Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
— act one, scene eight: the letters
༺♥༻
The panic really didn't really ever settle in when sixth-grade Megara realized she might find Ricky cute. There were, after all, a million reasons why it was a bad idea. A million and one, if you will.
You could tell just by the way they acted with each other that their history was long and complicated: but it was only known to each of them. Ricky had his own feelings about Megara and vice versa. It was just this unspoken rule, something never to be discussed.
Megara would have died if she knew that Ricky knew that she was tearing a page out of her notepad, the top corner stained from the tea she drank earlier in the day and preparing to write a love letter to him. Even she knew how crazy it was, shaking her head to herself as she scooted her chair closer to her desk so she could relax her elbow on the top as she clicked her gel pen and prepared to put her thoughts to paper.
Once it was out of her system, she would run and never look back on this stupid, ridiculous crush. Once she pushed the weight off her chest, she would be able to sleep at night. And she could move on from this crush that probably wasn't even really a crush. Once and for all.
"R. Bowen," black ink spilt onto the top of the sheet. But the words that followed were less than romantic.
You're annoying.
Megara even smiled to herself. See, she was already feeling better about this.
Like so effing annoying.
Finding power in her own words, she began getting carried away, letting everything she thought of come out without a second thought.
With your dumb dance moves and your stupid laugh. Who the hell laughs like that? I can't believe how many years have gone by, so much time has passed, and yet you're still here. It's irrecoverably disgusting. I want nothing to do with you.
She sat back and stared at that for a long, long time. She wasn't even sure of what she wrote, yet she was sure it must be true if it came out of her like that at full force. So, she let herself keep going.
But I'm also mad at you.
She even chuckled quietly, even if she was the only one in the room listening. This was better than therapy.
This is all your fault... if you had never come into my life I wouldn't have to feel torn like this. If you had never come into my life, I wouldn't have to be caught in the middle of you and Nini. If you hadn't been playing soccer that day in the gym and laughing so loud maybe Nini wouldn't have noticed you and I would still have you all to myself.
"I need to stop..." Megara gently set the pen down, the room so quiet that it was possible to hear a pin drop. Realizing the impact of her words, she sat there with no choice but to own up to what she had said.
Whatever. It doesn't even matter because I'm getting over you. I swear I am. I'll stop before I get too far ahead. I don't even really like you that much anyway.
xoxo... Meg
Folding the small sheet over twice, not giving a second thought to uneven creases in the paper, Megara then pressed her lips to the bottom of the paper near her signature, the color from her cherry lip gloss transferring and leaving a clear print of her kiss.
She dropped it into the hat box she pulled out specifically for this event. It wasn't much of a hat box, just something she'd picked up at the flea market when she went with Rita the summer before. Something about it felt so mature — from the velvet red material to the black lace trim — even if love letters weren't so much.
Who did she even think she was, embarking on a quest of finding relief to her own unrequited feelings, taking a page out of a cheesy main character's book? Who, after all, could be guilty of planting this idea in her brain?
The last thing Megara would be is a love interest. Right?
With these letters, there came a sense of humility and shame. Probably because writing and reading the letters only gave her a short-term sense of relief.
The truth was, Megara's brain was more complex than it should have been for a sixth-grader, and her thought process was that in comparison to the mad scientist of a cheesy book — definitely not the love interest.
Because as she got older, the more she kept those feelings bottled up, letters close to her chest, and when she should have burnt them years and years ago, she forgot about them. So there they sat, tucked away on the top shelf of her closet. And there they remained as Megara grew into her mad scientist brain and decided she would play everything as close to her chest as she could.
The letters remained forgotten as her mom moved, taking her baby sister with her. But how could she abandon her dad? So those childish pieces of paper remained forgotten as young Megara was forced to choose sides in her parents' official divorce after years of putting her and her sister through hell.
The letters remained forgotten as other brief crushes came and went. Megara changed styles with the seasons, but still, nothing inspired her to clean out her closet.
Middle school came and went, and still no more letters. No more phone calls from mom, either. Megara took down old family photos and replaced them with a string of fairy lights, some tapestries, and a few four-by-six photos of Savannah, Rita, and K.C. in black frames sat on top of her dresser.
But Megara still left one from her childhood on the dresser. At her sixth birthday party, which was Disney princess-themed, sitting at the head of a table with other kids dressed up. Megara, of course, had a kind smile as she adorned a Belle dress. Sitting to her left was Savannah, dressed as Cinderella, staring down at a plate of cake in front of her.
A long and complicated history had been captured almost perfectly as Megara's eyes were stuck on the boy sitting to her right — Ricky in a blue tee-shirt, wearing Megara's tiara on top of his messy curls. It was hard to believe they were actually laughing in the picture, but it was even harder to believe that Megara could push their history behind her as if it meant nothing to her. Not when she refused to give that picture up.
And especially not when she had written signed, unsealed, undelivered love letters for him.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
#JJ let's not jinx this anti-writers block thing i have going rn
