Dear Lorraine

Dear Lorraine,

Hi. I thought about you today.

I mean, I don't know why I wouldn't, since I do all the time, but I just thought I wanted to say it. Tell you outright, you know?

Anyway, let me just get to the point. Look, I didn't mean for any of this to happen, okay? I know you must be furious with me, especially since you haven't talked to me for a while now, but I'm going to write to you anyway. Might as well try to fix things, right? I don't know what I'm thinking, really...I guess I was hoping you would read this and maybe, at least try to forgive me.

God, sorry I'm all...what? Delusional? Angry? No. I'm just so...lost. I just don't know what to do with you. I know you're angry, and I'm sure that you think I meant what I said the other day, and the truth is I just didn't. I didn't mean anything I said. I got a little upset, and I couldn't stop myself from saying things that I knew I was going to regret. I was just so caught up in what we were saying and I yelled at you. I'm sorry for that. I didn't mean to raise my voice at you. And everything else that happened...I just wanted to tell you that I'm sorry I hurt you.

You've been sitting there at your desk all this time, dear, and it worries me. Isn't that sort of what started our whole fight in the first place? You've been so into your work lately and it just worried me, that's all. You know we're in this together, right? I'm here for you, okay? I just didn't want you to forget about me in all of those papers and things on your desk.

I guess I just got a bit scared, how I could creep to the end of the hall, lean on the solid white of the threshold at your little office, and just watch you. At first, I'd kind of chuckle inwardly because you looked so cute, focused on what you were doing.

But it stopped being cute because I'd just stand there, for so long, and each time, there was something that I'd want to say to you, but you wouldn't even notice that I was there, shuffling through your papers or scratching away with your expensive ink pen. And then finally I'd say your name and you'd whip your head around like you just realized that I existed.

It's funny how normally it can get like that, and then we'd argue a little bit, and neither of us could even remember why we were fighting. But this time it won't go away. I can't stop seeing myself eying the back of your head and my arm aching from the corner of the wall pushing into it. I just wanted you to understand how I felt.

Now, every time I walk in and try to talk to you, to make you understand what made me act that way, I'm reminded of what started it. That image of your salon-perfect hair that hid your face and the ink pen scribbling away in your tense hand. I come over and tell you I'm sorry and you just don't respond. I know I was angry too, okay? I'll admit it. But I'm fine now. It scares me that you don't feel the same way.

What did I even say to make it start? I can hardly remember.

Oh, yes, I remember, it was me. Of course it was me. I said "How about you put all that away for once before you kill yourself with it?" What a silly thing to say. I regretted it the second it came out of my mouth...and then you turned and your face was just so...Okay, just never mind, I don't think either of us need to re-live the entire thing all over again, do we?

After all that was over you just sat frozen there at your desk and I went to our bed alone.

You don't understand how lonely it feels to sleep alone, dear. I've been worried about you, you know. You've just been sleeping there at your desk. It can't be comfortable. But every time I ask you to join me, or take the bed even (Really, I don't even mind the couch!), you don't even lift your head.

Maybe you can't forget it. I know that I'm having a hard time with putting it behind me, but you have to try. You're trying to totally put yourself into your work, but you'll just end up dwelling on the past that way. We have to talk, you know? That's what everybody says. You have to communicate to be happy.

I think the neighbor is even worried too, but I wish he wasn't. He's been watching me all day, you know. I can feel it.

Do you ever have that feeling where you can just tell when someone's eyes are burning into you, or like their gaze was invading your space and even when the curtains are closed you can feel him standing there behind his own window? It's like that one movie....Oh, I can't remember the name of it. But I know we saw it together once. I remember because that was when we still had that old ragged gray couch that you couldn't stand. I think we might have gotten rid of it right after that.

Anyway, this guy won't leave us alone. I saw him a few hours ago, just his eyes peering through the sheer white fabric of his curtains, and he darted away again as soon as I looked at him. I don't get it. It's as if he's left his own life behind to steal ours away. I can't stand it. What gives him the idea that he can steal our lives? He has a job, his own family. No need to take ours from us.

Maybe he heard all that noise yesterday, the yelling...God, just everything.

Okay, look. I know we're both thinking it, let's just stop and put it out there right now. Yes, I know you didn't know I had the gun. I got it from one of my friends, okay? I didn't mean to get it out, really.

I guess you deserve an explanation. I had it cause I was getting worried with hearing about all those break-ins and I thought maybe I should have something to protect myself with. It's just a tiny little thing, really. It wasn't important. I just thought I could sleep easier knowing that we were safe at night.

And I don't know what made me pull it out of the little drawer in the nightstand but I just felt like I had to. I didn't even understand it then, Lorraine. My hands were even shaking as I lifted it out of the drawer.

And....God, Lorraine, I don't know what made me do it. It was like my mind turned off, you know? Or it was one of those horrible dreams where you see yourself walking forward and seeing your own hand hold the gun up behind you, Lorraine.

And there you were, sitting at your desk after all of the screaming had ended, and I can't control anything and I'm trapped in my own mind...and you want so badly to scream but you don't, you know? And then it's pointed at the back of your head and my finger pulls the trigger...

There was almost no blood, you know. None. You could hardly even see a mark. Just a few spots on some of the papers sitting in front of you, a tiny little spot on the back of your head, I could hardly tell anything had happened. I asked if you were okay, and you just stared at the papers on your desk. I think you still even had the pen in your hand. So, I just left you to your work, since you seemed so interested in it, and I needed to calm down.

But it's tomorrow now, and I called after you to join me in bed and you never came in. I guess you were really mad. I would be too, I guess, if I was in your situation.

So, here I am. I thought that maybe this letter would help things a bit. Maybe soon you'll feel better, enough to come back and sleep in our bed again, like we used to before all of this mess.

Again, I just wanted to say sorry. Feel better soon.

I know it doesn't always seem like it, but I love you, Lorraine. I really do.

Sleep well,

Stewart