Despite the pain you have caused me, I can’t bring myself to hate you, but I think it’s because I don’t understand. I don’t understand how you can tell me you love me—look me in the eyes and say those words—yet, hate me enough to tear my heart out and step on it as if it were a pesky bug.
The day I first met you, I knew how ridiculous it was that you asked me to step out of my car because you thought you knew me from somewhere. You made me believe we were long-lost friends, and you needed to find out for sure.
I knew very well we had never met before. I would remember a face like yours in a small town. Still, I stepped out of my car and sat down on the front step of your farmer’s porch. You even offered me a glass of lemonade so I would stay a little longer.
No one had paid that kind of attention to me before, yet, there you were, looking at me like I was fascinating—like I was beautiful. It was unreal. It was the best moment of my life.
But, now that’s ruined.
You ruined that perfect moment.
I bet you wouldn’t believe this, but I’m angrier at myself than I am at you. I was the one who had on blinders. Nothing in life can be as perfect as you pretended to be. I should have known right from the start that you were too good to be true. I worshipped the ground you walked on—even the ground where I laid down and allowed you to walk all over me, instead. I saw forever in your eyes. I saw my future. I saw kids. I saw it all, Frankie.
Then, it was like a mac truck hit me, stealing every part of my life, leaving me with only the essentials to survive. I’m here. I’m alive, but my heart—it’s not doing so well.
Were you playing me from day one? Were you always in the process of breaking my heart without me knowing day after day? Was I just that naïve?
I never worried that you would leave me for someone else. The thought never crossed my mind until the few months that led up to when I caught you. You were just that devious that you made me believe you would never do something so awful.
Did you feel like a ball of fire was burning your insides when you made love to that woman? Did your heart feel like a lead weight? Did your chest threaten to cave?
I wish it did, but I know better. I wish you could take my pain and own it as if it were your own. It’s what you deserve.
All I want to do now is hate you—hate you for all my remaining days. Except, my hate is fading, and I’m questioning why my heart still hurts because of someone like you. You’re a con artist; you know that?
I hate you.
That’s all.
Love, Rose
No, scratch that—no Love. Just—
Rose
I fold up the paper and shove into an envelope. On the front of the envelope, I write Frankie’s address. If I’m not sending it, there is no real purpose to write his address down, but now that I’ve fed my heartache, there is a larger desire to mail this letter.
Maybe I’ve lost my mind as I walk out the front the door, down the street, and open the mailbox flap. I toss the letter inside. As the letter drops to the bottom of the empty mailbox, my heart falls at the same time.
Frankie should know how I feel about him.
He should have to live with what he did.
Sending me junky emails to make my heart hurt again ... he deserves this. He deserves a lot worse than this.
3
“Thank you for coming in this morning, Rose. You’re a doll,” Harry says as I make my way toward the back of the art gallery. “We have a leak in our roof and Mary is changing out the buckets every five minutes.”
“I heard. Suzette explained it all. She’s on her way over to your house so she can help Mary. It’s no problem at all to ask me to come in … anytime. I’m grateful for this job,” I tell Harry.
Harry is also the brilliant painter behind most of the artwork on the walls. He’s older than my parents and has grandkids from Suzette’s older sister. The entire family frequents the gallery daily. It’s one of the reasons I love the environment of being here. Their family treats me like family, and they have only known me just less than a year. I’m even invited over for their Sunday night dinners.
“Before I leave, I’ve been meaning to ask you, how is therapy going? You seem to be a little more troubled these last couple of weeks than you were before. You were doing so well. Did something happen?”
I suspect I might be a topic of conversation at dinner for Harry and his wife, Mary. Mary is the one who will bring me tea, sit down beside me, place her hand on mine, and ask me millions of personal questions. She’s very much like Suzette in that way—or Suzette clearly takes after her mother. Mary’s voice is so soft and soothing that I easily comply and comfortably share all the nitty-gritty thoughts going through my head. Therefore, I wonder if Mary asks Harry millions of questions after working a shift with me.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” I tell Harry. I say it’s nothing, but Suzette may have tipped him off.