The Ahern Brothers Collection - Claudia Burgoa Page 0,102
needed even more when the effect went away.
The constant brutality I lived through growing up still haunted me. It felt as though a hand gripped my throat. I could hardly breathe because of Corbin and Shaun’s vicious attacks. The grasp is loosening, and I’m not afraid of my own shadow anymore. Certainly here, I don’t drink to make things better.
It’s funny how in therapy I start talking about one thing and end up discussing something totally different in depth.
Today we started out with my drinking, and we ended up discussing you. I wonder how difficult it was for you to be with a person who was constantly unhappy and in need of reassurance that the world wouldn’t end. It can’t be easy to live with someone who is ready to jump out of her skin. As the months pass, it becomes clear to me that you had too many people to look after and too little time to care for yourself.
Your silence worries me, yet I understand it. It’s time for you to step away and take charge of your life. I hope with all my heart that you’re finding yourself under the rubble like you said. I can’t imagine the pain you suffered after seeing the person you’d cared for so diligently almost die. Remember that what happened to me wasn’t your fault. Just like it wasn’t mine either. I went willingly because I wanted to save Peyton. I believed that I had put her in danger. If I could protect her, I might overcome what I did to Ava, and if I died, it was because I deserved it.
I know better now, but back then that was my train of thought. My therapist calls it survivor’s guilt. How was I supposed to know that she was with Shaun? I tried to feel a little bad about her, but once I learned that she helped him get clients and victims … I’m glad she’s serving a life sentence.
I get it now. I didn’t put her in jail just like I didn’t kill Ava. You didn’t fail me. Never think like that. If anything, you saved me and kept me sane for six years. It’s my turn to look after myself though. To stop thinking about the things that I couldn’t change. There’s no way to bring back the dead or what they took away from me.
I’m putting myself back together with the pieces I have and finding new ones that’ll fit just right.
Love,
Abby
March 20th
Wes,
Sometimes, when I’m writing these letters I weep and press my pain into each page. Each word and sentence I record become memories, witnesses. As though each word were a flower set to dry beside others. It’s like a photograph of multicolored emotions and landscapes with moments that bleed one into another.
Every tear becomes a word as it lands on the notebook. There’s a quote on the same page that reads, “If I could have, I wouldn’t have chosen this life.” Not sure who wrote it, but it fits into my life. Except this is what I’ve been given, and now I need to learn to admire each of the flowers in my garden and work hard to cultivate the most beautiful ones while I prune those that can’t stay with me.
There’s some beauty in my past. You and your family are the best gift. Every trip we took—a treasure. It’s the tenderness and love you guys showed me that kept me afloat. Those memories are what sewed me back together.
I’ve no idea how long this will take. There are days that I feel awful. Like my skin has been peeled from me and I’m waiting to grow it back. It’s hard to manage—to breathe. I’m in a loop where some nights I feel like I’m being sucked into a black hole. I don’t know how to survive when it feels that I’m being ripped in two.
Here, I’m not allowed to numb myself. I feel so much that I’m not sure if I’ll survive this journey. I pray for courage. The doctors insist that I’m brave. Being here is the proof that I’m stronger than many others. It all might be true, but when will I find the light? When will I be able to step outside into the real world without a mask, without pretending, and be Abby Lyons.
All these feelings pass like the seasons, just so much faster. Somedays I see them like flowers that pop out in spring and others, there’s only darkness