Brussels, June 20th

Dear Spencer,

It's been a couple of days since I've last written you and I hope that you're doing alright. I have to tell you that the reason I take the time between writing these letters is not because I don't think of you or that I am forgetting you. I take the time because the moment I stand still to write my incoherent thoughts, I'm reminded by everything again and there isn't a reason for me to grant myself the chance to leave my room and take in the city I'm finding myself in. That does not mean that I'm willingly trying to forget and neglect what I've done and the painful consequences of my actions. But I need to untangle myself from it long enough to continue living this new part of my life. I need to start and see life from a different angle, from a view I hadn't even considered. I want to see things differently, experience them in a way that is so foreign to me and finally start finding the beauty in the aspects that matter most.

Like I've mentioned in my last letter, I'm planning to travel a bit through Europe and Brussels was my first stop. I have been here for a few days now and I've experienced here such diverse and overwhelming moments already. I have to say that when I first got here, I was pretty disappointed. The whole city just seemed to be so gritty around the edges. The first things that caught my eyes was how gray it looked and how the architecture was such an odd mixture of old and new. As if there never really was a full transition from one period to the other period, because they couldn't make up their mind. You hear about Brussels and you expect this large city –which it is- but it still felt somewhat quiet and completely undiscovered. Giving you the impression it was just waiting to be discovered and share its treasures with you, but nobody was willing to take that dive quite yet. It's like this one big whole of loads of small, discrete neighborhoods and endless little side-streets where you'll lose yourself effortlessly. It's as if you have to try just a little harder to find the pleasant and the existing. But I discovered that when you do find it, what you get is every bit as worthy. It just takes a little profound digging. Which, in its own way, makes it all the more charming.

I met this girl. She was at the bar of my hotel.

I immediately drop the letter from my hands as if it was scorching my skin. The last words I read are making my heart constrict and I don't know if I have the guts to continue reading her truthful confessions. Because I don't think that my heart could take the heaviness of whatever words that may come. I feel as if I'm intruding such a private part of her life, a part of which I do not have the right to know about. Even if she was the one who wrote them for me and she was the one that delivered them to me in the hopes that I would take the time and read them. In the hopes that I would understand her choices and the actions she made. I continue looking at the letter in front of me, eyes too glassy to see more than an incoherent jumble of hundreds of words. Too lifeless to comprehend their meaning and their influence on me and consequently on us. The choice is made for me when I hear my mom yelling to me that I have to come down before I'm late to school. I quickly jump up from my bed and stuff the letter in one of my books, before speedily walking down the stairs. I make a beeline towards the door the moment my foot lands on the floor, in attempt to avoid anyone I did not want to see or confront. The awkwardness was still very much in place between us. Sometimes I felt like a foster-kid who was suddenly ripped away from their familiar environment and thrown into a new family where you were supposed to immediately adjust as if nothing occurred in a past life. I felt like my own family was trying to suffocate me with attention and care in a desperate attempt to make me feel home. To make me feel a part of that family and to make me the happy and joyous person I once was. They didn't realize that that step could only be made if I chose to take it myself.

"Spencer, honey is that you?"

My hand is already firmly grasping the doorknob and I'm contemplating of just quietly leaving through the door.

"Sweetie, could you come inside the kitchen for a sec?"

For the second time today, I have no say in what to do and just follow the instructions of another person. And at this very point, I don't really mind it. Because I do not trust any of my hazy judgment or automated actions. I trudge my way towards the kitchen and solemnly head inside. The first thing I'm met with is the hesitant smile on my mothers face and it pains me to see that my inability to function naturally amongst others has been reflected in their movements and way of interacting. I see her chance a sly glance towards the left and I follow her gaze without a second of hesitance. The tentative smile and nervous behavior of my mother suddenly takes a completely different turn in my head and I'm not to sure how I should perceive this image I'm met with myself. Because when was the last time I was met with the inhibited, anxious and even child-like version of the girl that had the cocky and egocentric persona perfected. How should I take in this girl whose hands are hiding deep inside the safety of her pockets and whose eyes can't linger on mine longer than a fraction of a second. How can I process this moment, when I haven't gotten the chance to be a part of it in over five months. The foreignness of this scene is overwhelmed by anxiety of the other persons in this kitchen and the surprise and confusion of mine. The silence that envelops us is louder than any sound I've ever heard and all three of us painfully await the end of it.

"Ashley thought you might need a ride to school." My mother says, saving us both from actually having to use our undoubtedly weak voices. "I think it might be a good idea."

It's ironic that my mother of all people is the one who's trying to knot us together, when all she's been trying to do in the past was untangle us in every way possible. It's funny that the acceptance of my sexuality seems so futile now and completely fades away when compared to the experienced events of the last few months. And it shows just how desperate my mother is to have her daughter back, going as far as pushing the one person she feared most into my arms in hopes that I'll once become the sweet girl with the never fading smile again. Or maybe she isn't desperate maybe she's just finally understanding it. Maybe she's finally coming to terms with not my sexuality but with the fact that I really did love Ashley and that she was the main reason why there always was a secretive smile plastered on my face throughout the day. Maybe she's just as tired as I am and just wants to go back in time and live so carelessly like we once did and simply accept things in the form they came.

My eyes have yet to leave Ashley's form and hers are still focusing on everything but mine. She made the first move and she's in a place where all she can do is anxiously wait for mine. She's putting herself on the line, like the many times I did for her and it's evident that she's not used to it. It's clear because I don't think I've ever seen her this scared. Ashley Davies does not like to be in a submissive position in which she cannot call the shots. In which she is dependant of another person's actions. She likes to be the one in charge. She's used to be the person who decides what happens and how it happens, without you even perceiving it because she does it in such a natural manner that it doesn't register in your mind. Ashley is the one who mends your heart or breaks it. Or in this case, attempting to do both. She once told me, way before we were together than she'll break somebody's heart before they'll have a chance to break hers. At that time I didn't really give much thought to it, because I thought it was an attitude caused by previous bad experiences. Because she had been with people who did not see her for who she was but for what she was. Because she was with people who weren't me. I don't have to tell you anymore how wrong I really was.

Something in me tells me to leave her there without a word and make her feel what I felt countless times in the last moments of us being a couple. It urges me to make her feel like she was never good enough for the person she adored and that she'd always come in second place. But then she finally chances a look at me, wondering what I might be thinking. With that one genuine and shy glance she tarnishes every part of the so-called though exterior I was trying to build. With that one fleeting look she ruins every single one of my intentions to not make this easy. To show her that I did not forget about her absence in the most challenging part of my life. With that one glimpse, that looks so harmless to an outsider's eye, she exposed the main chink in my armor. The one flaw that I could never get myself to lose, because it's the only one that I secretly cannot live without. With one innocent glimpse, she's made me realize how I'll never be able to not love her. And with that same realization comes the fact that I'll never be able to hurt her in even the most harmless ways.

"Okay." I just manage to whisper in a voice I do not recognize. Two faces swiftly turn my way as soon as the word escapes my mouth, eyes are widened in disbelief and hopeful barely-there-smiles are formed. I gradually walk out of the kitchen without saying goodbye to my mom or giving Ashley any indication to follow me out. It takes her a few moments to finally follow me, her hesitance surely caused by the shock of my acceptance. I faintly hear mom telling me to have nice day, just when I'm about to exist the door I just opened. Her car is parked just across the street and as she bashfully starts walking next to me, the distance never seemed to be any larger than at this point. No words are uttered as we nervously make our towards the car and I take the needed amount of space between us to not accidentally bump our shoulders together but to still be able to smell her fruity scent that I have come to miss so much. As the car comes in closer and closer proximity of us, realization finally dawns on me in which situation I'm residing in and what the consequences might be. Endless thoughts float through my mind in contemplation as to what this might mean. Because her offer and my acceptance of it stretches far beyond than a simple ride to school. For a moment my mind takes over my body and before I know it I'm tripping over my own traitorous sandals and I just manage to not fall. My books and notebook do not experience the same luck as they're send sprawling on the ground. I immediately hunch over and embarrassedly start collecting my stuff.

"Here, lemme help." She says quietly while she bends forward to gather the fallen items. I picked up the majority of the things when I slowly hoist myself up. And it's only then that I see I missed the most important item –which I had completely forgotten about – peeking from underneath her car. She's still stooped by the ground, when she follows my gaze and reaches for the object of my attention. It doesn't seem that she recognizes it first until she innocently takes a closer look at it. She lifts herself up, never taking her eyes off the letter that she has written such a long time ago. I silently watch her fingering the corner of the sheet, looking like she's contemplating what to say. Seemingly thinking back about the times she's spent overseas and away from me. As if she's searching to vocalize the words she once wrote. She eventually hands me the letter, without taking her gaze off of it before hesitantly turning back around and heading for the drivers door. I follow her lead and quietly enter the car.

She makes absolutely no move to start her car or gives any indication to do so. Her hands are clasped in her lap and her eyes are fixated on the nothingness in front of her. We're already late to school but that's the least of our worries at this point and it's demonstrated by the motionlessness of our bodies during countless minutes. Seeing that letter made her realize just from where we are coming from and that her aspirations, our aspirations are still so far off. The letter displayed the foolishness of the thought that this ride we are in is one that can be fulfilled with ease and that our destination will come sooner than later. It made us see that this step we just took, was only one of the many ones we still have to take.

"Those letters," she softly speaks, " they're everything." She croaks out while fidgeting with her hands. "They're my fears and my hopes. They're everything you need to know." I feel her eyes slowly but surely shifting to my form, but I continue looking trough the window. Not trusting my reaction to her truthful words. "I wrote everything down in them and I really, really hope you'll read them all. Because I can't do this without you doing so." She tells me sincerely. I still don't turn to look at her and I don't give her any form of an answer. My voice would only deceive me and I don't think I could handle that.

"Spencer, look at me." She instructs me in a soft voice. It takes me a few moments to compose myself and finally shift my body towards her.

"Will you?" She asks me bashfully as she searches my averting eyes. I feel the slightest touch of a finger underneath my chin and the same sorrowful eyes that made me give in to this ride are urging me to submit once again.

"I will."