letter to brett, delivered early evening

There's about a million things going through my head after reading your letter. Then reading it again, and I'll probably do that a few more times even while I reply. I know you won't expect me to be perfectly coherent with things, but for a fair warning, I don't know if I'll even be a little bit coherent. I'll try to be, however.

You should talk to your cousin. Maybe you need someone in your life that is family, a connection with who you were, as well as who you are now. If nothing else, it's another perspective, and you need that sometimes. So, that's my advice on that score--talk to your cousin, make the time. If she winds up not being worth it, oh well, but if she is, then you don't want to put it off or miss out. If she puts things together about me, then she does. Don't use my name. Make up a new one, if you're too concerned about her sending the cops after me. I don't mind either way, but I expect you know that.

I don't know where to go from here. So I suppose I'll just start writing, and hope it makes some sense. The woman you were with, Betty, I've known people like her. A lot of them. In fact, I'd say most of the people in my life have been like her in some form, when you boil them down they're nothing but parasites, feeding off of everyone around them in some way or another. Concentrating on what they get out of something. I was like that. My biggest concern was what was in it for me.

I think we both lived somewhat isolated lives. I understood yours, even without you fully explaining it, but I understand even better now. For me, it was isolated differently. It wasn't that I pushed people away, it was that no one had a chance to start with. I was emotionally incapable of it. I don't know if I was broken before, and the brain damage fucked me up just enough that it stripped my emotional blocks down, or if I was fine before and this is the messed up part. I sort of go back and forth on how I feel about it, I just know that I lived my entire life without ever feeling true warmth or compassion towards others. Then the lights went out, and when they came back on, there was you.

It still gets me sometimes that I remember your eyes so well. I know I've said it before, but that's what's hitting me as I write this. Everything was foggy, and the whole world hurt. Everything was blurry, everything was terrifying. Did I tell you that before? I was scared. Everything was scary, because so much of what was happening around me I couldn't process correctly. It was like the whole world suddenly looked like a funhouse mirror image. Distorted at best, frightening at worst. Nothing really made sense anymore, and trying to sort anything out was impossible. I was in and out of consciousness, I had no sense of time or location, it was like I was free falling. More than once I wondered if I was dead, and the indistinct fog my life had become was my own special version of hell. I remember needles, but don't have any connections to that memory. No time or place, no association, it's just floating there, without meaning.

When I say I remember your eyes, it's true. The visual is there, locked in my mind, the bright blue so stark. But it's more than that, more than just remembering how they looked. There's all the associations that go with that. I felt better, I felt safe, grounded. I felt less like I was falling. That's what it was like, being in that fog all the time. Like I was constantly falling. You know that sick feeling in your stomach when you miss a step? It was like that, all the time. But for a moment, I honestly don't know how long, it stopped. You did that.

I never cared. Before, nothing ever filtered through. To be fair, I don't think there was much to get through. I don't think I short changed good people, that I missed out on anything. My girls signed up with me because of what I could do for them. Clients signed on because of what they got in the deal. Everything in my life was based in trade of some description. You never got anything for nothing. Nothing came without price.

I don't believe in love. One of the reasons was what you said, but that wasn't even the most of it. Love was a word that got tossed around but I never saw anyone mean it. It was only a bargaining chip. It was a manipulation tool. There was a man who used to double a girl's pay if she whispered it into his ear and it was convincing. I've seen it weaponized, used to cut people down or keep them there. I just never saw it mean something real.

I never experienced it. Not even from my family. My mother, I think, sometimes felt like she should love me, but that doesn’t mean she did. I remember very dimly her coming home and waking me in the middle of the night to drunkenly confess things, though I no longer remember what she was confessing to. I know there were times where she'd look at me, and tell me things. Gems such as 'Julie, you don't ever let a man touch you less he's paid his way first'. I suppose that was her version of motherly advice, nevermind I was seven years old. Sometimes she'd look at me and cry, sometimes she’d sneer. My father, well. He was the type to just knock me around whenever I happened to be in range, and he sold me after my mother was murdered. Not all the time, enough that I knew my place. But you know how that ended.

The couple you told me about, that was somewhat like them, only my mother stayed even if she wasn't in love with my father. She stayed as far as I can tell because she didn't have the spine to leave. What she got out of it outweighed the benefits of leaving, I suppose. I don't think my needs ever actually factored in. Sometimes I was her beautiful daughter, sometimes I was just another mouth to feed. Sometimes there was nothing in the house but a half empty bottle of tequila and I had to find food myself.

I never wanted to be like either of them. I never wanted to be that spineless shadow of a woman, wasting away, rotting in her own skin before someone decided it was easier to kill her off than pay her. That's how you build a better whore, by the way. You ingrain it in early how far things fall. I never wanted to be anything like them but after reading what you've said, I can see the comparison. Even if at first you said you don't think I'm like that, you told me that story for a reason. You put it down on paper for a reason. I can draw the parallels, I did before you got to it later. I know what you're saying. I hate that I've made you feel that way, like a victim. I can only apologize for that, even if I'm unsure it'll do any good, particularly at this juncture. But I am sorry. I never thought about anything like that at all, it hit hard to read. I don’t disagree, though. I’m just so sorry. There have been a lot of victims left in my wake, but I never wanted you to be one. I never thought of you like that, I never intended it.

The first time I ever felt anything for someone else was with you. I don't really know when it happened either, but eventually what I was faced with was the idea that I cared more about you and your well being than I did about my own. For a long time, what that meant for me was I needed to repay you. That I knew I had disrupted your life, and you took such a huge risk for me, I needed to pay that back. No one gets something for nothing, remember? So in my own head, that was what I decided it was. Just that, just some pay back that I could come up with, even if I had no way of doing that. When I was nearly caught at your place, I can't actually accurately describe to you how frightened I was. It was this sick dread in my stomach that settled in and wouldn't go away. I kept coming back to the same idea--I couldn't let you get caught with me. I couldn't let you go down for something like that, especially when I know you never intended to take me in in the first place.

I couldn't stand the thought of it, of them finding me and I know they'd likely kill you just to tie up loose ends. So I waited until you were gone, and then I left. I understood if I waited til you got home that I wouldn't keep my resolve, but it also wouldn't make me feel any better. You’d get home, and hang up your coat, and I’d set out something I made for dinner. Maybe we’d snap at each other a little, you with that scratchy voice of yours that can be soft when you want it to be. You’d do that, and I’d decide I wasn’t leaving. So, I left when you were out, because it was the only way I was making it out the door, and in the end I knew it was the right thing to do for you. You didn't so much agree with me on that point, but that's where my mind was. You wouldn't throw me out or anything, and my presence at your place was a danger to you. So, something had to be done, and I did that. I think that might have been my first selfless act. It didn't go down spectacularly well, and you saw it as purely selfish. I get why you thought so, though.

Even after that, though, I couldn't stop thinking of you. I looked for you in the Round. Then you made it known that you found me, and I wanted you to come by. Every time you left I was sure it would be the last time I saw you. I hated that. I hated thinking 'this is it' every time you walked out that door. I hated the idea that I wanted you to come back, when I’d been meant to be gone from your life. But I didn't want you to leave. Maybe things started with me not wanting to be alone, but I don't think, if I'm being honest, that it was about that for very long. I think it became about you in short order. It had most certainly changed before I left for the Round.

What I feel for you is something I wasn't capable of before. I know that. For me, I do want what's best for you. Even if that doesn't include me in any way. I realized that a long time ago, that even if it left me a shell, if I honestly thought you'd be better off without me, then I'd let go. I just think my version of letting go isn't really letting go, it's disappearing. I don’t know that I know how to let go the way I’m meant to. I run, you know I do. Some of that was really to do with my ideas about you and I, and how I wasn’t the right choice for you. The idea that you're better off without me. Sometimes it wasn't, but still. I know that's been a driving force for me, something that slowly replaced the idea that I needed to repay you. I want what's best for you, I care about what happens to you, I want your needs to be taken care of. I want to protect you. I want you to be happy, I want you to smile, I want you to not just trudge through your life without living it. I want there to be more to your existence than merely being present for it. I'm willing to do anything I possibly can to ensure those things.

Here’s the hard part for me. Maybe you didn't read things with me incorrectly. Maybe you read between the lines and did see what was there. I don't believe in it, but you do. I believe in you. It's still hard for me to even write the word down without my mind telling me 'it's all a lie, it's all a lie, it's all a lie'--and that has nothing to do with you, it’s just how my head tells me to react to that word. But if what I said about how I feel fits the definition, then maybe you just weren't wrong.

But you already said it. Sometimes it isn't enough, right? And somewhere in there, I'm that abusive partner. Somewhere in there, you're the victim. I don't want that. I just don't know what to do about it, either. You say you don't want to leave me a wreck, but I was an incomplete person before everything happened, and I'm a broken, incomplete person now. You didn't do this to me. You didn't do anything wrong. You said that you don’t know how to make me any better, and the answer is no one can. I appreciate that you tried. It was just a losing battle from the start, baby, and I’m sorry about that. I was fucked up from the word go, and I just had a brief little foray into being a better person, but I don't think I did that well either. Or, with what you're saying, with the abuse patterns you're talking about, I very much didn't.

I'm sorry for the way I behaved the other night. I know I was all over the place, I don't have the emotional control I need. Sometimes, it was like I could see it, some little sliver of hope, and so I'd reach for it, but then it would be gone again. When it was gone, even if I saw it just for a second, it was a pretty crushing blow. When I could see it, I wanted to fight for us, for what we had, because it felt like the right thing to do in that moment. I get it now that it wasn't, and I'm sorry for that. There were things I wanted to tell you, to say to you. There's clearly a reason I don't trust myself, and that's because I can't really be trusted. Not with things like getting the real difference between right and wrong, which I feel is pretty damn important in this situation. My moral compass is broken. Honestly most of what I base my ideas of right and wrong on these days is what I learned from you. What I think you would think was right or wrong. But as we’ve noted, it’s not like my interpretations are perfect.

I keep having divided, opposing impulses. Like last night, I wanted to tell you that you'd never meet another woman like me. That no one was ever going to know you like I do. That I always could see through you, and even if lately I've had trouble, that didn't mean that that had changed. That no one was ever going to be me. But as I sit here, writing this all down, I know that's all bullshit. That's just how I want to feel. I want to feel like I'm somehow irreplaceable. That just doesn't make it so. I know right now you don't want to move on, and you said you didn't want it to seem like I didn't mean anything. The issue I have with that is that you moving on won't mean that I didn't mean anything, it would just mean you weren't alone anymore. One doesn't have to negate the other. I know I meant a lot to you. You told me you loved me and I believed you. But it doesn’t mean you have to sit and suffer, or pine, or anything like that. You don’t have to be alone, and I wish you wouldn’t tell me that you don’t want to move on, because I don’t think you do so well alone. I think when you’re left to your own devices, you tent to find yourself in a rut. I think you need reasons to get out of them, so you need someone there to give you those reasons.

You need a woman who will know when to call bullshit on you and has the spine to do it. You need a girl who's stable, and won't run off every other day for insane reasons. You need a woman who knows which end is which on the right and wrong scale. You need to be needed, just enough, and any girl looking your way is going to need you a little. You're a big, strong guy, Brett. that comes through regardless of where you are or how you're dressed. Someone attracted to that is looking for that, looking for someone who can make them feel safe.

This is the part of me that's loudest. That part that read over everything and can also read between the lines. The part that decided last night that I was going to give you what you needed to walk away clean. I know that's what you're looking for, you even said it. You don't want to see or be aware of me suffering. And if you won't let me outright leave town (even if that offer is open ended) then it's taking this job. I bought new blankets already. Eric gave me a bracelet that has my address on it so I will be less lost.

I think one of the biggest differences between the way you see things and the way I see things is you see a future, and I don't. At least, when it comes to me. I can see a future for you without issue, I always have been able to. But when it comes to myself, I never see anything. Maybe I need to explain that, I don't know.

You talked about right after the fire, and how you decided one day you were getting back your strength, you were getting your position on the force back, and you did that. But for me, there isn't a fix. There's nothing I can do that will right my head. I have to live with the knowledge that there are things I will forget that I desperately want to hang onto. That there are things that will dim down then quietly extinguish, and I won't even know about it until I try to think back later. Like the fight I mentioned, when I came home with the cufflinks. I remember we had one, I remember feeling you, angry, in the office. But I can't for the life of me remember why you were angry--just that you were.

And that's my life. Even the most important things to me, even the most precious memories, they slip. And I have no say in what goes away or what stays. Like I remember just fine when you came to the loft and you were putting buckets and bowls down on the floor because the roof leaked. And I remember the day in the office where you wanted me to tell you that I was yours. Where everything was a game, and then it wasn't. I remember sitting in the bath at the loft, talking to you and you were outside the door, but I can't recall right now what we were talking about, just that you didn't want to see me bare. I remember when you came to see me on the last night I sang, when you came back stage, and everything I'd decided to do I dropped entirely, just seeing you there. I didn’t care about a damn thing other than you in that moment, I just wanted to kiss you and go back home with you. I remember thinking that the apartment was too far away. I remember times when the few feet to the bed was too far away.

And I don't know what I'll remember tomorrow. I don't know what my head will have eaten by then. I don't even know how it works, or if the fog will clear at some point and I will remember things I had trouble remembering before, or if you told me what I was missing if I'd recall. I don't know if I'll remember how to do whatever it is I'm taught to do out at the scrap yard. It's hit me harder, since everything happened. The idea that I forget things. Before, it didn't matter as much because you were there, and you could remind me, or we'd be making new memories either way. But now that's all I have to hold onto, and there's a few holes in the bucket here.

I remember sitting on the kitchen floor, trying to get a bottle of something back, and playing with you for it, trying to get your grip off of it, and you'd only let me get so far before you tightened it back up. I don't remember why we were on the kitchen floor. But I remember that after a while I didn’t even really want the bottle back, I was just enjoying the game.

Maybe part of all of this is the past that matters to everyone else is a looming, crushing tower of blackness, and the part of my past I want to hold onto slips through my fingers when I'm not looking. How do you have a future when that's what you're coming from? I feel paralyzed, like there isn’t any direction I can really move. I feel like I’m suffocating, like I can’t breathe. I keep getting lost, and I understand that that’s never going to get better. I’m just always going to be lost. I came back to this hell hole because it was the most familiar to me, and even then, I walk a few buildings down the street and I’m turned around.

I don’t know how to build a life when that’s what I’m starting from. I don’t know how to manage it, without staring in the mirror and hating what I see. I do now, that’s a big part of my problem too, I just hate what I see. I understand why you would wake up every morning and only see what I did. I understand why you don’t want anything to do with me. I understand needing to walk away, even if it clashes with your feelings. I agree with it. I keep going back and forth, and it’s just because of how I feel about you.

But you said it’s not enough and you’d be the expert, I certainly am not. Plus, I left for a reason. I left because I knew the consequences of my actions, I knew that I couldn’t stay with you. I want to, I very much do, I miss you so much I can’t even properly express it, but not after what I did. I may once have been good for you but I stopped. Especially with everything else, the things I never thought of, those abusive things. So even more so, you need to not have me in your life. I know you keep saying you don’t know, that you don’t have answers, but what I’m reading is that you do know, you just don’t like the answer yet.

It’s all there. The abuse factor, what I did, what you said about not being able to trust that I wouldn’t do it again. You’re right. Life’s a fucking bitch. I hate feeling so hopeless, but truthfully, this isn’t the first time I’ve felt it. I did back at the loft, when I’d look at my life and see nothing. Don’t worry, I’m keeping the job, I’ll get some furniture. I know you tried to give me some hope and not string me along at the same time. I didn’t skip over that or anything, I just think everything else you’ve said paints it clearly. I never wanted to be like that with you. I never wanted any of this. Is it stupid to say I’d been daydreaming of just having a club we showed up at occasionally but more or less left to run itself with the escort business on the side, and you and I could just do whatever we wanted with our days? And I didn’t have anything specific planned, just being there, with you.

I want to make this as easy for you as possible. I never meant to hurt you, or wind up here. I wish I was the woman you thought I was. I wish a whole lot of things right now, and I’m not usually the type. I mean, really, me? Wishing? That requires faith in something better. And we both know I can even outshine you in cynicism. But that was something I always adored about you. Maybe you lost it for a little while but you didn’t forget it all completely. Somewhere underneath everything, even with how awful everything had been with you, you still do silly things like believe in love. Somewhere you were still a hero, even if I was the only one who could see it, once upon a time. Somehow you were still a better man than any I’ve ever come across. I guess if I believe in anything, I believe in you. And maybe I’ll take that last part of your letter, and hold onto that. That maybe there’ll always be some part of you that’s mine. You’re the only person I’ve ever truly belonged to.

love,
Julia