Untitled - Campbell University

I suppose I pitied you, and therefore accepted your offer, because
I knew your sorrow so well. Remember, I was there when our uncle cursed loudly
outside the library door, shouting at you for taking life from her and from this
house. I know you looked for your mother in your books; I searched for mine
among the trees. Once I stole a book, the smallest I could find, from your library
and ran out to the second grove of trees behind the house. I stayed there the whole
afternoon, nearly ripping out pages as I flipped back and forth, hoping I could, in
the very least, find your mother, who could then lead me to mine. Unsuccessful, I
almost abandoned my search until one day, three years ago, I crept into the library
after supper and found a book lying open on the desk. For years I’d curiously peeked
into your sacred room, but never had I seen a book marked and sitting out. The
poem you left for me seemed to be penned with the dark, sad blood from your own
old heart. I resolved from that day forward never to withhold anything from you.
But in withholding, I had to gather my true feelings within my fists
and wait to scatter them during my long walks through the woods. Reticence does
not come naturally to me as it does to you, and I am afraid that I have deeply suffered
for it. At first, when I thought of our upcoming marriage, I would be taken
with a slight trembling in my arms, followed by a headache that would pound until
my eyes were overtaken by the dark pulsations. My only hope was that the pains
would be a sufficient retribution for my deceitfulness.
Unfortunately, the debilitating short spells of shaking and mindlessness
were not the last or the worst of my ailments, as I am sure you have noted. My
skin, browned and sometimes bruised from my roaming out of doors, could never
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