Color Me Pretty

cookies again.

It takes me four days to craft the letter to my family and two more to get up the guts to mail the damn thing. I just wrote one, addressed to them all, and I did it with my eyes closed and my skin bare. I sat outside on the back patio and wrote with moonlight bathing my skin. When Emmett came home and caught me there, I was embarrassed, but I think he understood. Sometimes, in our search for strength and spirituality, we do strange things.
    “Do you need to read it again?” he asks me, sliding his sweaty body onto the stool next to mine. We're sitting at the breakfast bar in our home – our home because I absolutely, one hundred percent feel like I live here now – and trying to recover from the three mile jog we just destroyed. I don't know why it never occurred to me before, but being skinny and being healthy aren't exactly synonymous. I feel so much better now, and I look better, too. I'm actually starting to get lines on my belly, not big ones but marks, badges if you will, signs that underneath my pale flesh, there are muscles. I like that. Oh, and I look damn good in a bathing suit, too. I can't wait until my boobs grow back. They're getting there for sure, but I have yet to fit anything bigger than a size A.
    “I don't know,” I say, wiping a hand down my forehead and glancing at the other set of letters that sit next to my elbow. One for Leanne and one for Jenn. I miss them, too, and I can't even imagine planning a wedding without them by my side. Plus, I'm pretty sure that once they get to know Kylie, they'll drag her into our little group and she'll never be able to escape.
    I smile. Frown. Unfold the letter one last time before I stick it in the envelope.
    Mom, Dad, Marlena,
    I'm writing you because it's easier to say what I need to say in ink than it would be in sound waves. I know I have a big mouth sometimes, and I don't trust myself to get out what needs to get out because, well, let's be honest: we all have big mouths. But we have big hearts, too.
    I miss you guys.
    Here's what you have to understand, what I'm just starting to understand myself: this was nobody's fault. Sometimes people are born with a bit of pain inside of them and sometimes that pain grows and morphs, changes, becomes something bigger than we are and tries to consume us. I am not alone, and I am not the only person who has suffered through this, but I am one of the ones who's going to come out the other side.
    And I did it because I had Emmett. He was there for me all along, and he knew what I needed. He was helping guide me to choices that would save me in the long run. Yes, a feeding tube may have fattened me up, but it would not have rescued my spirit. So please understand that I did not mean to kill myself and that I never truly wanted to die. What happened was an unfortunate accident, a series of mistakes spiraling down into one, intense moment where I lived or died. And I did die. I did. And then I was reborn and that makes everything okay again. When you lose your life and get it back in the same breath, you start to think differently.
    Here I am.
    I am Claire Simone, but I am not. I am her in all the best ways and some of the worst. I am still your daughter, your sister. I still love you. You still love me. I miss you. You miss me.
    I'm marrying Emmett Sinclair. He gave me a ring, his mother's ring, the only piece of her that he has left. I don't need your blessing, but I want it. And don't ever call him a pervert again. Emmett worshipped by body and he worshipped me because he could see past the shell and to the soul trapped inside. Marlena, you don't have to hire him back, but you should. Just know that.
    I've included a ticket for next month. It's for a good cause, supporting youth suffering from depression. Supporting other people like me. I know you don't like fashion shows, but there it is. If you want to talk, meet me there. If I see you, I'll know you're ready, and I'll be ready, too. If you're not there, then I'll wait until you're ready, but you'll have to come find me.
    I'm making the first move. Here it goes. I love you.
    Sincerely, Claire Simone-Sinclair.
    Emmett leans over and reads the letter with me, face soft and sober, very serious. Until he gets to the end and laughs. He always laughs when he reads that damn hyphen.
    “It's beautiful, baby,” he tells me, taking the letter from my fingers and folding it gently. He slips it in the envelope for me and passes it back over to wet with