Mina

A Letter

I heeded Katie's advice and took the plunge.

Okay correction, I was planning on taking the plunge.

I crumbled up the letter I had wrote, tossing it in the trash can along with the others. Every letter sounded too formal or too casual, sappy and pathetic or completely unemotional. I couldn't find the balance, I didn't know how I was supposed to talk to my dad. I didn't actually know him.

I breathed out a frustrated huff, giving myself a mental pep talk. Just talk. That's all he ever did. His letters were informal, seemingly just his thoughts spilled out onto a page. I wasn't the best at letting my thoughts and feelings out of my head but I could try. I had to try, right?

It felt foreign to start the letter with dad but it felt too distant to write Tom. My pen hovered above the paper, eyes squeezed shut as I willed the doubts out of my mind. Writing a letter didn't change anything. It didn't mean that suddenly he'd be in my life. It didn't mean that I had to trust him. That I had to be apart of his new family. It was just a letter.

A letter I knew I needed to write.

I had to do this, for me. I had to at least crack the door slightly. Because even if we never became like a normal father and daughter, I needed to hear his side. I needed answers to questions. I needed closure. I wanted it.

I was hoping that maybe he could lay some of my inability to allow someone close to rest. Because it all stemmed from him and Penny. And I already knew Penny would never give it to me. She wanted me crippled, just like her.

I snapped my eyes back open, starting the letter off the way he signed every single one.

Dad,

                                 ———————

I let out an annoyed groan, my knuckles gripped around my steering wheel as I sat at a light fighting with myself.

I'd spent longer than I wanted to admit, pacing my floor with my finished letter in my hand. I read it, then reread it. I almost crumbled it plenty of times, sending it to its grave with the handful of others that hadn't made the cut.

But somehow it managed to find its way to an envelope. His address scribbled across it, a stamp in the upper right corner. I didn't bother with a return address. If it never made it to him, I didn't want to know. I didn't want there to be hope. If I heard back from him, fine. If I didn't, I'd never try again.

And then I stood outside at the mailbox like a lunatic. Opening and closing the door, peering inside as my heart thundered away in my chest. I pulled it out, slapping it against my open palm before stuffing it back in, only to repeat myself again and again.

My neighbors probably thought I'd lost my mind. Maybe I had.

When I finally managed to get in my car, I stared at my mailbox like it might morph into a flesh eating demon. I even climbed back out and walked over to double check twice.

Was I sure I wanted to send a letter?

Hell if I knew.

I couldn't make out what way was up. What was me and what was Penny's voice that had somehow infiltrated my being like a parasite. Nestled so deep inside me that we had become one.

By the time I had actually pulled out of the driveway, I had left myself just enough time to make it to the library on time. As long as I didn't change my mind.

But my resolve was cracking as my mind thought about the mail truck bouncing it's way down my road and toward my flesh eating monster of a mailbox that held the letter that possessed enough power to crack the door to the impenetrable fortress that I had erected around my soul.

And that terrified me.

I stared at the red light, needing to go straight but knowing a right would allow me to loop around and head back toward my house. My fingers drummed against the steering wheel, itching to flick the blinker on.

"No." I muttered to myself in the silence of the car. "You'll be late."

It was true, I wasn't lying.

"It's just a stupid letter."

It was not a stupid letter.

"You're being ridiculous."

Only slightly, maybe.

I watched in slight horror as the light turned green and my blinker wasn't on. My foot shifted to the gas peddled, my white knuckles aching as they held the steering wheel straight. My car drove straight under the light, my chance for turning around gone, sealing my fate.

"It'll be fine."

I blew out a breath, it would be something. Fine I wasn't sure, but I had just set something in motion and now I just had to wait around and see what exactly it was.

                              ————————

I went to the zoo yesterday and now I feel like I need to sleep for a week.