Noble and Norma,

For many years now, I’ve been following you, Noble. I watched as you moved to Farmersville, Bryan, Dallas, and now Colorado Springs. I did it because if the day ever came that left me with nothing left to live for, I’d blow your ****ing brains out from 100 yards out. I spent years practicing at the range, making sure I kept my skills sharp and scaring the men around me in the process. They would often ask me who I was so pissed at – as they admired my tight grouping, they cringed at the same time because they were crotch shots. My favorite fantasy is where I kidnap you, take you to the everglades, then take my 9mm and empty an entire clip into your face, reload, and empty that clip into your crotch. Then leave your body along with the other snakes for them to devour the evidence. To be completely honest, it’s not you I really want dead, it’s the monster that allowed you into the lives of her children and then looked on as you hurt them. I just don’t have it in me to commit matricide, though I certainly have no qualms about killing you. If I had it to do over again, I would have killed you. I couldn’t tell because I was afraid someone I love would kill you for being a pervert and I didn’t want that. While I love my life now, it would not have mattered, you can’t miss what you never had.

Since you are so obsessed with Thank Yous, Norma, thank you for not killing me when you had the chance. You should have, you know. I’m a walking nightmare. I channel it for good, but oh it is so hard. Doing good for broken children is easy, but it’s so hard to not give in to the nightmare of needing vengeance. Think about how stupid it is to hurt a child. Monsters like that never stop to think that a day will come when the child is no longer the small, vulnerable one. You took advantage of my vulnerability. I was small, young, and defenseless. Be thankful I won’t do the same to you. It’s beneath me.

I couldn’t get my brain around what was happening to me, so I stuffed it deep down inside and built a solid brick wall to hide it behind. It worked for a while, until the past came crashing through. I finally saw and heard the child for what she was. The part of me that was broken and dirty. I had abandoned her long ago in the ruins of my memories. Until one day, I could no longer ignore her. And so, I went back into the ruins, where I found her, covered in dirt, with her dress torn and her hair a rat’s nest. The tracks of her tears were clear to see on her face as she looked up at me begging to be allowed to live. So now I give her the life she should have had if it hadn’t been taken from her. People can say I’m crazy, or I’m over medicated, or whatever suits their delusion, but I’m completely sane and she no longer cries. Nothing you or anyone else does or says can change that.

You have the right to have a relationship with anyone you want. I have the right to puke at the thought of my mother being with my molester. That is not a sickness. That’s satanic.

DO NOT EVER contact me again in any way. No more letters, phone calls, surprise visits, using Tom as a go-between or whatever. I won’t be at your funeral. We are done. You have what you want, and I have moved on.

All I have left to say is leave me be.

I mean it.

You didn’t just burn this bridge, you stood back, laughing, as it crashed into the water below.