Got worse

Winona

Months went by, and Daddy got worse.

I wrote HJ every week, not sure if he was reading my letters and not really caring at all. The outlet was there, and I needed it.

HJ,

We celebrated my seventeenth birthday at Dad’s bedside. He sang softly to me before I sang him a lullaby and tucked him in that night.

He winces in pain a lot more these days, and I’m not sure how to get better care for him.

I’ll find a way, Winona

PS Cleopatra supposedly was not beautiful but smart enough to marry some of her political allies. PPS I’m also reading Edgar Allan Poe. He seems to know darkness and pain better than anyone else. I need a friend like that.

A daughter’s love made me do what I had to do. I tracked down a suited man’s son in school.

Jared let me into his home. He let me into his bed, too.

Weeks of my father in pain went by, and I begged Jared’s father for money. The man’s slimy gaze trailed my body over and over again. I started to learn the looks, the sly brushes of his hand, and the