1642734778_punk-57-pdf

“I lied about the people in my life and the parts of me I fake for others,”
she explains. “Everything else was true. The movies and the music, my
ideas and my dreams, everything else was true. The rest wasn’t important.”
“I trusted you, too,” I point out. “I believed in you.”
“I’m everything I said I was.”
“You can say whatever you want,” I retort. “Doesn’t make it true.”
Her head falls, and she inhales shaky breaths through her nose, clearly
trying to calm herself and get her body under control. The inhaler lays on
the floor. I wish she’d just take the fucking thing. She’s making me nervous.
“I was the real me when I wrote you those letters,” she says quietly. “I
was everything I wanted to be.”
And I can understand that. There are definitely some minor things I
haven’t told her, because I wanted to be free with her, like I can’t be at
home. But she has to know that, even though what I did was crazy and
things got way out of hand, it hurt me, too, to be tricked. To find that the
person you care about and hold on a pedestal is shallow and mean to the
rest of the world.
“And when you would write me,” I ask her, “telling me to stand up to
my dad, believe in myself, stay true with no regrets… Why would you tell
me those things when you didn’t follow them yourself?”
She looks away, but I don’t back off. I stare at her, holding her hostage.
Why preach to me all the things you didn’t have the courage to do yourself?
“Hmm?” I prod, dipping my head down to meet her eyes.
“Because…” she whispers, avoiding my eyes. “Because you want good
things for the people you…”—she breathes fast, barely whispering
—“love.”
I suck in a sharp breath. God, what is she doing to me?
I’d give anything—anything—to have her in my arms right now.