"I see," I hear Jakob murmur from far away. It's entirely possible that he's also saying his goodbyes; I'm not sure.
Because, at this moment, the image in my mind changes, not for the first time. Sky's haggard face turns into my own eighteen-year-old grimace.
The one I wore when I confronted my parents.
The one where I didn't give them a single breath's worth of time to explain.
The one where I judged them without knowing their side of the story.
I, too, wasn't interested in thewhy. I didn't want to hear anything that might have shaken my belief that my whole life had been a lie.
I hurled all sorts of things at my parents before I turned my back on them forever. They never got a chance with me, no matter how often they've tried to reach me since.
The truth had come to light, and that was all that mattered to me.
But what's the truth worth without thewhy?
Sometimes we lie to protect others.
I did it.
And perhaps my parents did too.
What if they always wanted what was best for me but messed it up despite all their efforts?
The coffee machine falls silent, and a steady beep reaches my ears. Jakob has likely hung up.
I let the phone sink onto the countertop, trying to grasp the meaning of these thoughts.
Perhaps they mean that both Sky and I made mistakes. And perhaps they also mean that we should both look at the world a little more through each other's eyes to understand how closely truth and lies are intertwined with love and hope for us.
That's exactly what I'm doing now. I feel Sky's pain, the pain she must have felt when she discovered my secret. I feel the fear that seized her. The feeling of helplessness. The disappointment.
Yes. If I had been in Sky's shoes, I would have rejected myself just as coldly as she did.
At this moment, everything I've been blaming Sky for day after day in my thoughts loses its meaning. The conviction that the Sky from the past is the only true version of her dissolves. It's like untying a magic knot that seemed hopelessly tangled just minutes ago. As if I had pulled on the right end, it unravels. And from its center, a completely new truth stares me in the face with all its ugliness.
I've written perhaps the worst article ever about the possibly most wonderful woman in the world.
Because I was blind, dumb, and hurt.
Suddenly, I'm wide awake. This article must never be published. It's entirely wrong.
As if in a trance, I rush to my laptop, which I left on the dining table yesterday. I open it, create a new document, and start typing.
This article is not about Sky. Her name doesn't appear once. It's rather a plea to occasionally leave your own point of view and question which beliefs may have been engraved too deeply. It's an invitation to discover who you really are.
Sky will understand what I'm trying to tell her. She will read the declaration of love between the lines, find mywhybehind the words. She will know how much her happiness means to me and that it has never been any different.
The letters come together as if by themselves. With each passing second, my conviction grows that this will change the world—our world. And that's the only one that really matters.
