Ah, holy hell. I dropped my head into my hand, her letter still clutched in the other. Reading between the lines filled me with rage. Someone had raped her for years, yet she hadn’t named him. The logical conclusion, since she’d mention he’d been waiting for her when she came home, was that it was someone in her household, or someone who spent a lot time there. An associate of her father’s? A random person hired on as help?

A boyfriend?

I wanted to hunt down whoever it was and castrate the fucker.

Her next letter called to me, and I couldn’t resist the allure of her words. Words meant for me. Words written to me. The stack had thinned considerably, yet there was so much left untold.

Rafe,

Oh. My. God. I’m so sorry. I’m so close to destroying my last letter, but I promised myself I wouldn’t. But that was TMI.

Yours always,

Alex

I shook my head, mouth turning up slightly, and like an addict, I pulled out another, and another. Her need to spill strengthened with each word, each tear that splotched the pages as she poured her heart out. I hurt for her. I hurt for me too, because the way she wrote it, she’d sent me to hell. A hell she hadn’t fully grasped, though she’d sensed it. As I continued to read, a lump formed in my throat.

My nightmares came back to haunt me again, and I did what I hadn’t been able to do before. I accepted them as memories. I’d been violated in prison. Something in that place made me snap, made me embrace the dark side of myself I’d fought for so long. I’d become the type of man who hadn’t settled for fantasies. In Alex, I’d found the perfect excuse to justify an act that was and always would be unforgivable.

I carefully unfolded her last letter, hoping she’d finally tell me what I needed to know.

Rafe,

Today I graduated college. I should be over the moon, right? I’m not. I stopped to look back at my life these past seven years and that’s when it truly hit me. I’ve left you to rot in that place all this time.

One more year, and you’ll be out.

But what will I say to you? I want to see you so badly I ache with it. The need is a beast inside me, tearing my chest open and spilling my heart onto the floor. My crush has turned into a full-fledged obsession.