You probably hate that name, don’t you? Thinking it’s an insult, a commentary about your appearance. Maybe it started out that way, me trying to put you down, put you in your place—somewhere far from me, where you couldn’t make me feel like I was bleeding from the inside out. But I don’t think of it that way anymore. It makes me think of you as a hot little bite I want to sink my teeth into.

Truth? I’d wanted to do that even when I said the words. I always wanted to sink into you. Didn’t matter if you drove me crazy, I wanted it so much it made my teeth hurt. Would it shock you to know that? Piss you off? Probably both.

I miss you, Tot. Can you believe it? Yours is the voice in my head, haunting my dreams, pushing me forward.

I’m in a casting office now. Sweating my balls off, waiting for them to call my name. I’m reaching for the stars, Delilah.

I hear you smirking, that sugar and arsenic-laced voice of yours saying, “Of course you’d have to try to become famous, Macon Saint. You always did like attention on you.”

How well you knew me. And how little you knew me.

I did want attention. But only yours. I have no idea why since, whenever I eventually got it, I’d act like a foolish shit.

Truth is, I’d rather be someone other than me. I want the fantasy instead of reality. So I’ll act. I’ll say words that are not mine and breathe easier while living in someone else’s skin.

How can I not want it? “We are such stuff as dreams are made on” and all that crap.

I’m shaking now, Tot. Nearly sick with anticipation and worry that they’ll see right through me, straight into my rotten core. But I have you to bolster me. I’ll go in there and pretend it’s you I’m talking to. It will be easy then, thumbing my nose at your skepticism, proving to myself and you that I’m not a worthless soul as you once so aptly put.

Your hate gives me strength.

I’m probably a selfish fuck for feeling that. No, I know I am. But it’s true.

Fuck, I miss you. Why? Why do I miss you so much?

You’ll never answer because there’s no way in hell I’m sending this.

But I do.

I

Miss

You

Delilah

Ann

Baker

My little

Hot

Tater

Tot—

I choke out a laugh. Irritating and boorish man. Oddly sweet man. His hastily scrawled words send tingling warmth over my breasts and up my thighs. Shaking my head, I spy the bold slashes of his next letter, the handwriting bigger than usual, taking up more space on the page.