Hope Was the Cruelest Part

Some betrayals don’t scream.
They watch. This letter was written for Juliet, who didn’t just steal something sacred—she waited.
Waited for the tears.
Waited for the panic.
Waited for the exact moment hope would rise, so she could see the light leave someone’s face when it didn’t last.

That’s not petty.
That’s not theft.
That’s something worse.

Elizabeth wrote this after every prayer turned bitter. After the digging, the pleading, the closets emptied like graves. She wrote it when there was nothing left in her but the kind of quiet you only get after a scream that broke your own throat.

“You knew,” she writes. “You still stole it.”

The thing about this letter is that it doesn’t ask for an apology.
There’s no catharsis here. No final bow.

It’s just pain. Old, sharp, and deliberate.
It’s the kind of letter you leave behind when you’ve accepted that you were never going to get it back.
Not the locket.
Not the memory.
Not yourself.

And yet… she still hopes Juliet is praying.

Maybe that’s the worst part.
That some part of her still believes in something.
Even if it’s only vengeance.

I wrote it down so I could let it go,
— Elsie Thorne