CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Emily
Two Years Ago
(Page 1)
December 20
Bowen,
Last night I was thinking about the first time I met you. It was the first weekend I ever came home with Hildy. We were sitting in your parents’ living room, watching TV, when you came home. You sat down next to me and stayed up with us watching Squid Game until Hildy couldn’t stay awake anymore. Then you stayed with me, just talking, until 3AM. After only a few hours, I felt like I’d known you for so much longer and I could talk to you about anything. And after 2 days, it nearly broke my heart to leave you and go back to campus.
I’ve never felt a connection with anyone like I did with you. You were the one person I could tell anything and you would never judge me. There were times I couldn’t believe that you loved ME and you wanted to be with ME, and only me. I wanted a whole life with you, to do everything with you, and to grow old with you. You made me feel like the most important person in the world and, after growing up in the family I did, I never thought I would find anything close to that.
But then, slowly, I started to doubt myself. I think it started when I began studying for the MCAT. It was so stressful and time-consuming, but you seemed so supportive and excited. I didn’t notice at the time, but that’s when everything suddenly started going wrong. Everything seemed slightly off, but I didn’t know why. I knew it wasn’t my depression or bipolar disorder, because I’ve managed it well and there’s no reason my meds shouldn’t be working. And, more importantly, depression and BPD don’t cause things to disappear and reappear in your house at random times or make you lose your memory and imagine things. And then, one day, I finally realized what was causing it.
You. You are the reason behind everything in my life falling apart.
(Page 2)
When I never heard back from any of the med programs I applied to, I thought I truly had gone crazy and this was culmination of all the stress and all the depression and all the strange things happening around me. But it wasn’t.
I got into medical school, by the way. But you already know that. I didn’t know until I contacted a few of the attendings I interviewed with to ask what I could do to improve my application for next year. Imagine how shocked I was to find out that I DID get in, but none of them ever received a response, so they gave my offer to someone else.
I know you did something, whether I have proof or not. Just like it was you who isolated me and ruined the few friendships I had after college. Just like it was you who gave me fake sugar pills from fuck knows where instead of my medication. Just like it was you who dragged me across the lawn in the middle of the night by my hair and locked me in the barn for an entire day. Just like it was you who told your family I was losing my mind. Just like it was you who gaslighted me every minute of every day. And just like it was you who told me if I ever tried to run away, no one would believe me and you would use our relationship against me in the worst way possible.
I will never be a Garrison, because becoming one means a fate worse than death.
You need to leave me alone. Leave me alone and do not ever contact me again. If I hear from you one more time, I’m going straight to a judge for a restraining order. I know I can’t do it in Canaan, where your family’s name is above the law. But I can do it in Hellbranch. I decided to contact Tyler after so long and make things right with her. It turns out I still have people too, and you and your family’s corruption can’t reach me here.
This letter is more than you deserve and probably serves more as an effort to seek closure for myself. And to add insult to injury, I have nothing to my name except what I could grab when I left. I had to leave most everything I own, which includes all my books. You used to tell me how cool it was that I liked hard copies of books instead of electronic ones. Was it because you knew it would be harder for me to take them with me when I had to choose whether to run or die in your house ?
Maybe you can read my books on nights when you can’t sleep. You should get through them pretty quickly because I don’t know how you CAN sleep at night.
Maybe you’ll find yourself in them, Bowen, a predator who lies in wait, watching and learning how to draw your prey in. And by the time they realize it, you’ve already drained the life out of them, making them so weak that they can’t fight back. You’re a narcissist, a sociopath, a monster with no emotions, no heart, and no soul.
I hope you rot in hell.
Emily