And I knew there was a world out there.
I didn’t know my own family was out there, still mourning me, somewhere in the world. I didn’t know there were schools where kids met other kids and learned things, I didn’t know anything. But I knew there was something wrong in that mansion. And I knew I wanted to see a tree up close.
So I sprained my ankle and slit my knee open, and I went.
Well, long story short, I met a boy in the woods. He belonged to an elite private school, but I had no idea that these existed. He put a plaster on my knee
That was the beginning.
I ran back home and climbed back up, I don’t even know how, and sat trembling in my room waiting for you to come back from work. Thinking you would know what I had done just by looking at me. But you didn’t. So the next day, even though my terror had grown and grown during that first, sleepless night, the minute you went off to work I climbed down the window again. I didn’t land on my ass this time, I was prepared.
And I went to meet that boy again.
This time, he asked me what my name was.
As I said out loud that you called me ‘pet’, I knew the truth. I heard it as I said it and I knew, beyond any doubt, that it was wrong. That you were wrong. That we, you and I, were wrong.
He saved me. He is the reason I exist today as myself and not as the victim you raised me to be.
It took two years, but when you found out about him, you destroyed him. You tried to destroy me as well, but you didn’t succeed. His love was enough to help me survive those few days before I got the courage to call the police. But by then, so much more had happened that I can’t take the credit for any kind of courage. Still, it took courage to call them, especially since I was standing right in front of you at the time.
I am a different person now. A weak, broken person maybe, but I’m not the person you tried to make me. I’m not the person they showed on TV. I’m not the girl whose photo made the rounds of the globe that day, four years ago. And it’s all thanks to him, to that boy from the woods.
Did I tell you that he hates me now?
As he should, after what we—you—did to him.
He knows my story, of course, how could he not? Everyone knows my story. Even Weston Spencer, the international heart-throb, called my sisters sobbing about me and my story. Poor guy. He hired me to help his friend to write songs, but I took the job looking for a second chance.
Looking for my Isaiah.
Except he’s not here. He’s gone. You killed the boy he was and there is a monster in his place.
Too bad I’m in love with him. But I won’t tell you any more about him, or about me. I just wanted to say that I’m not going to talk to you again, or think about you again. Well, that second part is a lie, but I’ll try my hardest, and I bet I will succeed eventually. No matter how many years it takes.
Because it is important to remember:
You are not my dad.
And you’re dead.
As you should be.
*number unavailable*
*message undelivered*
thirty
I’ve always had abandonment issues. I guess it’s what happens when your super-talented but super-busy parents stick you in a boys’ boarding school for eleven months every year. I love my parents to pieces, but their lives were so crazy when I was growing up. My mom is an international phenomenon, the top pianist in the world, and my dad was one of the best and most sought-after classically trained tenors in New York city. That means that James and I grew up alone.
I know we had it better than other kids. My parents loved each other and they loved us, but it’s a really conflicting feeling when your parents tell you that they love you more than anything in the world and then proceed not to see you for the rest of the year. It messes with how you perceive love for the rest of your life. At least that’s what happened to me. I never felt I was good enough for their attention, no matter how hard I worked for it as a little kid.
Every time I jogged into that forest to find Eden, I was worried she wouldn’t be there. That she would abandon me too. I knew it was a stupid fear and I tried to stop myself from worrying every single time. It was exhausting, being constantly at war with myself. But in the end, she proved me right.
And this is how it happened.
…
