Letters To Luca

by M. R. Joseph

  She should have told me from the start. Before we kissed, before we slept together, before I fell in love with her, but I can’t forgive. Even if she explained to me why she did it, all the reasons in the world couldn’t make me forget. After all these years, all the fucking letters, I have never forgotten, and I hate her for it. I hate her for making me change, for giving into all the sappy shit she wrote to me, for turning me into a big pussy. I hate her for making me trust her, feel things for her, fucking love her. I love her so much, so, so much and it pains me to do so, and I have to separate myself from this pain.

  She hasn’t been back in days. Grace is here. I can hear her and James talking. I come out onto my porch and they are on the front lawn. Grace has a few suitcases in her hands, and James has a box.

  “Hey guys, good morning.”

  “Hi, Luca, how are you, sweetie?” Grace sits the suitcases down, comes over and gives me a hug.

  “I’m good, great actually.”

  “And I think you’re a fucking liar.”

  “Thanks, buddy. I knew you’d be there to support me.”

  “Truth hurts. I’m not buying the ‘I’m ok’ act , Luca.” I don’t answer James.

  I point to the suitcases at Grace’s feet.

  “That her stuff?”

  “Yes. She’s staying at Wes’s until she figures out what she’s going to do.”

  “So she sent you two to do her dirty work for her, huh? Taking the coward’s way out. Typical.”

  “Luca, I get it, you’re mad, and you’re upset, but she knows she can’t come back. We offered to get her things for her. She also gave me this to give to you.”

  She hands me a check from Leighton and it’s for the next three months rent and then some.

  “So what’s this, a payoff of some kind? I don’t want her fucking money, Grace. I don’t need anything from her. Give it back.” I hand the check back to her.

  “I’m so sorry, but you know what, Luca? You aren’t the only one whose hurting here. Do you know what she’s been going through these last few days? She loves you, and she’s sorry, and she doesn’t know what she’s going to do next. The press is hounding her, her publisher is driving her crazy and all she wants to do is sleep. We can’t even get her out of bed.”

  “And that’s supposed to be my problem now? You don’t get it, no one gets it. She ripped out my heart. Do you know what it was like for me when I hurt my elbow, when my dreams were shattered, when all hope was lost for me? I drank, I slept around, and I stayed in my fucking house for weeks, months even. Right, James? You witnessed it, but you know what got me out of that funk? Her letters, her fucking letters. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for them.”

  “Then why not forgive her for saving your life then. You can’t shut off love, there isn’t an on and off switch, and I hope you realize that before it is too late.”

  Grace walks away and goes to James’ car. He and I stand there, looking at the ground, the silence surrounds us.

  “Dude, I’m sorry. I know how much you loved her. I don’t know what else to say. I’m going to go bring Leighton her things. I’ll be back later.” He grips my shoulder and walks away. I’m once again alone.

  I go back into my house, and I sit, and sit, staring at the walls surrounding me. My thoughts go to her as much as I try to fight it. I can’t help it. Grace was right. You can’t turn love off. My brain is having problems focusing on not thinking about her, turning the switch to off, forgetting her. I go to my room and grab the boxes of letters. I sit on the floor in my room and read everyone. Her words, the words, her words. I keep repeating them in my head. The words. What sent me flying, my heart racing, my heart stopping, and finally it breaking. I can’t read them again, ever again. They don’t belong to me. I said they did, but they’re not. They are nothing more than the fantasies of a teenage girl, who turned into a woman, who took the words and used them for her own resolve. I need to get rid of them. They’re not my letters anymore.

  I jumped in my car, not thinking, not contemplating where I was going to go, but I drive anyway.

  When I pull up to Wes’s house I sit in my car, gripping the wheel, feeling the ache in my heart. She’s only ten feet away, and I know I need to move, but I can’t. I stare at the house then look to the passenger seat at the items that sit on it. I run my hand over the boxes, graze them with my fingertips, and I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, I need to say goodbye to them.

  I grab the boxes and make my way to the door. I notice two news vans parked outside Wes’s house. I knock at the door and Wes answers.

  “Hey, Luca. How are you?” I don’t answer. I just hold the boxes in my hands.

  “I came to return these. They belong to her.”

  And then I hear her.

  “Damn it, Wes, don’t tell me more reporters are… here.” She pauses when she sees me at the door.

  “Luca. What are you doing here?” Her face is sunken in, eyes are black underneath, lips are dry. She’s almost unrecognizable.

  “I’ll leave you two alone. Come inside, Luca.”

  “I’m not coming in, Wes. I just came to return these.” I hold the boxes out for Leighton. She by passes me at the door way and goes outside. I step out, and stand across from her. I can’t bring my eyes to hers. She looks so frail, so small, and it’s killing me.

  “I came to bring you these.”

  “I thought James and Grace got all my stuff out of your place.”

  “They did.” I hand her the boxes and she takes them and sits in a chair on the patio. She opens the lid to the first box. She scans her hand through what’s inside. She lifts her face, it’s tear soaked, those beautiful eyes are so sad, so terribly despondent.

  “The letters.” She opens one, but only for a brief minute. She eyes the letter she’s holding, shakes her head, wipes her eyes, and puts it back in its envelope.

  “I’m giving them back to you. I’ve had them for a long time. I don’t need them anymore.”

  “You… you kept them? All this time?”

  “Yeah, stupid me. I thought they meant something, only for my eyes, not the whole world’s.”

  “But they were for you, every word was for you. Don’t you understand that?”

  “No, Leighton, I don’t understand.” My anger boils inside. “I don’t get why you did it, why you lied, why you kept it going for so long. I’ll never understand no matter how much you explain yourself.”

  “So this is how it’s going to go? You don’t even want to hear what I have to say. You have already resigned yourself to the fact that I did this to hurt you, to make a fool of you, so horny women all over the world would get off on the stuff I write, what I wrote you. Well that’s not the reason I did what I did.”

  I throw my arms in the air, and yell at her, “Then why do it at all? You claim to have been in love with me for all those years, you claim you didn’t want to hurt me, but guess what? You failed. You hurt me. You ripped my fucking heart out of my chest, chewed it, and spit it out. Say the shoe was on the other foot, Leighton. Think about that. What would you do if you were me? Forgive you? Just put it out of my mind and go on with our happy lives? Move in together, get married, have babies, and live happily ever after like the people in your fucking book?”

  I’m spewing spit unconsciously from my mouth, tears spraying, and whatever pieces of my heart aren’t broken, are breaking now. She’s sobbing into her hands, her body shaking, sounds of anguish sounding in my ears.

  I crouch down to her, my legs hardly allowing me to do so, but I get to her level.

  “The only thing I will give you credit for in this little charade, is that I didn’t kill myself because of these. That I will admit. Back then, they were my holy Bible, but now… now they are just written words on paper. They mean nothing anymore, we really weren’t anything. We were nothing but a lie. Can you imagine what it feels like to get lost in something that you thought was real, something that you thought could keep you safe? Do you know what it was lik
e for me, how day after day, my only thoughts were the things you wrote to me?”

  I raise myself up, and take one last long look at her. I study her face, commit it to my last memory, even though seeing her this way isn’t how I want to remember her. I want to remember her and fresh, and carefree, beautiful, and lively. Not sorrowful.

  Walking away from the one who owns your heart, is like a death, but with death you know that the person no longer exists in this world, with breaking up, you know the person still walks the earth. You are destined to see them somewhere in this world sooner or later.

  I’m getting ready to walk away when I see out of the corner of my eye, two reporters and two camera men run up to me, microphones and cameras in my face. I try to dodge them, but it’s impossible. Leighton stands up and moves towards the commotion.

  “Excuse me, excuse me, are you Luca Ferro, the muse for Brianna Maxwell’s books? We know all about you, Mr. Ferro.”

  Another reporter speaks.

  “Mr. Ferro, Mr. Ferro, can you answer a few questions for us? Are you in a sexual relationship with Brianna Maxwell, I mean Leighton Parks? How do you feel about woman all across the world, fantasizing about you?”

  “Answer the question, Mr. Ferro. Are you sleeping with Ms. Parks as well as Valerie Kelly?”

  I look at them and fury engulfs me at their questions.

  “What are you talking about? Val and I are hardly friends, and Leighton and I, are… we are nothing.”

  “That’s not what Ms. Kelly said when she called us. She said that you two are in love, and you had a moment of weakness with Ms. Parks because you felt bad for her when you found out she had a crush on you for so long. What’s your response to that, Mr. Ferro?”

  “I do not have a relationship with Ms. Kelly. We did a long time ago, but not now, and will never again. Quote me on that, maybe that way she’ll get the hint.”

  They turn to Leighton now, who stands there, jaw agape, and starts to direct their questioning to her. They shove themselves into her face. She shields it, but can’t hide. I want to rescue her, and sweep her away from the madness. Before I can even react, Wes bursts out of the house screaming at them all.

  “Get off my property now. She has been answering your questions all week. Leave her be. Leave Mr. Ferro alone too. Go away before I call the cops.”

  He escorts Leighton into the house, but before she steps through the door way, she turns, and looks at me with those eyes, the ones that stole my heart, broke it, and the ones that will haunt me until I can heal again.

  This isn’t like the show Cheers. I didn’t want everyone to know my name, but here I am, and everyone knows it. I didn’t ask for this, or did I?

  I am sitting on a stage, a makeup girl is putting the finishing touches on me, and someone else is pinning a mic to my shirt. I’m about to be interviewed for a local news show here in New York. I’ve been here for two weeks promoting the latest book. The questions have mostly been about me keeping my identity a secret. Why I did it, what I had to gain and what I lost by doing it. I begged the press to leave Luca alone a long time ago. Grace asked James if they were and at first it was a battle.

  They would show up at Lucky’s, demand an interview, and surround the 57th Street quad where I once lived. She said it has died down. Sometimes a local newspaper reporter may go into the restaurant for dinner, and bother him, but Luca handles it like a gentleman, so I’ve heard, and I’m not surprised.

  When I left Ocean City to move back to Philadelphia, I said goodbye to my friends and thanked Wes for all he had done for me. I moved back into my old place I subleased before I left. There wasn’t much time in between me moving back and then heading off to New York for the tour. Katherine stood beside me. She was there for me and never saying, “I told you so.” She knew I was nursing some pretty heavy wounds, and there was no need to rub salt into them.

  I was quite busy during recent days. I did phone interviews, radio station spots, an interview with People and US Weekly, all the while trying to forget what happened six weeks prior. At night, when I’m alone, or when Kenzie is away visiting Wes, I think of him, of Luca, and what we had, and my heart saddens all over again. At times it’s unbearable. I eat a gallon of Salted Caramel ice cream, drink a half bottle of Tequila, and watch some chick movie with a happy ending. Never one with an ending like mine.

  The host of the news show comes out, shakes my hand and introduces herself.

  “Ms. Maxwell, or should I call you Ms. Parks, which do you prefer?”

  “Please call me Leighton. I have dropped the Brianna Maxwell.”

  “Well, Leighton, I’m Sierra King and I’m very pleased to meet you. I’m a huge fan of the series. Before we begin I just want to say that I know the story, no sense rehashing it here on live T.V. We all try and keep some solitude in our lives, and from what I hear, that’s what you were trying to do. Are you ready to begin?”

  “Thank you, Sierra, and yes. I’m ready.”

  The studio lights get brighter, the theme music starts to play, the director counts down till we go live, I’m nervous. This is my first on camera interview on a nationally televised show.

  And the director counts off, three, two, one, and points to Sierra.

  “Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Sunrise with Sierra. Today’s guest is a controversial one. She’s been in the news for the past few weeks after a story broke revealing her true identity. I’d like to welcome Leighton Parks otherwise known as Brianna Maxwell author of the Letters of Love series. Leighton, welcome to the show.”

  “It’s a pleasure to be here, Sierra.”

  “Leighton, the Letters of Love series started a few years ago when you were working at The Ben magazine as an assistant editor. What prompted you to begin the series and what was the inspiration behind it?”

  I have answered this question a million times in my head. No interviewer has asked me about it. They just want to know about Luca, and how I deceived him. That’s why I’ve been keeping my answers short and sweet. Even the ones for the big magazines. I told them I always wanted to be a writer and yes there was a muse. They tried to get me to talk about Luca, but he was hurt enough. I couldn’t bring his name up. They talked about my childhood, my years at Penn State, how I lost my job due to the no fraternizing policy, and how I kept my identity a secret for so long.

  “I have always wanted to be a writer. I kept a journal my whole life. I documented everything I had ever done. I took courses in writing and poetry in college, but decided to be an editor and keep my secret world of writing to myself, not knowing that someday, it would pay off.”

  “So you started writing independently, someone got a hold of your book, and a publishing house signed you to a book deal.”

  “Pretty much, yes. I signed on to do four books in the series, and this latest one, is book four. Unfortunately, it will be the last one.”

  “But why? Is it because of what the news is saying about how your identity came out, and what happened between you and your alleged muse?”

  “Yes, but let me clear one thing up, Sierra, my muse is not alleged, and not made of fiction.”

  At this point, I’ve been quiet long enough about my feelings. Not just now, but for eleven years. The cat is out of the bag, no one knows the whole story, so why not tell the world. Luca already hates me, he’s not coming back to me, so here goes nothing.

  “Eleven years ago, I fell in love with a boy in my high school. We had one class together, not much interaction took place between us, but I admired him from afar for so long. I was sort of a nerdy girl in high school, and he was the most popular boy. Sounds cliché, I know, but it was true.”

  “I have a hard time believing you of all people were what you call a nerd. Look at what a beautiful, sophisticated woman you are.”

  “Well, thank you, but I was. Baggy sweatshirt, baseball caps, and horn rimmed glasses were my fashion statement. With the help of my best friend in college, I sort of gave myself a makeover freshman yea
r, came out of my so called shell, and this is what I got.” I sweep my hand from my head to my toes.

  “I’m quite impressed. Now tell me more about this boy. It’s quite interesting to learn about the man behind the characters.”

  “I basically fell in love with him. Not because he was beautiful, or popular, or an athletic star, but because I saw what no one else saw.”

  “And what was that?”

  I stare straight into the camera, my nerves disappearing from me, my shyness out the fucking window, and my mind is clear, oh so clear.

  “I saw a teenage boy who loved his friends, who was considerate of others around him, whether or not they were nerds, not popular, introverts with little self-esteem, like myself. I saw a boy who began to grow as a man, leading his team to victory over and over again, who strived for greatness, even if he didn’t succeed at it, and accepted it for what it was. An incident in a school hallway solidified it for me. He never discriminated against anyone, he was everyone’s friend, and that’s why I fell in love with him, not for superficial reasons.”

  “So that’s where the story line of loving from afar came from?”

  “Yes, and me being the timid girl I was most of the time, I felt in my heart that I couldn’t compete with what was out there. So that’s when I began writing the letters. I was too afraid to tell my true feelings, so scared of being rejected.”

  “But you said he never discriminated, so why would you be so afraid? Maybe, and this is just a woman’s opinion, but do you think you should have tried to let him know how you felt, then allow him to make the decision?”