The Letter
My Dearest Jesse,
This is the hardest and easiest thing I ever had to do in my life. Hardest, because I know what I will be doing after writing this letter, and dread the moment, even though I want it to be over and done with. Easiest, because I’ve been keeping these feelings to myself for far too long, and there’s nothing more liberating than the truth.
I wish I could tell you I regret what I did. But if we are being honest—and honesty is the only thing I owe you, really—I have given you and your mom everything that I have and will leave it to you, Jesse, after I die—the only thing I regret is you remembering. I thought you were too drunk. Completely out of it.
I wanted you.
So I took you.
Because it’s always been you.
I remember the first time I saw you. You. Not Pam. Your mother was working the cash register at a diner in my accountant’s building. It was by mistake that I’d gone into this branch. Rather than noticing the blonde bombshell my age, I noticed the girl sitting next to her, with the inky ponytails and huge blue eyes. You were reading a book, your hair like feathers, your eyes like crystals. You were forbidden and luscious. From the shape of your eyes to your pillowy narrow lips, your beauty held so much power, and you didn’t even know it yet.
The worst part was that you were easy.
A man of my position could lure a woman in your mom’s situation into just about anything. Especially marriage.
I knew I didn’t need much. One night, maybe two. I was going to be patient and good. I fell in love with you, Jesse. It was difficult not to. Your passion for books, for life, for love. And it was so easy to get near you, too. Your mother was recovering from losing Art. Both to another woman and to death.
I was quiet.
I was nice.
I was different.
I was evil.
No one knew.
No one suspected.
Still waters run deep.
My only regret is that you drowned in my sins.
I want you to know that it was never malicious. I had hopes. I did. Maybe you felt the same. Maybe I wasn’t so crazy. Maybe for the first time in my life, someone didn’t see me for the lisp-y loser that I was (or that I wanted people to think I am. Oh, Jesse, it is so easy to manipulate people once they think you’re weak). Maybe that person was you.
I will say this—I did feel sorry for what Emery and the boys did to you. When they hurt you, they hurt me. I never thought it would go this far. I didn’t even think Wallace would notice. I definitely did not anticipate the rape, and for that, I apologize profoundly, although I have to sustain that any levelheaded person wouldn’t have acted the way he did.
I understand how hypocritical that sounds. I never thought that I was a levelheaded person. I’m saying Emery wasn’t, either, and you were unfortunate enough to be a victim. Twice.
Jesse, I love you. I also hate you, in a sense. You made me put up with your mother, and I think we all know how difficult she can be.
It didn’t surprise me one bit when they began to call you Snow White at school. I wondered—and more than once—whether your friends knew the whole truth. That you, too, had a wicked mother that was jealous of your beauty. That you, too, hid away from the world. Just with books instead of dwarfs. That you, too, took a bite of the poisonous apple.
That apple was Bane Protsenko.
He was supposed to wake you up.
Not to steal you.
We had a deal. I knew he would pull you out of your misery, with his beautiful face and ugly reputation. I didn’t know he would take it that far. I didn’t know he would fall just like the rest of us.
Jesse, I am going to ask you for something very important now.
Don’t forgive me.
Don’t forgive them.
Break the cycle, because there are too many bad men out there who need to be stopped, and the only way to stop them is to be a strong woman. So be one.
The truth is, Art was right to leave your mother.
The truth is, Bane was right to defy me and fall in love.
The truth is, this is the last thing I will ever say or write to anyone, and I will be remembered as the scoundrel.
But that won’t matter to me in a few minutes. Nothing will.
A bullet to the head is my choice of suicide. It’s messy, and expensive, just like me.
Go to the police, Jesse. Tell them about Emery, Nolan, and Henry. Don’t allow them to get away with what they did. God knows I got away with it for eight years, and I did not deserve one day.
With love, respect, and regret,
Darren Floyd Morgansen