Julia walked through the door to her dark apartment. She flipped on the light switch and lit up
the overfilled room. The walls were bare
and her belongings were packed in towers of moving boxes. She closed the door and locked it before
walking through the tiny living room to the eat-in kitchen beyond it, which was
also filled with stacks of boxes awaiting her move in three days' time.
Julia's heart was still in her throat from the anxiety
attack she had suffered at the bar. She
inhaled deeply, though it was a fruitless effort. She sighed as she mindlessly thumbed through
the pile of mail she'd brought in with her.
Most were bills, but one letter stood out: a handwritten envelope with
no return address. Julia put the rest of the mail on the counter and looked at the piece she still held.
She frowned at the envelope, trying to discern who the sender was. The scrawl was likely a man's, small, sharp
letters and tight spacing. She didn't
know who would bother sending a letter through the postal service, considering
the easy access of social media, email and cell phones. The notion was incredibly classy, even gentlemanly. Maybe the letter was from her father, Jude. Jude had been sending her checks in the mail
to help see her through her move back home.
The postmark was from New York though,
definitely not from her dad in Washington .
Julia turned the envelope over and slid her finger under the
flap, ripping it open along the seam.
The paper's edge sliced her finger just enough to bleed, and she
immediately stuck her finger into her mouth.
The sting of the cut didn't bother her terribly though, and her curiosity
was piqued. She removed her finger from her mouth and pulled the sheet of folded paper out of the envelope. Julia threw the empty envelope
on the counter before she opened the letter
with rapt attention, searching the bottom of the page for the sender's name.
...Kirk.
She did a double take.
Julia stared at the signature for a moment, in total disbelief. Kirk had mailed her an old-fashioned letter. When she couldn't wait another second to read
it, she shifted her gaze upward to her own name. Part of her knew it was probably a better
idea to rip it up and throw it away, to never to give it a second thought. Kirk was a monster, and his true colors had
been revealed to her with all too much clarity.
But she couldn't. She simply had to know
what he went to so much trouble to say.
Julia,
I am writing this
letter to tell you that I'm sorry. I
know that I hurt you. There's really no
excuse for it but, as the saying goes, all is fair in love and war. I just wanted you to know that our time
together was great. I think about you
and hope you are doing well now that you're back in the States.
I'm on my way home as
I write this, flying over the Atlantic . I was thinking about you and I just needed to
tell you that I am sorry for the way things turned out between us. I'm hoping you will forgive me even though my
plans haven't changed. I should have
been honest with you from the beginning, I know that now. Thank you for making the time away from home
easier to bear. Good luck to you.
-Kirk
Tiny smears of her blood from her paper cut had stained the
page as Julia read the letter, then again.
And again. It didn't matter how
many times she read it, The thing was still just as dreadful, just as tragic. He'd done it again. She was finally starting to let the wound of
him heal over and from out of nowhere - he pierced right through her like he
was a cannonball and she was the enemy ship.
He crushed her with one piece of paper from thousands of miles away. His power over her was far too strong and too encompassing for her to ever allow anyone to hold the same privilege. Ever again. As for forgiveness? Not likely.
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