Dear A,
I don’t know what you heard me say.
I don’t know what you told them.
I don’t know what you’d told them before.
I don’t know what motivations you might have for telling them things that aren’t true.
I don’t know if things inside you are broken.
I don’t know if things outside you are broken, and you have to build a protective shell.
I don’t know how to ask you these things.
…
I do know what I said.
I do know what they told my parents.
I do know how humiliating it was to have so many people involved.
I do know how it felt to have everyone wondering if it were true.
I do know that I loved you.
I do know that no explanation in the world can make it not have happened.
Love,
Alden
