The Love Letter

Chapter One

"Miss Patrick, your mother is on the phone. Will you take the call?" My assistant asked.

Her name was Bridget, a young girl who started working for me last October. She's a medical student with a scholarship in University of Rathleigh Medicine. A scholarship which unfortunately only covers the insanely high tuition fee. For everything else, she needed extra money as insurance for calm and focused studying - a privilege for the ones who could afford it, but also a necessity for everyone who really wanted to absorb as much of the school material as possible. And finding a secure job in a megalopolis as Rathleigh, especially for students, was as difficult as finding a reliable assistant, I'd say.

Ah! Good thing I hired her, she's a capable, resourceful and extremely intelligent girl with great organizational skills. No doubt Bridget deserved the chance I gave her. She's great in her job, even when there's some sort of work crises she'd remain calm. This virtue of hers was an exceptional advantage that not only made her suitable for my assistant, but also proved that she was qualified as a mentality for her medical career as well. One day she would become a great doctor, I was sure of it!

But Bridget's intellectual and mental capacity weren't the only reason why I hired her. There was a time when I was in her place. Gosh, did it sound only to me like I was 60 or like something my mother would've said or... Oh, anyway!

I was in Bridget's situation at her age, yup, the 60 year-old lady was talking through me once more, though I studied not medicine, but journalism, still - same age, and quite similar scenario - young and inexperienced girl coming from small town to the big city, leaving behind the security of family comfort, and facing the rough reality of adulthood all alone. And of course we're neither the first nor the last girls in that position. But also, it was completely different when you had heard or read about something and when you were experiencing it yourself.

And to be honest... Taking my life into my own hands turned out to be way harder than I'd ever expected. But to make my experience even more challenging, His Majesty Life had been sending me something new every single day increasing my cortisol levels to the sky. Well, sometimes wasn't new problem but an old one, one of those which I brought with me here. But anyway!

I got my harsh start into adult life but everything came to its place eventually. And the difficulties I encountered along the way sculpted me as the person I was now - a strong and confident woman who couldn't be brought down by anything.

Hah! Or so I believed!

"Yes, Bridget, transfer the call, I'll talk to my mother," I told my assistant.

"Right away, Miss."

"Thank you!"

The major difference between Bridget and me was that she had dreamed of coming to the big city not only to study, but also to explore new opportunities that she could discover or life might offer to her. And for me the big city had never been neither a goal nor a dream. It just happened that I had to leave my home, and come here. I had to! Because staying... was not an option anymore. So I found the perfect university - as a quality of education, and as far away from home as possible - and I fled. I fled from my small hometown, my family and everything I once believed I would never be able to leave. And though it hurt leaving, it would've been way more painful to stay. So I fled, and settled in the big city, Rathleigh.

Little did I know then that running away was not the answer. Yes, I fled from the place, but not from the pain. The pain came here with me, tormenting me for months upon months until I made it go away.

Hah! Or so I thought!

But I was about to learn my next lesson. And it wasn't that suppressing the pain didn't actually make it disappear, it only shoved it deep enough so it wouldn't bother you on a daily basis. No. That was just a small part of it all. The real lesson I would soon learn was that pain was like a strangler fig - a small seed sown in fertile soil that grеw in darkness, slow and steady, drawing life energy from its host tree, growing and growing toward the light until it reach monstrous size and envelop the host entirely, sucking all the light and the life within it till it suffocated it, till it turned it in a hollow shell. But only if it's allowed to do it, of course. Some trees preserve themselves and use the strangler fig as a shield against storms.