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Dear Carly, We have been on Earth for twenty years, five months, and fifteen days. It was seven years ago that you couldn't see us at this age. You couldn't imagine what we would look like, or what we would feel like. You were incapable of seeing what we would be like—grown, and breathing still. But here we are, 7,305 rotations around the sun, and beginning to understand. There will never be reconciliation with the child we had been twelve years ago. She will never look at the world as though everything were pillowy and bubble-wrapped, like safety, again. Innocence shrivelled, gradually. Breath stolen from lungs that stuttered, frightened to function beneath the watchful stare of righteous indignation. Bright eyes, awestruck and wide, burned from their sockets at the bruise-eyed sight before them. Tiny, gravel-scarred hands trembled until they could palm nothing but the absence. There will never be reconciliation with the child we had been twelve years ago. She has shovelled herself into the dirt, has lain in the wooden box the others built, curled into the fetal position and blocked. Frightened of life, she has refused the option to climb from the ground. We must accept that she has found her peace. You and I? We could stare at the headstone, sit on the dead grass—we could talk, for however long we'd like to—but nothing would ever change. She would rest, and we—we would rot. We would amount to nothing. Longing, and grieving, yes. But nothing, in the end. Nothing worth staying for. We must remove our hands, take them from the gravestone, and move on to better things. With great love, Your Past P.S. It had only ever been love.