Prologue - The letter
Miss Swan, by the time you read this, I will be gone. By gone, I mean I have been sent away, not that I'm dead. However, since I'm traveling back in time, that means, yes, that inevitably in our time, I will be already dead, but know that I lived a long and happy life, or so I hope, that is the main reason I leave, to find my happy ending. I know you think I am happy, that you found me my happy ending as you brought everyone else's, but you are wrong. I am not happy, and I will never be, not as long as I have to see you parading around town in the arms of another man. The guyliner. I know this is shocking news for you, and I know you are oblivious to my real feelings for you, believe me, I was clueless to them as well, for a really long time. But he is your happy ending, and it is wrong for me to desire other than your happiness, and that is why I am leaving now. I also know it is unfair that I confess my true feelings in a letter, such an impersonal way, but I need to lift this off my chest. Since you will never find me, I might as well do it now, knowing that I will never see your face after you read these words. I'm sorry because I know you wanted my happiness probably as much as I wanted yours.
I hated your guts, Miss Swan, from the moment I met you, believe me, I hated you. When you first arrived with my son in that yellow coffin of wheels, I hated you. When I learned that you were the only thing I could not be for Henry, his biological mother, well, it was honestly devastating and then knowing he wanted you instead of me to be all the things that I already was for him only made me hate you more. For a while, all I felt towards you was hatred. But with time, that hatred turned into friendship. I don't know if you know this, but you were the first true friend I had in the last thirty years or probably even in my entire existence. That sounds awfully sad, but I never was an easy person to like, and all I ever sought was revenge, not friends. Finding friendship was something that took me by surprise. That feeling, however, also faded with time and was replaced by love. You can imagine how a person who never had friends deals with the realization of having deeper feelings for her only friend in the world. Well, I suppose you don't have to imagine because you are just finding out about this right now. I hid them, locked them in a vault, and threw away the key. Even that trick failed me. You cannot stop feeling unless you don't have a heart. Ripping out my love for you meant I would have to rip my love for Henry too, and I could never do to my son what my mother did to me. So that left me with one option, if I cannot stop loving you, I can forget about you. So, Miss Swan, this is me saying goodbye. A terribly long goodbye for the look of this page. Please take care of Henry, our son will need you after I am gone, but I know you will take good care of him.
Goodbye Emma.