Dear Harry,
I know you told me to be brave. I know you told me that everything was going to get better. All those words are written across my brain like a requiem is engraved on a tombstone. So why did you lie?
Nothing got better. And I have always been the biggest coward there is.
You told me that Mother and Father would reconcile. That I wouldn't have to listen to them argue about all the small things and all the big things too. From the price of groceries to Father cheating on Mother, they argue. All. The. Time.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZh26LEifRG
You told me that my friends would be nicer. They aren't. Chloe, the girl I once considered to be my best friend, constantly talks shit about me behind my back. She tells all my real friends that I'm ugly, that I'm unhygienic, that I'm a self-serving bitch. Rafe believes her, because why wouldn't he? He joined this year, and from the moment he walked in our friend group it was clear that he would become best friends with Chloe. And Viv always follows what Chloe says. Always.
You told me that I would feel better. I don't. I've tried again to take away my own life. I know you told me not to, but what is it that you always say? When life's a bitch, be a bitch. I'm being a bitch. Only to myself.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjrMEz4HbpT
I stopped cutting, but now it's the fifth time that I've tried to overdose. Except I can't. Not because anyone has stopped me, for why would they care about one more depressed thirteen year old, but because I'm not brave.
I'm a coward.
Even if I want to leave this Earth to go somewhere else, I can't bring myself to go through the necessary pain. You see, though it's been a long time since I stopped believing in The Family's preaching, I'm still terrified of going to Hell.
I know you've stopped believing in it, and that you've left, but Father and Mother are still a part of The Family and if there's one thing that they can agree on, it's that The Family will save us all. I don't believe it, of course I don't, but Hell is a scary place, Harry. I don't want to go there.
So I haven't actually done it properly. So I continue to stand my ground even when life is being a bitch. However, I can't take it much longer.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ65GWrukCyB
And you lied to me, Harry. Why fill my head with empty promises of flying over to see me? Of saving me from The Family? Of putting me into a better school? Of appealing to a judge to be granted full custody of me? I'm lucky if I see you once a year, and even then you seem jumpy whenever Father or Mother come near. Why can't you be honest and tell me that all you've done is lie to me? Why?81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDLgtSgO8O6
If it's because you're scared that I'll break, don't worry. I'm already broken. I broke the day that man harassed me. I broke the day I told Father and Mother about it, and all they said was that God is love and love is sex. I broke the day I was told that it wasn't my place to say the word rape, even though according to my school, I was a victim of it.
And perhaps the worst thing is that you weren't there. My only sibling, my older brother, my superhero, abandoned me. While you were in New York, living your best life with your new girlfriend and your new apartment and your nice job, I was getting sexually assaulted by the priest meant to preach to me about sins and virtues. I was being told that adults always knew better than children and that even if I didn't want to be touched, I must be touched to preserve my virtue.
My virtue is gone.
Now the lines are being blurred. Was I really raped? Or did I tempt him too much? I must have done something wrong, right? I always do things that are wrong. But at the same time, when at school we talk about molesting and rape, the teacher described a scenario so close to what I experienced that I can't help but wonder. And you told me that it was wrong to experience such things, Harry, didn't you? But I can't trust you now. And I can't trust teachers either.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSfnE5wlDg1
I can't even look at myself in the mirror without seeing Mother and Father arguing. Without seeing Chloe, Rafe and Viv talk shit about me. Without seeing the priest rip my clothes off. Without seeing you.
Harry, I miss you desperately. I need you to come back, but I know you can't. I know that you hate The Family, and you hate Father and Mother, and you hate this stupid small town that we were born in. I do too.
So why can't you save me?81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWyYvElIF1A
It's too late now. I think that by now, you have understood the message of this letter. Today, I stopped being a coward. I stopped caring about whether or not I get sent to Hell. Because they've done it. They've all done it.
Chloe told me that I was a bitch on text and that I was talking shit about her. Rafe and Viv are completely on her side. I have no other friends at school, not now that Chloe has been spreading rumours about me.
Father brought his mistress to our home when I got back to school. He made her sit next to him, and when Mother came in, he told her to fuck off. The woman wears revealing clothes and chews gum and is everything The Family preaches against, and yet she is the granddaughter of David Berg. How can King David's family get away with things that we would be told not to do? That I cannot answer, though I nearly screamed at the unfairness of it all.
I don't feel like shit at all. I know that I'm good. That's why I need to go, you see? God has decided that he would throw me obstacles and hurdles and hatred and fear my way because he wants me to die. I decided to follow his wish. If his wish is for me to go, then I will go. I will go, and I will soar to Heaven or to Hell with the hope of being reincarnated into a better life.
Honestly, I know that I'm done. I can't wait a minute longer for you to turn up in the driveway taking me away. I'm done believing in stupid fairytales where the poor girl gets rescued by her knight in shining armour. That is not the tale for me.
No, the tale for me is a sad Greek tragedy worthy of Homer. A small girl lived in a small town with a family in a cult. Said young girl was harassed by the cult's priest. The young girl's only hope, her older brother, went to New York and abandoned her while doing so. The young girl's friends turned against her.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2b8GWf6wIX
Finally, the final scene. The curtains are about to be drawn, and the main protagonist is about to die through suicide. The life of Marley Walker about to stop.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7QLLHZ9wkl
The only thought going through my mind is not a beautiful one. It's not one of those heroic, selfless thoughts where the protagonist thinks about her family or her friends in a loving way, where she reflects on how she saved them all by making one great sacrifice.
No, it's a rather selfish one, for someone who has tried to be selfless all her life. You see, in my final moments, I would rather think about myself for the first time in the whole of my time on this Earth.
The only thing I can think about is how much I hate you, Harry.
I hope you think about me when I'm gone. I hope it makes you toss and turn at night when you're done fucking your girlfriend. I hope it makes you cry and cry and cry. I hope that you can't sleep without thinking of me. I hope you name your daughter Marley, and I hope she dies as revenge for leaving me. I hope you kill yourself over grief.
Because the truth is that I didn't ruin my life, Harry. Nor did God and nor did Father or Mother.
What really ruined me was false hope. A false promise that I desperately hung onto, until I realised that there was no point. That it was all a lie.
I was never going to be saved, because no matter how many times you told me you loved me, you didn't. You never did, you never have and you never will.
So I didn't ruin my own life, Harry. No one that I hate did. Not even the priest who raped me, not even those toxic bastards that I used to call friends and not even the whole of The Family.
You ruined my life, Harry.81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEz5wF2FCSJ
I hate you.
81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFygUoKt4Np
Your little sister whom you failed,81Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡETiqsswp9M
Marley Walker
