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Dear Alex,
I am sorry to do this in a letter, but I thought it would be best, given your condition. I’m afraid that recent events have opened my eyes. We can’t see each other anymore. It’s not what I want, but I can’t ignore reality any longer. I’m so sorry to have led you on for as long as I did. I really did think we could make things work, but I was wrong.
I truly hope that you find happiness with someone else. Once again, I am sorry.
Elizabeth
Alex was vaguely aware of having read the letter before, maybe a few days back, but she’d been high on painkillers and hadn’t managed to take much of it in.
The only thing she had internalized was pain. When she became more aware, at first, she wasn’t entirely sure why everything hurt so much. Of course, she understood the source of the physical pain, but that didn’t explain the pit of dread in her stomach.
Then she saw the letter on her bedside table and realized that it hadn’t been an awful nightmare. It was real. Elizabeth had left her. The physical pain was nothing compared to the contents of that letter.
Alex remembered Elizabeth’s tearful words, just before she had passed out.
Alex, do you hear me? I love you. I can’t live without you.
Had that been real, or was it Alex’s panicked mind making up words of comfort when she needed them the most? It was impossible to tell. Alex could call Elizabeth and ask her, but her pride wouldn’t allow that.
At first, she hadn’t understood at all. What could possibly tear Elizabeth away from her bedside when she was near death?
Then she had seen the news.
Every headline was screaming about Elizabeth’s love confession, speculating about her sexuality and how this would affect her career. Elizabeth had made several statements, confirming that she was a lesbian, but that the relationship between her and Alex was over.
To say Alex was shocked was an understatement. She knew that Elizabeth’s career was important to her, but Alex never would have thought that Elizabeth cared more about politics than she cared about her.
Apparently, she was wrong.
She watched snippets of news as Elizabeth did her best to get her career back on track. It no doubt helped that she and Alex weren’t together anymore. Out of sight, out of mind, and all that. Elizabeth’s voters may know now that she was a lesbian, but not seeing it probably made it more palatable to them.
Alex knew that she needed to focus on her recovery. She wasn’t out of the woods yet, and she had a long road ahead of her. Elizabeth was paying for all her treatment, as if money could make up for her betrayal.
Alex had trusted her heart and soul to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth had thrown them aside for ambition.
If someone had told her that would happen before the shooting, Alex would have told them they were crazy. She meant more than that to Elizabeth… at least, she thought she did.
Now, she didn’t know. How much had she ever meant to Elizabeth? Surely, Elizabeth couldn’t have cared as much as Alex hoped she did if she could so easily cast Alex aside.
“Alex, you need to eat.”
Alex blinked listlessly up at Megan, one of the nurses in her ward, now that she had finally been moved out of the ICU. “I’m not hungry.”
“You need to eat regardless, dear,” Megan said firmly. “You need your strength. Come, now, just a few bites.”
Alex sighed and took the plate Megan was pushing toward her. She knew that she couldn’t afford to fall into melancholy. Recovering from something like this would take hard work and determination. It would be difficult to do with a broken heart and shattered soul, but she would have to find a way to do it. She wasn’t going to let this break her.
Alex’s phone started ringing and she jumped, immediately wincing as the movement sent shards of pain tingling through her chest. She took a slow, careful breath and reached for the phone.
Every time it made a noise, she couldn’t suppress the wild hope that it was Elizabeth, calling to apologize for everything and beg to have her back.
It wasn’t Elizabeth. It was an unknown number. Alex almost didn’t answer, but she decided that she could do with the distraction.
“Hello?”
“Hi, is this Alex?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
