Unlike the first letter, which could have been entirely fabricated by someone dedicated to doing some absurdly thorough research, this second letter contains enough significant detail that someone else having written it seems implausible. I might have told this story before, but only to a few people, and never like this. Someone would have had to make some incredibly accurate guesses. Which means: either I really am a time-traveling janitor, or I really am having some kind of mental breakdown. This is no joke, that’s for sure. I need to start asking my future self (or my psychotic self) some serious questions about my underwear. Here's Number Two:
I really thought he was my father. Until I was nine years old, and my mom told me my real dad lived in California.
The day mom kicked M.B. out of the trailer, I remember yelling, lots of it. I came out to the living room from my room, mom was in a white terrycloth robe, her hair wrapped in a towel. I sat on the couch while they fought, grew more and more scared. I've always remembered it like I was watching it in 3rd person, like I was already a future me floating by the light fixture, mom came back to the couch and threw herself down beside me, pointed at M.B. and screamed at him get out and don’t come back! And I saw myself bawling, and so was she, and I remember M.B. standing in the doorway looking back at us, and I thought why is he smiling? And then he was out and the door slammed, and I watched myself throw my arms around mom’s impossibly thin neck and we sobbed. I don't remember stopping, but we must have.
Years later, I’d know that when people cry really hard, sometimes they look like they’re smiling, and I grew more certain that M.B. must have been crying too when he was standing at the door. He must have been, right?
You’re right future me. Or crazy me. I don’t want to see that again. Fuck. What’s happening to me?
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