Sincerely, Anonymous

March 19

March 19

Dear Annabeth,

How do you wake up and pretend everything is going to be okay when your entire world has collapsed around you? That is the same question I asked myself when I woke up Thursday morning. The same question I repeated when Alex asked why I wasn’t talking to him. And now, the same question I was asking Kay in the meeting I had arranged.

That is how I feel about my discovery of yesterday. I know that I should want to work that much harder for the cause now but it seems so pointless. All this time I have been blaming Emma for being selfish when in fact she had left me with this, hoping I would be able to help her. It was me who had judged incorrectly. Me who had assumed the worst of a girl who had done nothing but try and protect me. Something in me had broken Annabeth, I swear. All I can think is how I freaked out in the middle of that coffee shop with Izzy and had felt like I was cracking under the pressure of something inside of me. Now I feel the exact opposite. I feel so empty inside that it feels like this giant vacuum living in me, cracking me to suck me in. I no longer feel like an explosion, but an implosion upon myself. Slowly withering away until nothing exists.

I asked myself this morning how I was to pretend everything was going to be okay when I was collapsing into myself. My only  response was: you do what you came to do, and you finish what you started. When Alex came to me to ask why I was avoiding him I just stood there, saying the question a thousand times over in my head, but his answer was a blank look as I walked away from him in the crowded hallway. Kay’s answer: you don’t. I didn’t think that was an option, but I certainly think it’s the one that holds the most truth.

Meetings with Kay are always interesting. She doesn’t try and be my friend and sugarcoat everything. She’s been through a lot and I have been through a lot and together we might just be able to change this world, but for now I found myself in front of her, trying to put myself together when she was telling me I couldn’t.

“You mean to tell me something?” she asked.

So I told her about Emma, and watched her stoney face stay emotionless and the entire time I talked all I could think was that something had to happen in this woman’s life to make her like me. Something had to have spurred her to help the Black Tens. And I knew enough about her to see why she would but I couldn’t help but wonder if there was more, if she was like me and always needed just a bit more to push her ahead, or maybe she is like Emily had been and she can just blindly follow because she knows it’s whats right.

I didn’t want to tell Kay about Emma’s message though. I wanted it for me and only me, but I don’t know if they read these messages I send and I didn’t want them finding out through a letter. Somehow I thought is would make me seem like a coward. Or maybe it makes me more of a coward to tell someone something only because I know that they would find out anyway.

Kay was a good listener. She stayed silent, unmoving albeit her glove hands tapping away at her keyboard every few minute. She stayed like that the entire time I talked, let me ramble on when I knew there was nothing more to say. She knows when her words mean something and when they are empty air and she does not waste words, a talent I strongly lack. And so I rambled and she sat silent, her gloves nearly muting the tapping noises on her keyboard, until I had run out of things to say and she finally opened her mouth. 

“Would finding Emma help you reach your goal better?” was all she had in reply.

I answered yes. I didn’t even know it was an option, had never even asked or tried. I had always assumed that Emma was out there somewhere happily listening to music and having an absolutely grand time. I though she would have found somewhere to stay and would never get her Procedure and that she would live the happiest life of us all. Maybe I never asked to find her because I resented her for being able to live that life, or maybe I never looked because I wanted to give her the opportunity that none of the rest of us had.But the world isn’t made of happy endings, I should know that by now, and I should have known that there would be more to Emma’s story than just taking off, I was just too naive to see it.

Kay picked up her briefcase, tucked a loose hair behind her ear, and looked me dead in the eye as she said, “and so it shall be done.” Sealing the fate of Miss Emma Jacobs, and hopefully bringing her back to me.

Love Always,

Lilly