Work Text:
Dear Damian,
I ...
I wanted to apologize to you.
But if you're reading this letter, it most likely means that I've fled the country and I didn't get the chance to confess to you in person. I never meant for it to end like this. But then again, I'm not really sure what I was hoping for, everything considered. The truth is, I knew about your feelings from the very beginning. I didn't even know what I was doing at the time. I was too young to understand. But after we started getting closer, and our relationship blossomed into something like friendship... by then I realized that it was already too late. By that time I had already betrayed you in the most terrible way possible.
I didn't mean to, I swear it.
I wish that I could be before you, so you could look into my eyes and know that this is the truth.
I should...probably start from the beginning. Do you remember how I use to call my dad a feelings doctor? Well, I'm kind of like that. I'm able to hear everyone's deepest and most inner thoughts. That's right... I'm an esper. I was born as the result of human experimentation in a secret lab that was trying to create creatures with superhuman abilities, but I escaped. I always thought that I was going to tell you at the right time. But as we grew older, and our relationship more romantic, I found it harder and harder to be able to tell you. After all, it's super creepy, isn't it? Anyone would have found it disconcerting. Over the years, my powers became stronger and stronger, and I became better able to control and hide them. Even my own parents still don't know.
I was always afraid.
That one day.
When they found out.
That... That I'll be... thrown away... again.
So, here is my first apology. I'm sorry for invading your privacy. For always reading your innermost thoughts. Even though I got better at controlling my powers, I always continued to do so... even though I know that you would've died from embarrassment if you knew. But there was a reason for it, even though you became one of my dearest friends.
My father is actually a spy from Westalis, hence the fleeing from the country part. When I was around 5, he happened to be on a mission that required him to pose as a normal family man. He happened to come to the shady orphanage where I was most recently abandoned at. He happened to be looking for an unwanted child with no history or lingering attachments to their previous life. A child whose background you could easily fake. Being able to read minds, I tricked him into taking me. I wasn't the right age, and I wasn't that smart. But I was desperate to belong somewhere, and the Spy Wars fan in me thought that this was going to be a fun and exciting adventure. After a convenient series of events, my father met my mother who wanted to appear to be a married woman to avoid government suspicion. I enrolled and was, by some miracle, accepted into Eden college, and he could move onto stage two of his mission... which was to get close to your father, Donovan Desmond.
Although he never explicitly told me to, I knew from reading his mind that there were two paths we had to take. Plan A was for me to earn eight Stellas and become an imperial scholar so that he could meet your father at those exclusive meetings. Plan B was... a friendship scheme where I would befriend Donovan's second son, Damian Desmond... and bring my father over to your house where he could then establish a connection with him that way. On our first day at Eden, my father instantly spotted you. Again, he never said anything to me, other than to get along with my other classmates. But from the voice in his mind, I could hear again and again that you were the one. You were the target's son.
And you know the rest of the story from there.
So here is my second apology to you. When I was 12, we were enjoying a sunny off-period together alone, and then you suddenly and very nonchalantly told me that you were happy that we were friends. We shared a sweet moment, where you allowed yourself to be vulnerable and revealed that you were glad that I wasn't like the rest. That I wasn't your friend just because you were a Desmond. That my family wasn't trying to cozy up to you because of your father.
But instead of finally telling you the truth, I...
I...
I got scared. And I lied to you. I just nodded and smiled at you and fucking lied to your face.
"Of course."
I had the fucking nerve to lie to you like that.
Damian, I wish I could do that moment over every time I think about it. I wish I told you the truth.
I wish...
I wish I had the courage to. But by then, I was already so in love with you. I was so afraid... I didn't want you to throw me away.
I knew that you would.
Knowing everything and the situation we were in, I knew that you would, even if you didn't want to.
For my third apology, it's for when you turned 15. You hit a late growth spurt that gave you all this confidence and composure. Well, you always tried to act that way growing up. But now you were suddenly so tall and broad to go with it. You were so handsome. You've always been so handsome.
And, that little bit of extra confidence... it gave you that little extra push... to confess your feelings... that I had been quietly listening to for the past 9 years.
Even though I knew about your feelings, and had feelings for you too, I swore to myself that I would never confess to you. I couldn't do that to you. By then, I had already sinned against you and betrayed you for so long. At the very least, I wouldn't...
I never thought in a million years that you would confess your feelings to me, and ask me to be yours. I thought that you continue to keep them quiet and never act on them.
You had your ambition to become a politician. You still so desperately wanted your father's approval. You are a Desmond. You were meant to be with someone as rich and powerful as yourself. Someone who suited you and your family name. Someone that your father would approve of. Someone else.
Certainly not someone like me.
I'm honestly not sure what you even see in me--and I can your mind.
I'm not very smart, nor am I very talented at anything. From an outsider's perspective, I'm an ordinary girl destined to live an ordinary life. Nothing wrong with that--but someone like me, being with The Damian Desmond? It was laughable.
But you weren't laughing. You were very serious. And instead of keeping my promise to myself to love you from afar... I caved in and allowed myself to be swept up by all of our emotions.
You were being so sweet.
And by then the hugs were longer than they were supposed to be. And you would sometimes lace your fingers with mine if we were alone. And the way you would look at me... made my heart beat so fast and fall in love with you even more.
I loved you--everything about you, so much. You, that lonely boy, starving for love. You, that cheeky brat, who wouldn't stop teasing me.
I couldn't resist you, in the moonlight by Stella Lake when you laid your feelings bare like that. I couldn't stop myself, from saying "yes."
I'm sorry that I said yes. I'm sorry that I tricked you for so long. I didn't mean to. I never meant to hurt you.
At the very beginning, it was true. I approached you, over and over again for the sake of my father's secret mission. You were mean and I didn't like you at all, but I kept going for my father's sake.
I was like you.
I wanted my father to love me. I wanted to be useful to his mission. I didn't want to be thrown away. I would've done anything in the whole world.
I wish I could've kept up the facade and let you believe that I really fell in love with you that first moment we met eyes at the opening ceremony. That I kept chasing after you because I was in love with you and only just that.
But that somehow... it didn't seem right.
It didn't seem right to completely disappear and never give you an explanation. At the very least, you deserve to know the truth.
Damian... this is the whole truth I never got to tell you. I never got to explain myself and beg for your forgiveness, even though I will never ever deserve it. But at the very least, I wanted to tell you.
And I wanted you to know that I am so sorry. That I never meant to hurt you. And that I loved you so much. That how I felt about you--all of that was real.
I will always love you, Damian.
My Damian...
You're so precious and important to me. I will always treasure all our Eden days together. The good times... and the sad times... all of them.
I can only pray... that someday you'll be able to forget all about me and be able to move on. I can only pray... that someday you'll be able to find happiness.
With all of my love,
Anya