So here I am writing to you again like I don’t know how to stop. No Dan pushing me into it now. I suppose it’s something I’ve got used to doing and it doesn’t feel right to just give up on it.
I don’t know what it was like for you meeting me today, I can only tell you what it was like for me meeting you. It did me up proper at first. I guess you saw that. Sorry if it hurt your feelings or embarrassed you; I honestly didn’t mean to. Seeing what the fire had done to you and knowing it was because of me . . . I’ve hated myself for stuff I’ve done before, but nothing’s ever made me feel as bad as I did then, and still do now. I can’t see anything else ever will.
When it came your turn to speak it was hard for me at first to take in the things you were saying. I was ashamed to be in the same room as you, and couldn’t understand why you’d want anything to do with me.
Then you go and decide that you’re not going to make me feel even worse than I already do, even though it was your right—that’s what these meetings are all about, I think. You get to describe how I’ve screwed up your life, and to twist the knife to make sure I never forget it. But you opted out of that. I’m still trying to take it in, that you’d give up the chance of killing me in the only legal way possible.
So, if you’re wondering what made me give it up about your son-in-law in the end, it was you showing me how decent people behave. Not only that, you’d already thought about how my ma could be protected. No way could I hold back on you after that, I just needed to get it straight in my head. That was why I had to have some time out. Amazing how Dan understands these things.
I’m really sorry I couldn’t tell you anything definite about Hux-B, but I just don’t have it. I just know it came from him. Tbh, I knew it the minute I saw your daughter, Claudia, outside the house. I’d seen her before while I was making a delivery. I don’t think she ever saw me, but I remember her and how scared of him she seemed. I thought he was a POS then, I don’t want to offend you by spelling out what I think of him now. I hope with everything in me that the cops find the trail that leads to him, but I know it won’t be an easy one. It’s not likely anyone’s going to take my word for anything, and BJ won’t rat him out, so I can’t say what happens next. (Do you really think, by the way, that they’ll be able to pull BJ in for something else without it being linked to me? Sorry if that sounds selfish, but survival instinct and all that.)
This is going to sound weird now, but when I think back on today and the way you handled the whole thing, it just keeps blowing me away. You’re something else, you really are.
I don’t suppose you’ll be wanting to hear from me again, and I guess Dan won’t be coming anymore, so time for me to get on with the other stuff I’ve got going on with my lawyer, the sentencing, and everything.
Thank you again for coming to meet me and for reading my letters. I’m sorrier than I know how to put into words and I hope . . . Not sure what I hope really . . . Good stuff for you, obvs, for me too, if that’s all right.
Please tell Claudia and Jasmine (hope you don’t mind me using their names) that I’m grateful to them for coming too, and I’m sorry for what they’ve had to go through. I wish I knew how to get Jasmine a new violin, but I’ve got no money and being stuck in here isn’t going to put me in the way of any. It wouldn’t mean much coming from me anyway, I get that.
You people so didn’t deserve anyone like me coming into your lives, or that psycho Huxley-Browne. I hope no one like us ever crosses your paths again.