Chapter 29
Draven,
I’m sorry it’s taken me a few days to respond. I had tasks I was forced to attend to, and they left me feeling a bit dazed and weak (though you don’t need to worry—I am fine.)
The grief lives on within me. I suppose it always will.
But I think the true mark of my growth is the thought of that no longer makes me sad.
Instead, I find solace in knowing such a thing will always exist—that the kernel of love for my mother was planted so deep inside my bones, nothing could possibly remove the ache of it.
Sure, the pain changes shapes and weighs more some days than others, but it is a privilege to love at all, and so it is a privilege to grieve.
I have you to thank for realizing that.
As for my nightmares, they come and they go.
Most often, they are no longer of the flames swallowing my mother, but the mass of power I conjured to swallow the lives of others.
Of glinting steel slicing through a neck.
So yes—those things have been and are haunting me, sometimes even threatening to drown me with guilt for what I’ve done.
Yet I am allowing myself to sit amidst the ugly truth of them.
Am feeling the full sting of remorse and grief. It isn’t easy, but I am doing it.
I think I have you to thank for that, as well.
Oh, and Draven?
Thank you for allowing me to show you all the parts of me.
Yours,
L
P.S: Gray told you of my nightmares? When did you and he become such friends?
P.P.S: There is that laugh again, can you still hear it?