Letter #4
Delia—
I went back to the house today. Our house.
Damnit, I don’t know why I’m telling you this when you’ll never read it. Maybe because you’re the only person who belonged there with me. Maybe because if I write it down, it feels less like I’m walking into a grave alone.
I need to know what I saw.
I need to know if I made you dead because my brain couldn’t survive the alternative.
Were you scared? Were you calling for me? Did I leave you?
God, I hope I didn’t leave you. I’m telling you now, I’ll die if I did. If that’s why you hate me, I deserve it. Just tell me.
The closet is smaller than I remembered. That feels insulting somehow. Like the thing that ate my life should have had the decency to be huge.
I don’t know what I was expecting. There was no proof there. Just dust and old wood and the smell of cedar.
I remembered the man with the rosary. I remembered enough to know I didn’t imagine him.
I still don’t know if I heard you scream, though. That’s the part I keep touching, like a bruise.
Did you scream?
Did I hear you and stay quiet anyway?