dear past me
Dear past me,
I will be frank; I do not understand myself why I am writing this letter. Perhaps Combeferre’s repeated advice to reflect and make peace with the past, as he puts it, has finally convinced me. Perhaps Prouvaire’s newfound passion for discovering himself has influenced me. I do not know. What I do know is that I have more important things to do than to write a letter to a past version of myself that will never read this—and yet, here I am, with my pen.
Am I to write down my regrets, so that I may understand my mistakes? My errors? I have made many, I know. Surely you knew, too. They call it decisiveness; you know it to be hasty judgments. How often have you hurt another by it? Believe you me when I say you will make the same mistake, repeatedly so. Perhaps you do not learn. Perhaps you cannot fix it. I do not know.
Ah. But I should not lie, nor should I waste time with trivialities. That is not my biggest mistake. Non, that does not nearly compare. If I were sentimental enough to wish to reverse time, then there is one moment I would return to, so that I may not make so fatal a mistake. I must admit I often wish I had understood before.
There is a certain man that you owe everything to; a certain man whose importance in your life you underestimate. A man who grows to infuriate you more day by day, who seems your enemy more than your ally. A certain Inspector of the First Class..
—Papa.
Do not hurt him. Do not hurt yourself. Do not be hasty. Once you make a mistake so grave—there is no repairing it. There is no way to assuage the pain, no way to alleviate the guilt, no way to stop your mind from revisiting that day every spare moment. There is no way to atone, no way to rebuild what you have destroyed.
Please.
I do not plead often, as you must well know. Yet I will plead, now. Do not make the mistake I made. Do not… do not walk away. You cannot return, once you have left. It will destroy him—and you, though you do not understand yet.
There is no way to return. There is no forgiveness. I do not deserve it. I deserve the pain, for what I did. But he does not.
Stay.
Please.
—Aurélien En Javert
