Jonathan folded the letter he was reading and picked up another one. It looked almost green in the golden light shining above him. He leaned back and rested his head on the Pillow as he shifted around to adjust himself. He had been reading the letters since past three hours and yet he was not even close to finishing them. He discovered a new part of Liza every time he read a letter. He thought he knew Liza inside out but every time he read a letter he came to know something new about her. He wondered if she would have ever given him those letters if he hadn’t found them by mistake. He propped himself up on his elbows, making the mauve sheets crinkle beneath him and started reading the letter,
“24th February 2014
To Jonathan,
I am sorry Jonathan for being the way that I am. It’s been such a long time since we have gotten together and I am still not able to open up about my past. It’s difficult for me to talk about my parents even though I can’t remember much about them. I have vague memories of my life with them after all I was only ten when they passed away. I remember my mom’s tinkling laugh and father’s heavy voice. I remember how my mom used to sing me to sleep and I remember how my father used to tickle me till I woke up. But along with them I also remember how they left me. I remember the moment when our car crashed, it is perhaps the only memory which I remember clearly. My mother’s shriek still echoes in my ears. I still have nightmares about the bloody scene I witnessed, my father’s bloody head as it smashed against the window of the car and my mother’s last broken ‘We Love You Princess’ as she took her last breath. It’s all so clear Jonathan. Every time I have a nightmare I experience that horrifying day all over again
After my parents death the social services sent me to my aunt’s house. They were rich people but to them I was never more than a responsibility. Don’t get me wrong, they didn’t treat me bad or anything in fact they gave me everything a girl could want. They gave me best education possible. I always had the latest outfits, latest books but the only thing I never had was love. The only person who cared about me was Carson. Carson was my aunt’s son and he was four years older than me. He was the best brother I could ask for. He took me to his football games, he played with me, spent time with me, helped me with almost everything and anything. All his girlfriends were first approved by me, he never introduced any of his girlfriends to aunt instead he made me meet them first. We were very close. Then one day he left house and never came back. He never had a good relationship with my aunt so the day he turned 18 he left the house and never looked back. A year later my aunt died and I was put in foster home. Foster homes weren’t bad but they weren’t the kind of place where you would want to live either. I studied hard and got a scholarship at University of Yale . By that time I had saved enough money by working part time Jobs and my aunt and parents had also left me quite a fortune, so I didn’t really have to worry about financial problems. I know that my life till now has been better than what many people have and that I should be grateful for it. But I can’t help but feel cheated. I never got to see my dad interrogate you before you took me out on our first date or I never got to see the pride in his eyes when I got into Yale. They will never witness my marriage day and Carson won’t even recognize me if he met me now. I know it is wrong of me to think like that but it is the way I feel
I don’t think I will ever be able to tell you about my life before I met you to your face. It’s not that I don’t trust you enough; it’s just that I can’t bear to see the pity in your eyes. I know that you will embrace me like I am, you won’t care about my broken past but I can’t burden you with it.
I have been witnessing that horrible accident for years, I rarely get to wake up from a dreamless sleep but I don’t experience even a single nightmare when you sleep beside me. There is something about you that calms me. Even when I am sleeping I feel a sense of security with you by my side. You are like my angel, sent down to earth just for me. You make my days lighter and my eyes brighter. I was just breathing before I met you but now that I am with you I feel alive. As cheesy as it sounds your arms are like my heaven and I don’t want to leave them.
I remember the day we both had been arguing about whether magic was real or not. You always told me that magic was real. You told me that magic was not just about releasing pigeons from a hat it was much more than that. You told me that the sparks you feel when you hold me are magic, the daze I put you in is magic, When we make up within half an hour of fighting with each other is magic, the way we understand each other is magic, every word we speak, every touch and every kiss is magic. Jonathan you said that the moment you met me was the most magical experience of your life, I have never believed in magic Jonathan but when I am with you my life is nothing less than a fairy tale. You have freed me from all my nightmares and I hope that our fairytale never comes to an end.
Eternally in Love with you.
Yours and only yours.
Liza.”
Jonathan put down the letter on the bed. He was stunned. He never knew Liza went through so much. He knew that she didn’t have parents but he didn’t know about her aunt or her step brother or her nightmares. Liza never talked about her past, he knew it was something bad but he didn’t know it was this bad to lose your parents and then to witness that inauspicious day over and over again was something so painful, so horrifying that he couldn’t even comprehend the dread and pain Liza went through every night. He noticed how Liza wrote that she never got nightmares when he slept beside her did that mean that all those nights when he stayed with Stacey he was putting Liza through her hellish nightmares. He sat up stunned at his sudden realization. Did he really put Liza through her nightmares unknowingly? He thought back to all the times when he came in the morning to find a normally calm sleeping Liza tangled in the bed sheets, her fists clinching them. He never thought that she would be having such nightmares. He ran his fingers through his hair. He was frustrated at himself and his ability of causing pain to Liza knowingly and unknowingly.
Liza had said that her life was a fairy tale with him but all he had done was to turn this beautiful fairy tale into another nightmare. A nightmare he was stuck in. He really needed some magic in his life right now but he doubted that even fairy god mother could help him now.