Dear Rosie, (Love Letters #2)

I wish I’d told you.

I wish I could’ve gone with you.

But that’s just not how my life works.

I miss you.

Rosie

I drop my head forward.

The bastard hit her.

She was twelve. She was the age I was when I moved away. And her dad fucking hit her.

I can’t even imagine.

Memories of my own family drag through my mind.

Laughter. Dinners at the table. Homework. Movies.

I lived in comfort while my Rosie was living in hell.

As I slide the paper back into the box and pull out the next, a part of me understands that I was just a kid too. I’m not responsible for her dad. But if I’d known… If I’d seen the signs or asked more questions, I could’ve told someone.

My parents would have done something.

That uselessness I felt walking into this room has nothing on the way Ifeel now.

I might have been a kid. But I still hate myself for what I unknowingly let happen.

I open the next letter.

I fell asleep in the woods today. I didn’t feel like going home.

And the next.

I broke my arm. I had to tell the doctor I fell.

Another and another.

I read them until my vision is blurry.

Until my tears fall onto the pages, mixing with Rosie’s.

And I can’t stop.

I need to know.

I need to read them.

I owe her that much.

I owe her the friend she lost.

I feel like years have passed when I pull out the last letter. The final one in the box.

She was nineteen when she wrote it.