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Dear Jordan,

Before you get angry with me I just need you to listen and try to understand me. Please. I know that it will seem like all my actions were selfish and stupid. Trust me, I already know that.

But please just listen to me. Please.

I lied to you. Scratch that. I lied to everyone. The police, your parents, my parents, the teachers at school; every single person who asked me about Shawn.

The truth is a funny thing. You think you want to know it, but when it's told to you, you will wish you had been kept in the dark. I remember the day I asked you this question - what do people hate more than not being told the truth?

'Being told the truth,' you responded.

Spoken like the true poet you were. Your response had thinking for weeks. Was the truth worth it? If I had told you the truth right there and then, would I have regretted it? The truth is supposed to set you free but this secret was like unleashing a lion. I wasn't so sure if it was going to come back to bite me or appreciate the freedom I would have granted it.

I should have let it go, Jordan, but I realized this a month too late. I realized that the longer I held back the "lion", the hungrier and angrier it became.

It was killing me from the inside, but I managed to mask it all with make up, cute outfits, a smile and all sorts of positive things.

However, whenever I was alone, the mask that covered my expressions would drop. Salty tears streamed down my face, and I would ease the lump on my throat by screaming into my pillow. Everything was going downhill. My life was a circus on fire and I was the firefighter trying to take it out with fuel. Like I said earlier, my actions were and still are stupid.

Every morning I would think to myself:

'This again. I have to go through this again. '

I was so, so tired. My thoughts would wonder what it would feel like to just stop feeling for a few minutes. No more tears, no more pain, no more lions on leashes - nothing.

There was nothing more in the world that I wished to be than to have zero emotions. What I am about to tell you will make you think that I, infact, have no emotions. That's not true. Please do not think that. I do feel but it's just that I am not one with my feelings, if that even makes any sense.

Every other letter after the one you are currently reading will hold a clue as to where I am hiding at the moment. If you do show up at the location on August the 12th then we can maybe talk this out. If you don't show up then I guess these letters are the last you will hear from me.

Love,

Ava.