Astoria

s i x t y (p a r t t w o)

Dear Meredith,

Kade just left the room. I think it is a good thing you are not here to see me like this. I am quite a mess. I will admit that I am angry. But underneath that all, I am hurt. I am confused. I am unsure.

And I miss you.

There have been so many times since you told me earlier today, that I have felt that perhaps this was all just a nightmare. That it was not real, and that I did not walk away and leave you standing there, in the snow.

But I know that I cannot escape the fact that it is real. Even drunk, I can close my eyes and picture you exactly, as you looked, just before I turned away. You looked so small, standing in the deep snow. Your hair was loose; I made a mess of it when I tried to put it back up earlier, with that yellow hair ribbon. The snow had just started falling, and flakes of it were landing in your hair. I think you were cold; you must have been, because you shivered.

It was your eyes I will remember the most. Such sadness; sadness such that I had never seen before.

I have lost loved ones, Meredith. I lost my mother. I lost my father. I thought I lost my brother.

None of that can ever compare to how I feel now, Meredith.

I do not just feel broken.

I feel empty.

-Antony

***

Dear Meredith,

I ran into you today, in the hallway. I had just come up from paying my brother a visit.

Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to look at you? How every feeling from yesterday converged within me once more, and all I wanted to do was run the opposite direction?

When you asked me to take care of your family, no matter what I chose to do to you, and I asked you what you thought I would do to you...and you said that I could, at the worst, kill you...

I just want you to know that it never once crossed my mind to kill you, Meredith. No matter what you did, no matter what you said...

I loved you too much to ever end your life.

And did you know that I watched you, Meredith? As you went out the door? I couldn't not watch you, as you left after begging me not to take any anger I had towards you and wield it towards your family.

Meredith, always selfless, always putting your family first...I saw you cry when you thought I was not looking.

-Antony

***

Dear Meredith,

I counted how many times you danced with Lord Andrew.

When Isabella called me out on it, I told her she should mind her own business. I also denied her that I was blind, a fool, and an idiot.

I am all that and more. She was right.

In case you wanted to know, you danced with Andrew five times. You danced once with Lord Davenport. You danced with Kade as well, when Isabella danced with me.

-Antony

***

Meredith,

I just want you to know that, no matter the things that occurred tonight...