I’m sorry about that. I’m sure you didn’t miss me like I missed you, but sometimes the things that matter to you most are also the things that hurt you the most. And in order to get over that hurt, you have to sever all the extensions that keep you tethered to that pain. You were an extension of my pain, so I guess that’s what I was doing. I was just trying to save myself a little bit of agony.

I’m sure your show is as great as ever, though. I hear you still dance at the beginning of some episodes, but I’ve grown to appreciate that. I think that’s one of the biggest signs a person has matured—knowing how to appreciate things that matter to others, even if they don’t matter very much to you.

I should probably catch you up on my life. My father died. I’m twenty-four now. I got a college degree, worked in marketing for a while, and now I own my own business. A floral shop. Life goals, FTW!

I also have a husband and he isn’t Atlas.

And . . . I live in Boston.

I know. Shocker.

The last time I wrote to you, I was sixteen. I was in a really bad place and I was so worried about Atlas. I’m not worried about Atlas anymore, but I am in a really bad place right now. More so than the last time I wrote to you.

I’m sorry I don’t seem to need to write to you when I’m in a good place. You tend to only get the shit end of my life, but that’s what friends are for, right?

I don’t even know where to start. I know you don’t know anything about my current life or my husband, Ryle. But there’s this thing we do where one of us says “naked truth,” and then we’re forced to be brutally honest and say what we’re really thinking.

So . . . naked truth.

Brace yourself.

I am in love with a man who physically hurts me. Of all people, I have no idea how I let myself get to this point.

There were many times growing up I wondered what was going through my mother’s head in the days after my father had hurt her. How she could possibly love a man who had laid his hands on her. A man who repeatedly hit her. Repeatedly promised he would never do it again. Repeatedly hit her again.

I hate that I can empathize with her now.

I’ve been sitting on Atlas’s couch for over four hours, wrestling with my feelings. I can’t get a grip on them. I can’t understand them. I don’t know how to process them. And true to my past, I realized that maybe I need to just get them out on paper. My apologies to you, Ellen. But get ready for a whole lot of word vomit.

If I had to compare this feeling to something, I would compare it to death. Not just the death of anyone. The death of the one. The person who is closer to you than anyone else in the whole world. The one who, when you simply imagine their death, it makes your eyes tear up.