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I pull down the edge of the fluff, it feels soft like rabbit fur.
A gasp gets clogged in my throat when I see a tiny little nose, fingers clutching a chubby little cheek, teardrop eyebrows above soft, closed eyelids and thick lashes.
“She gave you a daughter,” he whispers, gently guiding her towards my chest.
I look down at the girl almost in my arms and one of my tears falls onto her forehead. She cries, it startles me, so I push her back.
“I don’t know what to do with a fucking kid. I want Lilith… not a baby.” I walk away, from them, from a child that’s supposed to be mine.
“Wait!” my father calls, handing the girl to my brother who is more than happy to take her. He can be her dad. I don’t want this. “There’s something else.” He grabs my ponytail, something he did to us as kids but not adults. Then he slaps a large envelope to my chest. It’s thick and heavy and it has my name on the front in her handwriting. Or at least I think it’s her handwriting, I didn’t get her for long enough to ever fucking know.
I carry it up to my room and lock the door, ignoring my brother’s coos to the child.
How dare she just leave me a fucking baby I never asked for and then die?
I punch my door, and then punch it again, and then again until my knuckles start to bleed and red stains the oak.
“FUCK YOU!” I scream at her picture that I pinned there. My body hurts. My soul.
How could somebody I hardly know have the power to destroy me like this?
She meant to kill me. She never said she loved me. She never even really told me she cared except for when she was jealous or bouncing on my dick unprotected. Because turns out her sister—the not dying one—was the one who had the birth control… or so I gather.
What a mess.
Lilith was a mess. She’s made me into a mess.
I hold the large letter again and contemplate ripping it up, but I just can’t.
It’s Lilith. Apart from a few photos of her, it’s all I have left.
Nash and my father enter the house. The kid is squawking.
I don’t care.
I rip open the large envelope with the same amount of care I have for that kid downstairs. ZERO. More, smaller envelopes fall out, one of them is so thick and heavy I wonder if it might be a book. I push that to the side and go for the one that says, READ ME FIRST OR BE HAUNTED FOREVER.
I tear it open with a little more tact this time and hold it level with my eyes.
Nokosi, I have started and stopped this letter around fifty times. It’s the hardest one I will ever write in my life… and the last one. (That was a joke. Maybe one day you’ll laugh.)
I know you probably hate me, or maybe you’ve forgotten all about me and have moved on already.
But I just need you to know that those few precious weeks that we spent together were the greatest, most fucked-up weeks of my entire life.
I fell for you so hard and so fast my head is still spinning… or maybe that’s the tumor.
I didn’t ignore your letters. I consumed them and I replied to every single one. They follow this, but you need to read this one first because it’s the most important.
I’m dead now. Not right this second but by the time you’re reading this I’m dead and I am entrusting you with my greatest achievement.
My beating heart. The only part of me that is not tainted and never will be.
Our daughter
I have yet to meet her myself but I love her so unconditionally it hurts to think that you might not want her. I’m hoping you’ve already seen her and have fallen in love, faster and harder than you did with me. Because fuck it if we didn’t fall fast and hard and my biggest regret is never having the chance to tell you just how much you mean to me.
That’s my gift to you. My undying, unconditional love. It just comes in a completely different package.
You will make a kick-ass father. I trust nobody else with her but you.
Get Nash to teach her how to ride a dirt bike because you suck, and you teach her how to fish with a spear, and climb trees to the top, and fear nothing.
I wanted her so badly and you. I wanted to see you one last time, but I left you with an awful memory as it was. I can’t bear for you to see me now. Not in the condition I’m in. I’m dying and I look like I’m dying. I can’t put you through that or myself.
