Letters from the Cabin

I lay in your forest for three days before you found me.

I remember the light better than the pain. It moved over the ferns in slow rounds. Morning, noon, evening. I counted the rounds like a man counts coins. Counting was the only thing I could still do.

You found me the way you find herbs. Quietly. You did not scream. I have been found screaming before. Screaming, or with a blade. You knelt in the moss, looked at the wound without flinching, and talked to me as if I were already yours to save.

I did not know your name. I did not ask. You gave me tea I could not drink and a blanket I could not feel, and you worked until the bleeding stopped.

That night you slept. I watched the door. Not because I feared what was outside it. I had made a decision, and I wanted to be sure it would hold till morning.

It held. My first choice in a very long life. Not the last, but the one that made all the others possible.

— L.

Letters from the Cabin, No. 1. If you have words you cannot send to someone, tell me who they are and what the thing is. First lines are free: [email protected]