If all you need to hear is that I won’t be around anymore, then that’s all you need to read here. I won’t be coming back. If you choose to read on, which I hope you do, I want to give you an explanation. It’s not a justification, it’s an explanation, that hopefully serves for some peace of mind.
I was born in a city that doesn’t even exist anymore. It sat in the outskirts of Raleigh, so much so I’d say I was born in between two cities. My mom chose that spot because she said it gave anyone born on it the special ability of Sight. Spoiler alert: I do not have this. Which brings me to explain the most complicated part of my life: My mother, a compulsive liar and what some therapists may call a narcissist. I was actually born and raised in Orlando, Florida but that was the story my mom fabricated. You can see why, right? There’s more mystique in saying I was born on the magical line between two cities. Really, I wasn’t born anywhere special. Just a few miles from Walt Disney World.
We were poor. My mom owned a cement block of a property next to an iHop with a neon sign reading, “Psychic.” When I was little, just as my mom was closing, I’d sit in the middle of the floor and let it bathe me in its purple light, thinking of all the magic that it held, even more than a moon bath. That magic stayed with me until I was thirteen.
It died when I realized that my mother may have been lying. I saw my passport for the first time, and under my birthplace, I saw Orlando, FL. No one with a special ability was born in Orlando, Florida. The only magic we have here is Mickey Mouse who lives in Bay Lake, who sprinkles glitter on cupcakes and calls it Pixie Dust, who would make anyone with any amount of money and a ticket into his kingdom feel special. That’s when I started to realize that if I wanted even a hair of what Mickey Mouse had, I had to work for it.
And I did. I worked very hard to get into a field that I liked but didn’t really love. I worked in Marketing at Walt Disney World after college. My mom wanted me to study writing because I was good at it. She wanted me to be a famous and rich writer so I could make us both a lot of money. But I decided that Marketing was safer.
However, it’s hard to be a woman in the business world. And while I learned how to bulldoze my way through white men that would not listen to a word I said and steal my ideas, I eventually managed to somewhat solidify my place. I wasn’t happy, though. I realized my mother was right, and I became a ghost writer. And I have to tell you, I was so happy. It gave me that spark I needed, the money I needed, and none of the recognition. But that’s okay. Because all I wanted to do was write.
I moved to New York City when I was 22, after the book series that I had a hand in writing started to take off and they wanted me closer to the headquarters. It was my first time away from home, and away from my mother. This part of the story doesn’t really matter to you since it’s just a series of events in which I slept with people I shouldn’t have, got hit by people I should have never allowed in my life, and became miserable for the next three years of my life. But at least I had writing. I had no love in my life other that the words on the page, the characters I built, and the world that I constructed with my own two hands. From its trees of many colors, down to the stained glass wings on fairies. I created an entire empire and no one even knows that I’m the one that did it.
Here’s the thing, Lindsey. When I met you, I was floored. I had never been in love with anyone before, and I think that’s where everything in me came out. All those hormones and teenage feelings and desperation to be loved just came out.
I was learning what it was like to navigate the world without love potions, lies, and one-way relationships while having none of my own. You were nice to me. Please, never let anyone take that sweetness from you, because you saved me. And I’ve done a terrible thing to pay you back for it.
I started following you around. I knew where you lived, where you went to get your coffee, where you worked. I also knew your work. And I wanted to be closer to you. Being just friends wasn’t enough. I wanted to be in your space all the time, to soak up whatever light and love you had inside of you, even if you never had it for me. Even if all of it was reserved for your life with Jude.
I could do with the crumbs, I could do with the talks, with no kisses or embraces, or anything else that people in love do. All I wanted was to be in your space, breathing your air. I can’t explain that feeling that came from inside of me. Like my heart was being pulled towards you, like my center of gravity depended solely on you being around. You became my sun, the one thing I gravitated around. So fierce and beautiful and bright, nourishing all the life that was inside of me, the one that had to live without sunshine for years. Something in me was blooming. I didn’t realize that it was a monster.
So I got a job at Masters and the rest is history. I tried to kiss you, which I’m still very sorry for. I felt my whole world collapse when you talked about putting some space between us. You were my first ever friend, real friend, and I didn’t want to be away from you. It was just a moment where I looked at you, and you looked so beautiful, and your gravitational pull just got me, and I went to kiss you. I flew too close to the sun.
Lindsey, I just want you to know that there’s no need for you to live in fear of people like me. The one thing I’d never forgive myself for is taking away that fire inside of you. I really am sorry. I understand if you still choose to not forgive me. If you do, I deeply thank you.
I need to step away so I can rely on myself. I’m going to see someone that will help resolve whatever drove me to do everything that I did.
It was never my intention to hurt you, or hurt anyone around you. It was never my intention to scare you. I just wanted pieces of you. And here they are, all back. I took some things. I’m not sure what went over me. A necklace, a ring... You can see the rest for yourself. I can’t have any more pieces of you with me.
Our journeys may never take us down the same paths again.
- Hannah Maldonado (despite what rumors you’ve heard, that is my real name).
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