Dear Mr. President,

You are completely right. I guess I didn’t think about all that. I’d never be able to do something like that to Isabelle. Your sister Brea sounds a lot like her, actually. They’re both really smart for their age, even though Izzy is only six. I think she must have gotten that from her mom, because my mom was never very bright. You can’t be too smart if you think cheating with a married woman is a good idea. But anyways, Izzy’s smart enough that she might be able to understand why I’d leave a situation like that. Whether she understood or not, I don’t think she’d handle anything like that very well.

Hell, I don’t even know if I could handle anything like that very well. The situation you’re in or the leaving part, really. Both would be super hard things to go through. Leaving Isabelle in any situation like that would just about kill me, even if nothing bad was happening to her. It’d just be too scary to leave her like that. I know where you’re coming from, because all I’d want to do would be to protect her, and I couldn’t do that if I left. So okay, you got me on that one. And I get it now. I definitely understand why you’re staying there after all that.

I don’t know why you think I’m so crazy though. I really think you’re a good writer. I mean, obviously there are way better writers out there, but you’re pretty damned good for being in high school. But what’s so different about being a good writer and doing well on assignments? They both take skills at writing, don’t they? I think honestly that you’re just having a hard time taking a compliment. You don’t really want to believe it, do you? That’s why you’re being so defensive about this.

But come on, I’ve seen you scratching things out in that little notebook of yours in class. You’re not just doodling in that. I can see that you’re writing; I just don’t know what. I bet you do write for yourself, like outside of writing assignments. What are you writing in that thing? Stories? Poems? Music? Maybe fan-fiction? I’m really curious on this; I’d really like to read some of your work. I don’t care what it is or how shitty you may think it is – and I’m sure it’s not. I am really interesting in reading some of it.

What d’ya say to that?

Sincerely,
Rae