Should have brought an umbrella, I think absently.Should have checked the forecast.
Should have done a lot of things.
I'm grateful to be the first to arrive.
The mean girls will be here soon—I can hear their distant laughter drifting from somewhere behind me—but for now, this space is mine.
For now, I can pretend I'm somewhere beautiful instead of somewhere brutal.
The stage comes into view.
And my heart stops.
Letters.
The first thing I see is the letters.
They're everywhere.
Hanging from strings attached to the overhead rigging—a system designed for stage lights and backdrops, now repurposed for something else entirely. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. Pages and pages of cream-colored paper, suspended at different heights, swaying gently in the pre-storm breeze like the most macabre wind chimes ever created.
I don't understand.
My brain refuses to process what my eyes are seeing.
Letters. Why are there letters on the stage?
I move closer.
One step. Two. Three. Four.
My ballet shoes are silent on the stage floor as I cross into the space, my neck craning to look up at the display. The pages flutter and spin, revealing glimpses of handwriting.
Familiar handwriting.
My handwriting.
The realization hits me like a physical blow.
I stagger.
My foot catches on something—a discarded string, maybe, or just my own shock—and I nearly fall before catching myself on the edge of a scenic flat.
No.
No, no, no, no, no?—
The counting doesn't help this time.
The counting can't help because this isn't anxiety, isn't fear, isn't any of the things I've learned to manage through rituals and numbers and the obsessive maintenance of control.
This is violation.
I write my letters in pairs.
Always have.
One copy goes to S.W., sealed with blood and hope and the desperate need to believe I'm not completely alone.
