Chapter Text
The bedside lamp cast a soft light over the cluttered desk. Shadows danced on the walls, but my gaze remained fixed on the blank sheet in front of me. How long had I been sitting here, waiting for my thoughts to fall into place? I couldn't say. All I knew was that this letter had to be written.
My hand trembled slightly as I ran my fingertips over the smooth surface of the paper. The silence of the room amplified the heavy, irregular beats of my heart. I took a deep breath, but it only added weight to my chest. How could I find the right words for them? How could I express what I had felt for so long?
I picked up my pen, holding it as if it might break between my fingers, and began to write.
"Dear brothers, dear big sister..."
The words were heavy, almost painful to put down. My handwriting shook, blurred by the first tears already welling up in my eyes. I stopped for a moment, the pen suspended in the air, and quickly wiped my cheeks with my sleeve. But the tears kept coming, like a river refusing to dry up.
I felt each word weigh on my heart, but as I continued, something subtle changed. The pain, though intense, felt less suffocating.
"I'm sorry for everything. For my birth. For Mom's death. For everything I've destroyed in your lives..."
My hand stopped again, and I clenched my teeth to stifle a sob. These apologies—I had repeated them in my head hundreds, maybe thousands of times. But writing them down... Writing them down hurt. And yet, I knew I had to do it.
I looked at my words, my vision blurred by tears, and picked up where I had left off.
Memories came to haunt me, as they always did. The cold stares, the heavy silences, the unspoken reproaches. But most of all... that night.
The night when everything changed.
I saw myself again on those stairs, the dull sound of my fall still echoing in my ears. The pain was still vivid in my mind, almost tangible. But that wasn’t the worst part. No, the worst was that reflection in the ceiling mirror, the one that had shown me my bloodied and terrified face. That reflection I would never forget.
I shook those thoughts away with a quick movement of my head and gripped the pen tighter. I wasn’t ready to put all of that into this letter. Not yet.
"That night… it changed everything for me. Not just physically. That day, I understood that I had no place in this house."
My breathing became uneven. My heart felt like it was about to burst, and yet, I kept going. A part of me needed to let it all out, to stop these words from haunting me in silence.
I put down the pen and rubbed my eyes, exhausted by the emotion. But I couldn't stop now. Not after coming this far.
"I love you, even though I know that love has never been returned."
Those words… They were like a blade sinking into my chest, but they were true. Despite everything I had been through, despite everything I had endured, I still loved them.
A long, trembling sigh escaped me. I reread the letter, each line seeming to lift a weight I had carried for too long.
When I finally put my pen down, I felt both empty and full at the same time. My tears kept falling, but they felt different. They were no longer just tears of sadness; they were a strange mix of pain and relief.
I carefully folded the letter, slipped it into an envelope, and simply wrote: "For my brothers and sister."
I sat for a while, staring at the envelope as if it were a relic from another life. A part of me wanted to burn it, to tear it into a thousand pieces. But I knew I wouldn’t. This letter wasn’t just for them. It was also for me.
Finally, I stood up and walked toward the mirror hanging on the wall. My reflection stared back at me—a girl with red, swollen eyes, her face streaked with tears. I hated what I saw, but for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t afraid to look at it.
A weak smile appeared on my lips, fragile but sincere.
I had written those words. I had faced my fears. It was only a first step, but it mattered.
Turning off the light and lying down on my bed, I closed my eyes, my heart still heavy but strangely at peace. For the first time, I could breathe a little more freely. A little more like myself.