papers once again.
" I'm not happy about what happened to Karoline, don't get me wrong. But I am glad she's gone from your life."
I begin to shake. From the terrible honesty. From the terrible lie.
Ethan doesn't know how complicit I was in shaping my life with my friends. My parents, probably without meaning to, raised me to be a narcissistic Princess, haughty and self-absorbed. They protected me from a world that might've used me. I learned how to use beauty to my own advantage instead.
My mother gave me lessons in how to remain emotionally distant. I went from that overprotected discipline to Karoline's regime. I never really thought about others' feelings except how the consequences related to me.
Like how to deal with the writer in tears who was aghast at the way the screenplay had twisted their main character. Or how to manage the man who lay weeping at my feet when I broke up with him. How to avoid an emotional bond with the guy I'd just slept with. How to replace real discourse with intellectual sparring.
I ignored the fact that my very best friend was disintegrating right in front of me.
From Parris I have started to learn true friendship. From Ethan, real love. But it took the unraveling of Karoline for me to reach out beyond the nest we created. If Karoline's demons hadn't swallowed her, would I ever have noticed my shallow existence? I don't think I would have.
I would describe myself as content, self-absorbed, privileged, coddled. I equated these feelings with happiness. I mistook laughter for joy and arguments for conversation. Saw overprotection and control as love.
I was capable of vicious thoughts, of cold betrayal, of a terrible, final act. Do I still retain that Ice Queen Anne, the one that I was? I must, or surely her voice would have been completely silenced by now. Can a person really change? Or am I a monster hiding under this bandage of love and attention until my wounds heal?
Tears spill down my face. Ethan encircles me. Rocks me like a broken-hearted child. He kisses my wet cheeks, my blubbering lips.
" Anne, I love you," he whispers at my ear, nuzzling my neck, kneading my back.
" I know, but I'm not sure you should," I tell him, anxiety cracking my voice. "You don't really know me."
He doesn't know the complete me. He can't have glimpsed a fully lovable Anne under the layers of odd behaviors and insincerity. Is he like all the others, assuming beauty and goodness because of the surface perfection? What will he do if he ever discovers what I did, what I was, what I might still be?
" And I have only just started to learn what that word really means. You've been teaching me, Ethan, but I still can't trust it."
Or myself. I shake my head, refusing to slip down the mountain into that valley of self-hatred once again. I sit up and hold his eyes with mine, squeeze his hand so he won't stop me from my confession. I must find out.
" I didn't tell her I'd found the letters. Instead, I followed the trails, at least up to a point. I need you to know everything."
I stumble on the last word, aware that there is one secret I cannot tell just yet. Perhaps never. There are so many missing pieces of myself that must be replaced. I am a crossword with obscure definitions that lead to empty spaces. I am half and half in skin and mind, not whole of anything.
" I can't remember the first four years of my life. It's a blank. The only person who ever knew about that was Karoline. I didn't even ask my mother. I assumed that everyone forgets their early childhood. Until Karoline pointed out that mine is far emptier than most. There are no glimpses, no half-remembered scenes. Nothing. But I never wanted to investigate. Clearly, Karoline did."
It 's my turn to stab the letters.
" After I found these letters, I decided to visit my sister Elizabeth. I took a week off work, told Karoline nothing. Disappeared just as she had begun to do."
Dear Diary,
Today I want to talk about trust. The dictionary defines
" I'm not happy about what happened to Karoline, don't get me wrong. But I am glad she's gone from your life."
I begin to shake. From the terrible honesty. From the terrible lie.
Ethan doesn't know how complicit I was in shaping my life with my friends. My parents, probably without meaning to, raised me to be a narcissistic Princess, haughty and self-absorbed. They protected me from a world that might've used me. I learned how to use beauty to my own advantage instead.
My mother gave me lessons in how to remain emotionally distant. I went from that overprotected discipline to Karoline's regime. I never really thought about others' feelings except how the consequences related to me.
Like how to deal with the writer in tears who was aghast at the way the screenplay had twisted their main character. Or how to manage the man who lay weeping at my feet when I broke up with him. How to avoid an emotional bond with the guy I'd just slept with. How to replace real discourse with intellectual sparring.
I ignored the fact that my very best friend was disintegrating right in front of me.
From Parris I have started to learn true friendship. From Ethan, real love. But it took the unraveling of Karoline for me to reach out beyond the nest we created. If Karoline's demons hadn't swallowed her, would I ever have noticed my shallow existence? I don't think I would have.
I would describe myself as content, self-absorbed, privileged, coddled. I equated these feelings with happiness. I mistook laughter for joy and arguments for conversation. Saw overprotection and control as love.
I was capable of vicious thoughts, of cold betrayal, of a terrible, final act. Do I still retain that Ice Queen Anne, the one that I was? I must, or surely her voice would have been completely silenced by now. Can a person really change? Or am I a monster hiding under this bandage of love and attention until my wounds heal?
Tears spill down my face. Ethan encircles me. Rocks me like a broken-hearted child. He kisses my wet cheeks, my blubbering lips.
" Anne, I love you," he whispers at my ear, nuzzling my neck, kneading my back.
" I know, but I'm not sure you should," I tell him, anxiety cracking my voice. "You don't really know me."
He doesn't know the complete me. He can't have glimpsed a fully lovable Anne under the layers of odd behaviors and insincerity. Is he like all the others, assuming beauty and goodness because of the surface perfection? What will he do if he ever discovers what I did, what I was, what I might still be?
" And I have only just started to learn what that word really means. You've been teaching me, Ethan, but I still can't trust it."
Or myself. I shake my head, refusing to slip down the mountain into that valley of self-hatred once again. I sit up and hold his eyes with mine, squeeze his hand so he won't stop me from my confession. I must find out.
" I didn't tell her I'd found the letters. Instead, I followed the trails, at least up to a point. I need you to know everything."
I stumble on the last word, aware that there is one secret I cannot tell just yet. Perhaps never. There are so many missing pieces of myself that must be replaced. I am a crossword with obscure definitions that lead to empty spaces. I am half and half in skin and mind, not whole of anything.
" I can't remember the first four years of my life. It's a blank. The only person who ever knew about that was Karoline. I didn't even ask my mother. I assumed that everyone forgets their early childhood. Until Karoline pointed out that mine is far emptier than most. There are no glimpses, no half-remembered scenes. Nothing. But I never wanted to investigate. Clearly, Karoline did."
It 's my turn to stab the letters.
" After I found these letters, I decided to visit my sister Elizabeth. I took a week off work, told Karoline nothing. Disappeared just as she had begun to do."
Dear Diary,
Today I want to talk about trust. The dictionary defines
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