Page 108 of Deliverance

Bridgette reaches her hand out, giving me a white envelope with no name on it, just a red kiss. It looks like the one she tore up in her room.

Slowly, I take it from her and she nods, moving past me as she heads down the hallway. I’m glad she’s already started therapy. That’s a good sign, and she’s already doing homework for it. Even better. I don’t move from my spot until I watch her sleek black hair slip into the elevator and the doors shut.

Pulling out my key card, I open my door and slip inside. I drop my bag onto my dresser before walking to the edge of the bed, the envelope still clutched in my hands.

I take a few breaths before I slide my finger under the seam, prying it open.

Her loopy handwriting fills the page as my eyes begin to devour every word.

Maggie,

I don’t know if you’ll even read this letter, and I won’t blame you if you don’t. We seem to constantly be stuck in an endless loop of pain. Hurt is thrown back and forth between us like a game of hacky sack. You’re the last person in the world I would ever want to hurt, so knowing that I do, and that I did? The guilt eats away at me every day.

I’m sorry that I pressured you the other day. You were taking care of me and I pushed. I was selfish and blinded by how much I missed you, that once again, inadvertently, I hurt you. I put you into a position that you didn’t deserve to be in, and for that and a million other things, I’m sorry.

You asked me why I took those pills, and though I’m sure you’ve inferred plenty about my life, you don’t have all the details. All the facts.

I don’t know how to say the words out loud. I don’t even really know how to articulate why I did what I did. Chalk it up to an overwhelming amount of childhood trauma, pain, and abuse all wrapped up in an insecure package, terrified of what life holds. More scared of what’s to come in this life than in death.

It’s set that I’m going to marry Thomas Booth…did you know that? My father drew up the contract on Christmas Eve and he gave me the ring before Walcott’s induction celebration. The night I watched you and Maryia all night, even when you didn’t know you had eyes on you. You looked so happy, free. I wanted to know what that was like.

That night I got absolutely trashed, desperate to grab onto anything…tangible, anything real. That was the night I made my plan, that I settled on my decision. That I would seek Deliverance from this unholy nightmare of a town, from this evil society, from…everything.

Looking back now, I can see how it’s so simple to take the easy way out. What’s harder is persevering. Pushing through. I’m going to try, Maggie. I’m going to fight to make it out the other side. For myself.

And maybe a little for you.

All my love,

Bridgette

I set the letter down slowly, blinking away tears I didn’t know I had as I stare at the floor. A million thoughts begin raging through my head. So many cloud my vision that I don’t even realize I’m standing up. I don’t realize I’m grabbing a blank piece of paper, and I don’t comprehend that I’m already a quarter way down the page when I finally snap out of it.

Chapter Thirty Nine

Bridgette

Brad finally went home after I insisted there was no need for him to stay the night on my couch. I’m not on suicide watch anymore; that was what my three days in the hospital was for. Brad isn’t so easily convinced, though. He left under the promise that I would call him immediately if the bad thoughts got too loud or I needed him. I promised, and finally, he left.

I’m so grateful for him, for how much he cares. He just doesn’t quite get it, though. It’s not like I have these bad thoughts in my head. I don’t have the devil whispering me sweet nothings, taunting me to draw a knife against my skin or a gun in my mouth. I just wanted…peace, quiet. I wanted to be done. I don’t have an ultra emo depressive ache inside me. I’m just...numb, or I was.

I was, until I woke up in the hospital with Maggie clinging to me like I was the only thing that mattered. I was, until I saw her beautiful green eyes filled with unshed tears for me. I was, until the nurse told me the reason my ribs hurt so much is because Maggie herself did chest compressions on me for over five minutes before they had to physically pry her off of me.

Even if all of her actions were just out of the goodness in her heart, that she didn’t want to see another human suffer, that she wanted to do everything in her capability to save someone’s life; it stirred up something inside me that I didn’t know I was still able to feel.

Hope.

My therapy session today was a bit of an awkward one. I don’t open up easily, or at all, so it was mostly us just staring at each other for fifty minutes while Brad sat in the waiting room. Before I left, Ariel, my therapist, tasked me with one thing. Write a letter.

I had opened up about writing being my creative outlet and she practically lit up. She told me to write a letter, to a person or just to myself. She said that it could be about anything or nothing at all. She just wanted me to spew all the words in my head and get them onto the page. She called it offloading or something.

A few hours ago, I had no intention of doing her dumb little homework project. The more I thought about it, though, the more clutter began to fill my head. It became overwhelming, and soon, a pen and a piece of paper were the only things to silence it.

My hand knew before my brain did that I was writing a letter to Maggie. From there, everything flowed so….effortlessly. Just like it always is with her. I apologized for the other day in my room. I knew she was taken. I knew her self-restraint was wavering, and I pushed her anyway. As sorry as I am for putting her in a hard position, I’m not sorry it happened. I’m not sorry I got to feel her body against mine one more time, that I got to taste her and have her taste me. I’m not sorry that I got to feel her lips pressed to mine, and I’m definitely not sorry I got to experience that overwhelmingly light butterfly feeling in my stomach only she can give me.

Honestly, I’m not sure how sorry I am. To Maggie, sure. To Maryia? That bitch can get fucked.

A white envelope slips under my door, grabbing my attention. Furrowing my brows, I slip out of bed and move to grab it. When I do, my heart thuds out of beat for a moment. There is no name, no postage. Just a black lipstick kiss pressed against the front.

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