PETE'S LETTER TO DYLAN
I don't even know how to begin this letter. How do I address you? What should be my first sentence? I have even forgotten how to write a letter…I mean I hardly ever write letters? I must have last written a letter back in school, as part of an assignment. But today I find myself writing this one to you. I don't even know if it is correct for me to say Dear Dylan; for with the way in which you are angry with me, the word 'dear' might just repulse you and increase your anger. Or do I just say to Dylan, my brother? I highly believe that as it is now, you no longer see me as a brother. Yet when I write and address my letter to you by: to Dylan; it appears to me as if I have erased all the memories that we have made together. It dissolves into nothingness the stories of our lives; our journey as brothers, our friendship, the times we held each other's hands, the times we laughed together, when we cried, when we covered up for each other, when we stood up for each other, when we wronged each other and came back to say sorry, and we forgave each other and chose to be brothers again.
Allow me to not address this letter in any way. I will just write it.
You have told me clearly that you want nothing to do with me, and you won't ever talk to me again, for you feel that I used your sister. I have tried countless times to talk to you, but you have not given me a chance; leading me to take a paper and a pen, and tell you exactly how things are.
I am not using your sister. I did not use your sister as a pill to comfort myself. That is not how it is. I do understand your frustration as a big brother; for you to blame me for all those unspeakable things. But Dylan, have you not taken it too far?
If you must know, I have loved Arianna for a number of years now. I cannot know and have a specific time of when I started to have feelings for her, but what I know is that at first I viewed her as a little sister, and then she became a friend. That friendship overlapped with the love that I felt for her; yet I never managed to bring myself to telling her that.
The way we were brought up; both you and me; our parents made us believe that we were siblings. Your parents treated me like their own son, and my dad treated you like his own son too. This therefore made me confused, when I fell for Arianna. It felt like an act leading to incest, for I asked myself how can I fall for my own sister?
Dylan; you and I are best friends. Our parents are good friends too, thus we ended up becoming like siblings. But then, let's get this straight, I am not Arianna's brother. Arianna is a de Milo; I am a Rockridge. We are not related in any way, we are just good old friends. There was, and is still is, nothing wrong with Arianna and I falling in love with each other. She loves me too; our love is mutual; it is not one sided. You have to believe me, Dylan. you can ask her yourself. It is a pity that we wasted time, believing the two of us to be brother and sister; and if we had just confessed to each other how we felt when we started to feel so, we might not have ended up in this mess.
I ask myself, do I have to lose my best friend, because of the woman that I love? I love her, Dylan. I truly love her. It is not an infatuation, it is not lust. Arianna is the woman that I love.
I feel pain to think that you have decided to act like I do not exist, to treat me like your worst enemy, and to forget everything about our lives as brothers. Dylan, you and I have been friends since I don't know when. I stood by you since the time you told me about your crush on Anisha, who by that time I had never met; but believing that if my best friend loves her this much, then she must be worth it; I stood by you.
Love should not separate people. Look at what you and your mum went through. I don't mean to poke my nose in what does not concern me, but Dylan, I am your best friend. Is it healthy for you and your parent to fight because of love? The same pain that you felt when your mother distanced herself away from you is the same pain I feel for you distancing yourself from me because of Arianna. Love should not cause pain, not to the one experiencing it; nor to the people around those experiencing it. Love is a beautiful thing.
You know me, Dylan. You knew me since we were babies; it's like we are twin brothers. We have always been together. You saw me as a freshman; when I went for my first date with Brooke, and when I thought I was in love with her. Of course I did not know what love was by that time; but when I had met with her a few more times, I knew Brooke was definitely not what I was looking for.
You saw the sophomore me, going crazy over Claire; and later on I confessed to you that what I felt about her was not love. I just liked her as a friend. And I left Claire; you saw all that. You knew every detail.
Dylan, you know how unhappy I was with Raelynn, but how I held on to her, for I believed that since she was beautiful, educated, lovely and approved of by my dad, she was the right one for me. I believed that our love would grow, but confess to me Dylan; tell me the honest truth; did I never tell you that I did not feel the love? Did I never tell you that with Raelynn, I always felt like something was missing? I wanted something more, yet I failed to put my finger on what it was that I wanted. I failed to pinpoint what I wanted, but my heart knew that it was not content.
I may have never told you this, but the truth is, from Brooklyn to Claire, to Raelynn, the reason why things never worked out was because I was always subconsciously comparing them to Arianna. Each time I met a girl I liked, I would appreciate her for a while, but the more I got to know the girl, the more I started to wish, if only she could talk like Arianna. If only she could have Arianna's laughter. If only I could feel as happy as I feel when I am with Arianna. Arianna was my standard of happiness, and I failed to find anyone who could have matched her. Yet in those many years, I did not realise that I was in love with Arianna. If you ask me, I am glad that the wedding had to be cancelled. I gladly called it off. Yes, Raelynn did a despicable thing, but it worked to free me from a loveless marriage. I am glad that things came to be how they are.
When I was sitting alone and crying for how my life had turned out; how my name had been trending all over social media for all the wrong reasons, I started to have a deep feeling that, if only I could get a girl like Arianna, then I would be happy. It never crossed my mind that the girl that I truly wanted was Arianna herself; not a girl like her. My mind was tuned to view Arianna as my sister; yet she is not. That's why each time I looked at her, I never managed to come to realise and confess to myself that I was in love with her.
When she walked into my mansion on that Sunday morning, I did not take advantage of her. I was in deep thought and feeling sorry for myself, imagining how life would be like if I were to ever meet a person like her. She knocked on the door and I said come in. I saw her, and for the first time ever, my mind told me that I was looking at the person that I had been searching for.
It was like a curtain had been raised off; unblocking everything dim and setting before me a perfect vision of what I had always longed for. I did not use Arianna to heal my broken heart. What happened is, she came at a time when I was asking myself, where will I ever get a girl like Arianna, and then my mind was opened to see that she was the one I had always wanted, and she was standing right in front of me!
The way I am myself when I am with her; the way I love her laughter; the way she speaks and always jokes around….and when I get to the Clear Opal Manor, I do not feel at home until I hear her calling out loud across the hallway, "hello hello! Is it dinner time yet!" or any other thing that she may call out. And when she walks into the dining room; the way she always peeks at the food, asking the chefs what they have prepared... Arianna has a way of bringing life to everyone; more so to me. The Clear Opal is not home to me until Arianna emerges from the elevator; or she comes running down the stairs, and literally throws herself at me. And with her most beautiful angelic smile, she swirls around before me and asks, "how do I look?"
The way she teases me; the way she sometimes keeps talking on and on and if you have realised, sometimes when all of you get tired and do not answer her anymore, I always keep talking to her. It is because talking to Arianna has been the greatest joy of my life, and I am thankful to God that finally I managed to confess to her how I feel about her.
I am in love with Arianna; and she too is in love with me. Accept it, Dylan. Give me a chance to be with her, and you are free to ask her anytime, how I will be treating her. She will tell you that I will be treating her like the queen that she is. If I ever break her heart, then you can come break my bones
You can take anything and everything else away from me; just don't take Arianna away. Please. Don't do anything that will disturb this love that Arianna and I have discovered. It's a pity it took us this long to realise that we are madly in love with each other; yet the belief that we were brother and sister made us continue acting as siblings.
We are not siblings. Arianna is not my sister. I am not Arianna's brother. We just happened to be raised as siblings; spending too much time together as brother and sister, but along the way we became friends; and our friendship blossomed into love. I fell in love with your sister, Dylan. You have to accept that. I am in love with her, and if you will not accept it, then I am sorry, Dylan. I love you a lot as a brother, I love you a lot as a friend. But if it means I will have to leave Arianna, then maybe it's best that we call it quits; that chapter of our friendship may be closed now. They were great chapters. Never to be forgotten. But I have opened a new chapter now; and Arianna is in that chapter. I have no intention of removing her. It's either you join us in that chapter; you are more than welcome; or if you choose to walk out, as painful as it is to me, I have no option but to bid you farewell.
You and I have moved from being friends to becoming brothers. I hope one day we will move from being brothers to becoming brothers-in-law. I am in love with Arianna. She is my world, my everything. Please Dylan, allow me to experience what it means to be in love. With Arianna.
Pete