Dearest Me,
How we have forgotten who we came from.

The woman, the one the died with us, the one who died upon our father's bed, whom we called mother, she has no bearing to us now.
She is nothing more to us than a shattered picture frame, a family portrait with the faces erased by the biting heat of a flame.
She is the woman from which we came, the woman that tore our father's heart from within his chest. She is the one that created the aging, crippled hermit we feared for our entire life.

His hands, sharp, steel-like, have let marks on our arms and face that, even though they have healed from the surface of our skin, will never disappear from our mind.

Oh, Dearest Me,
How the stars seemed to aline when we met Viktor, and how at home we felt! How wonderful it felt for the first time in many years to have a hand to hold in your own! How wonderful it felt to have a hug, for the first time in many years!
And how bitter it all felt when that embrace turned into desperation, as we watched Stefan leave. How it hurt so dearly when he held us back, and we watched the train leave.

Oh, how father hated us. How he spit his words at us and shook us by the shoulders.
How he screamed, and how we cried.
Dearest Me, we were a man, by father's words.

But men are brave.
Men do not cry.