Friends Reunited

July 29 2021 

Dear Lily,

Remember how I always used to talk about my best friend Leah from back home and you always talked about Galvin. We would always fantasize about seeing them again. Well, today my fantasy became a reality. It all started when I heard a knock at the door. My parents were going to answer it, but I got to it first. When I opened the door, I saw Leah. She gave me the biggest hug in the entire world and for the first time in two years I cried tears of joy. My parents allowed me to hang out with her for a couple of hours so that is what we did. Everything was going great at first. Remember when we pretended that the food we were eating was pizza, or steak, or any food that was better than the slop we were eating. Well today I had pizza again. I hope that wherever you are, you are eating all the pizza you want. As I ate the pizza, I started to cry tears of joy. That was my first mistake. Leah asked me as we ate our pizza “what happened to you when you were gone?” I sat there frozen. I could not move a muscle. In that moment my fairytale ended and all the memories of needles, restraints, hunger, blood, death, the feeling of being beaten, and most of all you. This rush of memories caused me to panic. To give her an answer I just mumbled “I don’t want to talk about it.” This answer did not satisfy her and she trembled with tears in her eyes “you used to tell me everything, what happened in those two years?” and ran out of the shop. I wanted to chase after her, and just for a second, I wanted to tell her everything. How do you sum up two traumatic years into one conversation though. How could I tell her that I am not the same Maria that was kidnapped two years ago? How do I tell her that I have killed people? She would never look at me the same way again. You would know what to do. I hope you are eating all the pizza you want and watching over Galvin as you read this.    

   Love,

Maria Roberts