This is for xThe Painted Lady who requested LilyRoxanne although this kind of ran away with me and weirdness happened... I don't even know. Thanks to Joanna for beta-ing and making sense of this and for being awesome. :D
"You musn't give your heart to a wild thing." - Breakfast at Tiffany's
This is the last letter I will write you, Lily.
I say that every time I find myself writing to you without thinking, you know. It's the only lie I'll ever tell you.
This is the last letter. But Merlin, I have so much to say and no one to say it to, and I want to create this illusion that perhaps if you won't listen, then at least you might read. I want to tempt your never ceasing curiosity and flatter it enough to call it my only hope.
I wonder how many letters are left unopened in your bedside drawer. Or how many you've thrown away. Or how many you have to hide from the person you've chosen to share your bed with instead of me. Did you choose wisely, love? I hope so. For all of our sakes, I hope so.
I wonder if you know how lonely the joke shop is without you. Dad doesn't look me in the eye much anymore and Freddie took off not long after you did. If you see him, send him home. And if you send him home, bring him yourself.
I wonder if you think of me when you look into a mirror, how the night you broke your fingers against my reflection, you shattered more than bone and glass. The kaleidoscope you made of all our broken pieces still hangs in my room because I can still see myself in all of it. And I want to believe that it isn't broken beyond repair, if only you would try looking again. Meanwhile, the bloodstains on the carpet have long since been magicked away and yet, I still see them when I close my eyes. I still see your fists shaking at the world but then always aimed at me.
I wonder if you left the scars to tell the story of what could have been and how I fucked it all up. A spider web of red painted onto the pale skin of your hands, faded from how long it's been since your fingers held onto mine. A memory I think we both would rather forget, but it's the last one I have so I'll treat it with care just like the rest.
And I will gladly take responsibility for it all. I'll say I pushed you too far, or didn't push hard enough. I'll accept every bit of disapproval we ever received and let you keep the love we got in spite of ourselves. I'll shield you from every unkind word our family said, carry our burden on my shoulders so you won't have to know what it's like. I'll tell you it's okay to be angry or lonely or completely emotionless sometimes. Weigh me down with blame, and I won't utter a complaint. Just give me a reason to think that it wasn't all for nothing.
After all, you're the one who left me, remember? I hope wherever you are now that you are free, but please, just this once, tell me a lie to hold on to. Sugarcoat it sickly sweet with all the things you used to say when you still loved me. Tell me you were listening, that you heard the words between the lines of all my stuttering against your skin. Tell me it was worth it for a few moments of utter happiness before it all came crashing down. Tell me none of this had anything to do with me.
And I thought that I could do this. I thought I could keep my hummingbirds in check, thought I could contain them all inside my ribcage, but Lily, love, you know better than anyone that a caged bird can't live like this forever. And love is a wild thing I can't control, and if only we could have a say about who we love and why it matters.
And perhaps that is my greatest failing. I love you too much, and I don't know how to let you go and maybe that's why you left. You were always the first to let go.
Won't you come and teach me how?
-R
You wipe back tears as this "last letter" goes to join the others in the little box you keep beneath your bed. Sometimes you think one of these days you will write her back and say you've read them all and that she knows you too well to ever doubt you wouldn't. Sometimes you want to tell her that Freddie only left to find you, to bring you back. But things have a way of leading to another, don't they?
"What's that?" he asks. He rests his chin on your shoulder, thin arms wrap around your waist and you hate yourself.
"You don't want to know," you say. You hold the box filled with her words against your chest and close your eyes, at the same time willing him to disappear but fearing the day he does because you won't have someone to lean on anymore.
His lips trail down your neck and across your shoulder. And you are shivering but not from pleasure. You don't tell him to stop, though. You never do. "You're probably right," he murmurs. "I don't want to know."
Did you choose wisely, love?
No.
No, you didn't.