Drib Drabs (boyxboy) (girlxgirl)

Dear Ayla

Dear Ayla,

I know I haven't written in a while. I'm sorry about that.

This isn’t a very long letter. I’m sorry about that too.

Wayne's doing fine. Wonderful, actually. He's good to me. And he's beautiful. I wish you could meet him, just once. You'd love him. He's a lot like you. Strong. Funny. Kind.

Like I said; beautiful.

It's strange to think we've been married so long, yet there's still things he doesn't know about my past.

I'm scared to tell him. What if he runs away? Leaves me, when he finds out that I'm such damaged goods?

I have to sometime. I will. I just hope he can forgive me.

We still go on dates, you know. Get away from the kids for a while, act like ones ourselves for a bit.

It hurts that I'll never get a letter back from you. But I know that's not your fault.

You can't.

Still, I tell Beth and Rachael stories about you. All the time. They're so very young - they never understand why they can't meet you. That's my fault, I guess. Every time I try to explain, I start crying. My throat closes up. It's hard to speak. Wayne has to drag them away and tell them a bedtime story. They only ever hear half of the explanation.

Then again, Wayne only gets to hear half the explanation. So, I suppose that's fair.

I only know half the explanation.

You never did tell me why you left, Ay. But I wish I knew.

Work's fine too. I love being a psychologist. I get to help the hopeless. And the hopeful. It's a nice feeling, seeing their lives become that tiny bit easier every day. Knowing that I'm helping them. It's fulfilling.

Almost as fulfilling as cuddling with Wayne.

But let's not get into that.

To tell you the terrible truth, it wasn't honourable intentions that made me write this letter to you. I was reading an article in the National Geographic (an old one, by a few years, if it's dog-eared pages and dust collection were anything to go by). It reminded me of you. It was about abusive Catholic priests.

For a second, it made me almost regret never having told anybody. Almost.

Don't worry, though. I made a promise to you and I know you'd never want anybody to know. Nobody will ever know what he did to us. Even if they somehow found out, they'd never truly understand. Especially if they discovered what we did to him afterwards.

I know you regretted it. Didn't want to live with yourself. You never could see that what we did helped other people. That we made sure he'd never do it again.

It killed you inside a little, though. I know it did. You never really moved on. In some ways, I regret that.

But I'll never regret stopping him.

Until next time,

I miss you,

-Ethan.

.

.

Laying the carefully folded letter on the grass, I moved away, so as not to ruin it with tear-stains.

Then I took one last look at my sister's headstone, and left.