Dear Mike,

I used to think you stole my mother from me. I would cry and write endless poems about the weight my shoulders held after hearing you talking on the phone with her. The things that were said, they changed my relationship with my mother forever. I can never forgive you, or her. I can never move past it.

But recently, I heard that she has been in love with you forever. She has never told me this herself, however, I can see it in her eyes during family dinners or when she think she’s alone. I hear my mother crying in her bedroom when my father hibernates in the basement, surrounded by his work and his weed. On the off chance she’s home, and not out vacationing with a man she’ll never find peace with, I find her staring at hundreds of old black and white slide film photos in the desk lamp next to her bed. It’s like a ghost inhabits her body. It’s like she was never even there to begin with. I don’t know which one is you, so I have not burned any yet. When I find out, I will be sure to send the scattered pieces of ash to your home in Texas. Or Tennessee. Truthfully, I don’t know where you’re from, I just know your accent is a southern one.

I am a writer, and I’m sure you know this based on the tales my mother has spun for you like carnival cotton candy. I’m sure you think you know me. I can assure you, you don’t. I wonder what your wife would think if she knew. My father is wise, he figured it out long ago, but your wife - I wonder if she is your prize or if you’re distant and cold. I imagine your children must feel like me; confused, scared, keeping a secret that you think they might know, but you just aren’t sure. I pray they don’t feel the burn of embarrassment that I do.

I can only write you letters I know you won’t get. I keep my pen next to my bed, so when I wake up in the middle of a freezing night - alone in my house - I can scribble these lonely words on any surface that allows me:

“You ruined her, and you ruined me.”

Ali, age 22