A Thousand Cuts (Cursebreakers, Inc. #3)

Once Bitten

Little bird,

I don’t know if you’ll ever get this. I don’t know if writing this is even smart. But I can’t leave without trying.

I’m sorry for breaking our promise.

We should have left when we had the chance. Flew away and never returned. You were right but I was a coward. I’m still a coward. You were always so much braver than me.

There’s so many things I want to say. So many things I couldn’t tell you that I should have that may have changed the course of our fate. But now it’s too late. He’s waiting outside the door and I know he won’t let me come back. He’ll put me far, far away and he said you’ll be gone too, they already have something in mind.

I don’t want to imagine a life where you’re not there. I used to count your breaths as you slept and now I won’t even know where you are. It kills me. You always said I was a crybaby and I guess that’s true. Now I can’t stop.

Forbidden relationships always end in tragedy after all. I was too na?ve.

All I can do now is what I’ve always done.

Protect you as best I can.

Even if it has to be from a distance.

I hope I can get this to you somehow. One day. I won’t stop trying so you know at least that I didn’t want to leave you. I would have chosen forever if I could.

Your Teddy.

Little bird,

My hand can’t stop shaking as I write this.

You were there. Right in front of me. Not a dream or a figment of my imagination this time.

I know it was real because I can’t forget the look on your face. The hurt. The one thing I never wanted to cause you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’d write it a million times if it would heal some of the damage. Maybe the letter I wrote all those years ago can, or maybe it’s too late.

I don’t know what to do.

I can’t believe you were so close. All this time you were just an hour away. Just a city over. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

How cruel fate’s tricks are.

All I wanted was to sprint after you. It took everything in me not to but…now it seems like you have others to do that. A family. Just like we always talked about.

In all my dreaming our reunion never looked like this. So static and cold. But the time between us seems insurmountable and we’re strangers now.

Wren.

That’s your name now.

At first it hurt to hear it. You’ve always been my little bird, so calling you by anything else is foreign and unwelcome. I’m selfish. Holding on to that version of you like you’re still mine. Like I have any right.

I hope you claimed that name for yourself and you don’t resent it, that it was your choice when so many others were taken from you already.

But quietly, more selfishly, I hope that when you chose that name you thought of me, even fleetingly. That you’re still a little bird…even if you’re no longer mine.

I have so much more to say but I don’t think I should bother you any longer. This letter was the least I owed you and I’m sorry I couldn’t get it to you sooner.

I’m sorry for a lot of things.

In my world the sun used to rise twice. Outside of the window and in my arms.

Now it doesn’t rise at all.

That was until I saw you again.

I hope my brief presence in your life again wasn’t an eclipse.

Still your Teddy.