Letters to Brendan

Letters to Brendan
Text Copyright © 2012 Ashley Bloom
Cover Copyright © 2012 Ashley Bloom
All
rights reserved

August 12, 2010

Dear Brendan

I don`t know how to start this. I don`
t even know if you remember me.

Of course you do. I can feel it. You remember as well as I do, our time
together,
our
summer. And that`
s what is making it even harder
for me to write you this letter
.
But I have to confide in someone or I will go down. And who else could I ev
er unburden my hear
t to if not
you
?

You were
always
there for me. You were my second half, my soul mate.
I can`
t tell if you still are, because so many years have passed
. I
t seems like a lifetime. But when I think of comfort, there is only one p
erson on my mind. T
hat is you.

That`
s why
I will confide in you, and
you
alone
. There is nobody else who I could tell how I feel, who I could admit to what has become of me. Me, Miss Fremont, me, star of
t
he cheerleading team, me, everlasting beauty…

Oh, Brendan
, if you could just see me
now, y
ou`
d be shocked, you wouldn`
t believe what has become of
t
he girl that once meant the world to you.

I feel so ashamed for
t
he thi
ngs I`ve done to you, when
you alw
ays were so good to me. When
you were the only one
who loved me for who I was and
not for my long
legs or
bright smile, not
for
my popularity or my
beauty pageant
sashes. No, you loved me because you really saw me. Y
ou looked inside the
shell
and discovered a girl in me that could be so much more than just pretty. That was
so much smarter than it knew
it
self
,
that
wanted to achieve so much more than anyone expected.

You were the o
nly one who saw it. My dad didn`
t see it in me, because I wasn´t like my brother, of whom he expected big, that he would join his lawyers office one day. I was just a girl.

My mom s
aw in me what everyone else saw,
pretty little Rosaly, sweet and popular. And she had planned my future already. I would finish High School, find a nice man, marry
, have children and be happy unti
l happy ever after.

There wasn`
t gonna be anything
more than that for me. And that`
s what I expected from life.
Until I met you.

You were different,
Brendan
, you were well
read,
you knew so much more of
t
he world than I did. You were my Columbus, my
Magellan
, my Galileo,
together with you I discovered things that I would had never come across on my own. Like the books of Kerouac, the songs of Coldpla
y and the chili fries at “Ricky`s”
,
which I miss most of all.
T
he feeling
of something
exploding
in your mouth
,
because those things were
so damn hot.
The feeling of being
alive.

My mom had predicted it. And I followed her wishes. She was right with most of the things she said, they came true. Just two time
s she was totally wrong,
I didn`t find a “nice man”
and I didn
`
t become happy.

Well, my dear Brendan, n
ow you`re
surely wonder
ing why I write
all this to you. Why I load all my sorrows down on you. But t
hat`s not what
I want to do.
It`s just that I`
m desperate. I`
m not only doubting the love
my husband and I share, and if
there is really any true happiness
in this world,  I a
lso have doubt in myself. I don`
t know anymore whether this past that I always dream of has ever existed. That was no imagination, Brendan, was it?

It was really there, our love, our dreams and our plans. And there it really was, the girl that I once was. The girl, that truly wanted to change the
world, that
wanted so much more.

All that I want
is asking you
to answer that question with “yes”
.
Asking
you to give me just a little bit of hope for the rest of this miserable existence.
I don`
t want to complain and pour my heart out to you. I chose to live this life by myself. I alone am responsible for this situation.

I hurt you so much and maybe it`
s not right to write this letter to you after all these years and ask you for a
favor
. And most likely y
ou will throw it away at a glance
, but I still have that little hope that from time to time you still think of me. And that maybe you feel a little
pity
for
me.

Just one friendly
word
from you… and I would have something to draw on in lonely hours. Just like the thought of us sometimes puts a little smile on my face…There is one thing left that I have
to say
bef
ore I finish here.

I`m sorry.
I`m so terribly
sorry.

Rosaly

November 8, 2010

Dear Brendan

Three months have passed s
ince my last letter and I haven`
t heard from you yet.

I figured you wouldn`
t write me back, `
cause I just hurt you
too bad, then, when I said good
bye to you. I can fully understand that you want nothing to do with me anymore. But I just had another
thought too. And that is why I`
m writing you one more time.

I hope so much that I didn`
t caus
e you any trouble. That you don`
t have a jealous wife who found my letter and is really mad now. If it is
so,
or anything like that, I want to
apologize for it. I surely didn`
t intend that.

I have thought a lot about so many things since
my last letter. And I still can`
t decide whether it was a big mistake to write
to
you or the best thing I could have done.
Because it has done something to me.
I`
m happier again, I am – even jus
t a little bit – more the girl
I used to be. 

A couple of days after I send you that letter, I walked int
o a bookstore and bought   ̋On t
he
Road  ̋
and   ̋Lonesome
Traveler
  ̋ by Jack Kerouac. I can`
t even describe what reading
the
se books releases in me. It`s like hearing
you
speaking. It`
s like listening to
your
passionate words
. Y
ou both are so unbelievably
freedom-loving,
and you live your life so
consciously
. I
t
`
s
beautiful to have found a part of you in him.

Also, it feels really good to do something just for myself again. I have to hide the books, because Vince, that
is my husband, doesn`t want me “wasting” my time reading. There`
s enough to do in the household and raising the kids is my job too, of course. But after everyone has left the house in the morning I get out my books and I am in another world again.

Oh, how much I wish someone would come and make everything alright again.
Yeah, I know I can`
t expect that somebody comes along and gets me out of her
e. It`
s my decision. I could pack my bags today and walk out,
leave everything behind. But it`
s just not
as
simple as that. Vince says he will take the girls away
from
m
e, should
I ever try to leave. He sees I`m unhappy.
He doesn`
t care at all.

He insists that he loves me and just wants the best for me and the children. But he thinks that he alone knows what is best fo
r us. Whenever he beats me up `
cause
he wants to keep me away from
“
mischief
”
, and the girls see me with a black eye and a
bu
r
sted
lip the next morning at the kitchen table, he still thinks he has acted right. These things are no rare incidents, you should know. It happens every time that I say one word too much to
t
he post man, or if I smile a s
econd too long at the cashier in
the supermarket.  Or if I put the kids down to bed
five minutes after bed time. It`
s always my fault. He always finds a reason to be upset with me. I guess, as the years have passed, he began to really enjoy it. And he made his top priority finding mistakes in me.

I tried to talk abou
t it with my mom. After all
,
she`s lived with a man who`
s never satisfied for
forty
years. She said I should be
brave,
it is my job as a loving wife to stand by my man, in good times as in bad times. I tried to tell he
r that
there were only bad times
left. At that she
advised me
to just try a little harder. I`
ve never mentioned a word again.

Sometim
es I blame her for
m
y dilemma, `
cause it was her after all who introduced me to Vince twelve years ago.

It`
s twelve years ago already. And I think I
haven`
t laughed since then, let alone felt like in heaven. The way I always felt when you were near. I wish I could turn back
time
and correct that big
mistake that changed everything
. I wish I could hold you in my arms again and everything would be alright. Sometimes I imagine what would have been, had I married you instead of Vince. Where would I be now? What kind of a person would I be?