Z.
Dear Mr. Z,
I think I need to teach you two lessons because even though you’re an adult and I’m just a kid, I’m pretty sure I know these two things better than you do.
One thing, you don’t apologize to friends for needing them. I don’t know this because I have a lot of friends, you know that with the cancer and missing school and stuff I kinda lost all my friends. I know this because in all the really good books and movies, friends do everything and anything for each other. Obviously, you would do anything for me seeing as how before we were even friends, you saved my life by taking a bullet for me, and I’m trying not to be mad that you don’t know I would do the same for you. You want to curse? You want to talk to me about your kids? Or the hell you went through in prison because of me? It’s my duty as the girl you saved, my pleasure as your bff (best friend forever) and my honour as a girl who respects you more than she even respects her parents and whole family, to listen to whatever in the world you want to say to me.
The second thing is harder to teach but I’ve been thinking about it a lot since I got out of the hospital. We all have scars. Some of them, like the one you and me share, you can see with your eyes. Some of them, you ink, like you do, on your skin so that they tell the story like a picture book. Like a badge of honour that you overcame something really bad. Then there are others, like the scar that stays in your heart when you’re left alone in a hospital room for a week without anyone visiting you, or when you sleep on a metal bed in a concrete prison filled with bad men or weak men who only touch each other to sin in one way or another. I think it’s harder to talk about those scars and it’s harder to get over them because they wrap around you like poison ivy, making it hard to breathe and pump blood through your heart in the normal way. At least, that is how it is with me. I feel my heart skip when I talk to my friends now at school and they talk about boys they like and what they want to be when they grow up, and I know that sometimes, a lot of the time, kids don’t even get to grow up. They die.
I think bad things happen to everyone, not just bad people. My grandfather is the pastor, you know? And he says all the time that religion will absolve us of our sins and lead us to heaven if only we follow all God’s rules. I don’t think you are the kind of man to follow rules, even if they are the Almighty’s, but I do know that you definitely deserve to be happy so I think there must be special exceptions for men who are good but whose lives went bad. I think sometimes God sends us bad stuff, like cancer and prison and crappy ex-wives and too-busy daddies to see how we hold up. If we are strong and we endure, we are rewarded.
I don’t know if that makes you feel better, to know that I kinda know what you are going through, that our scars make us different and they make us hurt all the time and feel a little lonely. Only, we are lucky because we are bffs so we have each other. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, I got you, Mr. Z.
xoxo,
Loulou
P.S. Harleigh Rose won’t care if you don’t want to snuggle or you flinch when she touches you. You’ll get used to it again and I bet you she’s just happy to have you back. I know I am.
2012-2013
Zeus is 32. Louise is 13.
Zeus,
Tell me another story, a good one where the hero is kind of the villain and the happily ever after isn’t easy coming. I want to hear about adventures and bravery and living life outside of the lines. I read On the Road like you recommended and I loved it. The Zen of Art and Motorcycle Maintenance was good too and I really loved Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Our housekeeper found my copy under the bed and turned it over to my mother who immediately threw it into the fireplace and informed me that I would be going to church camp for the summer again. I hate church camp. Remember last summer when those girls told me I was impure because I was wearing coloured lip chap? I know you said that they were dumb, but it still really bothered me, and I know they’ll be there again this year. They go to my school and I bet you when I go to EBA for high school, they’ll be there too. They call themselves “the angels.” How self-righteous can they get?