The Letter

Isabella;

Before you tear up this letter, please hear me out.

I've tried calling, but it's abundantly clear that you won't answer. I've waited for you outside your flat, but your American friend Emmett seems to have taken up permanent fixture as protector. I can't get near you to try to make this all right.

Please let me explain. I need to make you understand what you saw in my flat. If, after all this, you decide that you hate me, I will understand and respect your wishes to stay away.

When we were at the zoo, you asked who Maggie is. Maggie is, or was, the woman in the picture that you saw at my apartment. The one who looks so very much like you.

I can't begin to imagine the thoughts that went through your head upon seeing that photo. Who was this woman, and what was she to me? I can only assume the thoughts that might have flown through your mind. Was she my wife; my girlfriend; someone that I had been hiding from you.

Maggie was none of those things, but something more. To understand, I need you to bear with me while I tell you a story.

I was ten and Alice seven when Maggie and her parents moved to Whitby from Ireland. She was nine, the cousin of a very close family friend, and immediately fell in with us. She was sweet and shy, and took Alice under her wing like a little sister. Soon enough, she became a fixture in our lives. We made up games, played make believe, were each others' protectors. All those stories I told you about my childhood? Maggie was as much a fixture as Alice was.

When you asked about playing by the Abbey ruins, and Alice being Guinevere, I only told you the partial truth. Alice was Morgan Le Fay so that she could cast spells over Guinevere and the unsuspecting Lancelot. I was never Arthur. I had no desire to be noble. But I did love Maggie. We both did.

Maggie had grown up very differently than Alice and me. Maybe my desire to be Lancelot was to help protect her from all the slings and arrows the other children shot at her. Hers was not an easy life.

As we grew older, things changed. We started to argue a lot. Maggie always seemed to slip under my skin and provoke me. I chalked it up to growing apart. Alice insisted I was in love with her. I loved her; it was impossible not to love her. She was just that type of person. I wasn't so sure about being in love with her though. My feelings had always been fraternal, not romantic.

When I was 17, I was accepted to Kings College. Maggie had a year of school left, and planned to go back to Dublin for University. Once I found out that she wanted to go to Dublin, I applied to school there too. The thought of being away from her tore me apart. I don't know where it came from. Whether it was the fear of being apart from such a major factor in my life, or if I suddenly believed that she was something more. I simply needed to be where she was going to be. Maybe it was because I knew she needed me, some narcissistic God complex on my part. I can't explain it.

I was accepted to school in Dublin, but my parents would not consent to my attending. They found Kings superior and insisted that I go there instead. I gave in, believing that I could get a few years in and then either transfer or apply to medical school there. It would all work out some way.

I told her that right before her seventeenth birthday. It was two weeks before I was scheduled to leave for London.

Maggie hadn't been herself for a few months. Tired, irritable, lashing out for no reason. When I informed her of my plan, she laughed at me. Taunting me that I was an idiot mooning after a child's dream. She told me to go to London and grow up. It was so unlike her. But I was too caught up in the sting of her rejection to dig down and understand that something might be driving her behavior.

I did exactly as she wished. I went to London and never looked back. I took to heart her statement about it being a child's dream. I gave up on medical school in Dublin. Ultimately, it didn't matter. Maggie never went there anyway.

When she was nineteen, Maggie died. Alice and I found out after the fact that Maggie had Leukemia. She'd been diagnosed with it the summer I left for school. It was so far advanced that there wasn't much that could be done for it. At least not much that her parents would allow. They pretty much withdrew when they found out. They stayed in Whitby, but they refused to accept visitors or go out in public. No one was allowed to get near Maggie for fear of making her sick. The last time I saw her was the day she told me I was a fool.

So to answer your question, why did I become a hematologist? Because my best friend from childhood, my first love, the girl that I had planned on rerouting my entire life for, died from a disease of the blood. You called me a modern day blood sucker once. I liken myself more to Van Helsing than Dracula. I want to eliminate the bloodsuckers, not be one. My warped attempt at trying to be a good man, to make something out of this gift of a brain that I was bestowed with. There are times when I feel that it's not good for anything else.

My point in rehashing ancient history is to explain how you fit into all this. I don't know how to articulate or justify my actions. When I first saw you in the doorway of Jasper's office, all I could think was that Maggie had been sent back to me. I pursued you, provoked you, tormented you to find out how much alike might be. It was not noble. I was selfish and totally inconsiderate of what it might do to you. I simply had to find out if this was my second chance. Maggie had been so quiet in life, but she had an incredibly strong spirit. I needed to see if that lurked in you as well.

But I discovered something more than I anticipated. You were your own person. Smart, witty, strong, with passion that Maggie never could have held a candle to. You eclipsed her. And in doing so, it became my mission to find out more about you. Maggie faded into the background, and suddenly there was only Isabella.

And I began to believe that instead of you being a replacement for Maggie, maybe she was in my life for one reason, to prepare me for you. There is a world of difference between the innocence of a childhood love and the all encompassing need of someone who consumes you entirely.

So where does that leave us? I wish you would talk to me, or at least listen to me. I didn't want to hurt you. I wanted to unlock your faith in yourself, help make you realize what an amazing woman you can be. You have so much beauty and potential inside of you. Selfishly, I wanted to bask in that. I hoped that you would turn your beautiful smile on me. I needed you to ask me questions and make me see things differently. I harbored the naïve faith that you could make me a good man again.

It's only been a few days, but I miss you. I hate that you found the picture. I wasn't thinking when I brought you back to my apartment. All I could think about was you. Being with you, how you made me feel, how desperately I wanted you. I became so wrapped up in my need for you that I threw away all rational thought, including what you might find in my flat. I was careless with your feelings, and I did the one thing I promised not to do, I hurt you. It's reprehensible.

I want to go back when you fell asleep. I wish I would have slipped out of bed and put that picture back where it belonged. Then you would have never had to see it. None of this would exist, and the promises I made to you would all still be true. All of them.

And yet, even after everything that happened, I don't regret bringing you back to my flat. If I did, I would have to give up some of the most precious memories that I have of you.

I pray that they aren't my last.

Please call me or come find me. You know where I am. I'll wait for you. I'll always wait for you.

Edward