The Cure
“You are my very dear friend, but I am not in love with you…”
She watches the flames curl the pages to ash and smoke. A single tear falls, a half-hearted, rebellious sizzle sounds as it fails to stop the letter’s destruction.
When nothing is left but the flaked remains, she grasps her glass to wash away the rising tide within her with whiskey, but his words taunt her on a level to which liquid spirits cannot delve.
“…how ungrateful I have seemed for the love you have given me…”
The burn of the liquor is no match for the bitter flame consuming her heart.
“Yes, indeed. What a waste. What a goddamned waste.
"I guess I should thank you for the lesson—that one can care deeply and be used for it. It’s an excruciating test, but one I had to undergo the hard way because without its pain, I would’ve never accepted the truth:
I am not Tonya, I am not Ellen, I am not Susan, nor Alice, nor Carol. I never was, and I will never be. I am just that slut you drunkenly fucked. A lot. Or maybe that woman who taught you about whiskey, or maybe that friend who dropped everything every time without fail or question to reassure you, support you and care for you when you were too sick to stand and too weak to love yourself.
Maybe one day you’ll be brave enough to ask yourself what I was, but when you do, don’t call out for me in the darkness. I will not answer.”
