Page 41 of Hell and a Hard Place (Heaven and Hell Duet 1)

I can’t accept his theory, FC. If you don’t want to tell me what’s going on, fine. But please tell me that you aren’t sacrificing our friendship for her. You told me you know you won’t be with her forever, so I know that can’t be what you’re doing, but I can’t stop thinking about it unless you confirm it for me.

But if I’m semi-wrong, and you are doing this, tell me it’s because you love her so much and you’re doing what it takes to make things work. I most certainly don’t want to make your life worse, but I can’t believe you’d choose her over me when it sounded like you’re in a relationship that’s going nowhere and it’ll soon be over.

I’ll do whatever I can to make your life easier. Please do the same for me and answer this one question.

Talk soon,

Idaline

For three days, I debate if I should send my letter before finally dropping it in the mail.

I wake up to find Lila pressing my finger against my phone. I put a lock on it again, just to see how long it would take her to notice, and you have to have my fingerprint to unlock it. She waited until I was asleep to try to get into my phone.

“You’re fucking crazy.”

She drops my hand and jerks her head to look at me. “We agreed that you wouldn’t have a lock on it.”

“We also talked about how there should be boundaries and how each of us should have this thing called privacy.”

Lila completely ignores me as she goes through my phone. “You’ve been grouchy lately with a piss poor attitude.”

That’s what happens when a person gives up to an extent. I’m tired of my life, but I’m waiting on my son. Lila treats me like shit and I take it. She hits me and I don’t even try to cover myself anymore. With her stomach growing larger, she’s taken to grabbing shit that’s close by and hitting me with that instead of her hands.

And then there’s the last letter I received from Idaline. It came nearly a month ago. Every time I try to write back to her, my pen doesn’t move to ink the words onto the paper. I don’t know what to say to her. If I can answer her questions without lying. She’s probably worried as it is because it’s taking so long to get a letter back. I need to suck it up and write her back before I let even more time pass.

“I want a chocolate bar,” Lila says just as I’m dozing off.

Without saying a word, or sighing, I roll out of bed, change my clothes, and leave the apartment. If it wasn’t for twenty-four-hour stores, I’d be fucked. Every night this week, she wakes me up, claiming to have a craving. However, half the time she doesn’t eat what I bring back. At this point, I think she simply enjoys disrupting my sleep and sending me out in the middle of the night.

I’m taking my sweet time tonight. When I get to the convenience store, I park and grab my pen and pad of paper that sits on the backseat of my car. This letter might just kill me.

Idaline,

I apologize that it’s taken me so long to find the words to write this letter. I’m still not so sure that I know what to say, but it’s long past time that you get a response, so here I am at 2:30 in the morning, writing this letter to you.

Justin is right. Lila is the reason we’re not talking like normal. I’m doing what I need to do, Idaline. It might not make sense and you probably don’t understand, but that’s all I’m willing to say right now, especially in a letter. I don’t like to think that I’m sacrificing us for her. Instead, I’m doing what I need to survive.

Please understand this. Please be willing to get through this with me. That’s all I’m asking.

But if you can’t, if you’d rather not, that’s okay. It’s not easy being in my life right now, trust me, I know. We can continue like we are or take a break from talking for a bit, if you’d like. I don’t want to make your life harder either, Idaline. Or make you constantly worry about me. That won’t do either of us any good.

I hope things are even better for you than the last time you wrote. I need to go, but before I do, I’ll say one last thing. Do whatever’s best for you. Don’t think about me or anyone else. Do what’s best for you, Idaline. The rest of us will be okay.

If you decide you want that break, there’s no need to respond and tell me. I’ll figure it out. A break might be good on my end, but the decision is yours. If we do stop talking for a while, we WILL talk again at some point. I’ll even make you a promise. When I feel ready to tell you everything I’m not currently saying, when everything in my life is good once more, I’ll write again. But not just a normal letter. I’ll tell you my name.

Until next time,

FC

I read over my letter and frown. It reads like a bunch of nonsensical bullshit. It sounds like I’m saying goodbye before she can say it to me. That’s the last thing I want to do. There needs to be one good thing going on in my life before Sawyer gets here. But the anguish in Idaline’s letter eats away at me every time I think about it. She might be better off without me. She doesn’t need to stress about me, especially when my life won’t be getting better for a handful of months still.

Part of me hopes she’ll ignore my goodbye and still write. Part of me hopes she won’t because this nagging voice in the back of my mind keeps telling me that’s the only way she’ll find happiness.

With a sigh, I grab an envelope, address it, stamp it,

and stick it in the glove box. I’ll drop it in the mail first thing in the morning, but for now, I need to buy a chocolate bar. When I return home, Lila is asleep, but I set the chocolate bar on the nightstand on her side of the bed.

In the morning, she wakes me up by hitting my leg with a fucking rolling pin. “That’s for taking so long to get back last night and making me wait until this morning to eat my chocolate bar,” she snaps.

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