Ms. Sarah Ann,
I won’t write to you like a child, I know you’d laugh at it and put the letter down before the end of this sentence if I tried. Because you’re not a child, not really, not anymore. As much as you might argue with me about it, and I know you would, you still should be. You deserve to be a kid. Just because you don’t get to be doesn’t mean you deserve to grow up fast. I know you say you don’t care, but I do.
I ‘m going to be honest with you, writing this letter to you is hard. Sometimes I like to pretend everything that happened didn’t, that we’ve always been how we are today, that it didn’t take being completely unwound to be stitched into something beautiful. But that’s not fair to you, is it? You deserve to be seen. You deserve to be remembered. And so I see you. I see you in the hiding spot under your bed so all the bad things can’t touch you. I see you flinch as I hear the footsteps, see you hold your breath as he steps in the room, trying to look casual, trying not to tip anyone else off. But he can’t find you there, he’s too tall, and, later, I see your tears when no one else comes looking. I feel the knife twisting when you’re called a liar for trying to tell adults what’s happening. I hear you trying to reason with yourself, “He hasn’t been here long, maybe it’ll stop. Maybe he’ll go back and see me as a little sister. Maybe he’ll hate me. Maybe he’ll leave.” I see you carrying the mark of a medusa tattoo long before it is ever etched into your skin.
You are surviving, and you are doing it with the strength that will serve you well for the rest of your life. But that is the kind of sentence people try to comfort you with after all is said and done. The patronizing kind that insists everything has a purpose like somehow that makes everything okay. It doesn’t, and you are the only one who gets to decide if the strength formed in the fire is even a worthy consolation prize for the third degree burns. It doesn’t have to matter who this turns you into, what matters is that everything happening to you shouldn’t be. You should be allowed weakness. You should not have to get up every day at age eight as a warrior. You should be getting to make-believe being an adult with your friends, not pretending to be a child you no longer are to make the real adults happy.
And baby? It’s not your fault. And I know you repeat it to yourself nearly every night as you hide under that bed, you sing it softly in your head before you fall into nightmares, it’s a tiny whisper of hope you feel seep through your fingers like sand every time you’re screamed at, every time you’re held down, every time you’re scared to come home. It’s a plea when you say it, a beg for absolvement, a desperate attempt for someone, anyone, to recognize that this should not be happening to you. But Sarah, when I say it, it’s a fact, it is power. When I tell you right now that this is not your fault, that nothing you could’ve ever said or done would have stopped this, I’m telling you that one day that conviction will hold you gently when all you’re used to is being hurt.
And sweetheart? One day, that won’t be the only thing holding you gently. You’ll find kindness, you’ll find friends who hold your secrets like glass: softly, carefully, safely. You’ll find a boy who loves your sharp edges, who files them down with consistency, with care, with love. One day the edges being formed now won’t cut you so much. They won’t cut others either. And on days when the world feels too big and you’re eight years old again, hiding under your bed, you have people who will come and find you. Because you were always worthy of being found.