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Dear Jojo,
I write this letter without the intention of ever sending it. I write you a lot of unsent letters. I’ve lost count after the 48th, after I ripped out all the pages of my journal in extreme frustration. Frustration at how many words I still wish to give you, even after I severed you from my life. I had never been so stuck on wanting, on longing, to the point of insanity’s edge.
Maybe I’m already insane. It would explain why I write you so many letters. Letters you will never get to see. It’s not as if you would want to, anyway. It doesn’t matter. Nowadays, I burn them right after I finish. At least in fire, it can be received with warmth.
I think I have to confess to you that I do not know how to love. That although I feel it immensely for you, I hardly know how to express it without losing a little bit of me as well. Or maybe that’s just how love is. Maybe it’s a requirement to lose pieces of yourself when loving. If that is so, then I don’t mind losing so many pieces to you. As it is, I don’t think I know a thing about being in love. I only know that it’s what I am with you.
So, forgive me. For all that I’ve done in the name of loving you. I did not know any better. I was young and stupid, and everything the books describe a young lover to be. I thought that since I read them all, I would be an exception to their crimes. Instead, I turned out to be the perfect crook. Now, I spend my days alone and unloved, sentenced into my own exile. Free to fly everywhere but home.
I know it’s a lot to ask. I suppose, now that I think about it, I do not deserve a swift forgiveness. Maybe I do not deserve forgiveness at all, even if I selfishly hope for it. What I do deserve is your contempt. And what you deserve is my apology. Whether forgiveness is on the table or not, I have to acknowledge my sins and be judged harshly.
I hurt you, with all the intent to hurt you, even when I promised not to. I did not want to, but that hardly matters when the outcome is the same. I left you, even when I vowed beneath the heavens that I would not. I made you believe me, love me, trust me, just to end up breaking you. I used to think the ends justified the means, but I no longer believe that’s true. Loving you is proof of how wrong I was.
Because I love you so much, Josie Saltzman. I love you so much it makes me ache just to think of you. And every day I live in fear of feeling it. Because if I feel it then that means I’ve made love an excuse to hurt you. That I’ve taken the purest thing I’ve ever felt for another and fucked it up. That I lost you, all in the name of my love.
I’m so sorry, Jojo. I’m so sorry that I’ve tainted everything between us. I’m sorry for pouring all my love into you just for me to drown you with it. I’m sorry that I took this really good thing between us and reduced it into shards of hatred, and regret, and pain. I’m sorry that I hurt Lizzie, knowing I would hurt you in the process as well. I’m sorry that I thought I could choose for you. I’m sorry that I thought I could force you to be strong. I’m sorry that I ever thought I needed to turn you against the one person you love the most.
You deserve better than that, Jojo. You deserve so much better than what I did. You deserve so much better than my broken excuse of love.
I’m sorry for everything.
Forever yours,
Penelope Park.