Page 10 of Rome for the Holidays
When the class was given the assignment to write to someone that lived in another country, Harper was excited.
She wanted to have a friend that lived far away.
That way, no one would ever judge her.
She wouldn’t meet them, but it was fun to pretend anyway.
She got a letter from a boy named Vincenzo and she immediately felt drawn to him.
Wishing her life was like his.
He had a loving family, siblings that he got to play with and a best friend.
She wrote back to him, never believing she would get a reply again.
But she did. And then she kept getting letters from him.
Every single week, sometimes more than once a week, she would get a letter from Vincenzo.
And she loved it. He was her only friend. Her lifeline to the outside world.
She was desperately in love with him and as the years passed, it was her dearest wish to leave her sad life behind and be with him.
She knew he would keep her safe and would love her.
Knew that he wouldn’t judge her for her stutter, even though she had never told him about it.
Choosing for once to be normal. She knew that it didn’t matter, that he would never meet her.
That thought hurt more than she wanted to admit.
Over the next few years, they wrote as much as they could.
She lived for his letters. They were the only things that kept her sane.
Her mother had only gotten worse as Harper got older, growing into her looks a bit and becoming prettier than her mom was.
She heard that every single day from the men her mom slept with, even though Harper tried to make herself scarce.
She didn’t like their lascivious looks her way, and though Saul still protected her at night, she knew he was getting older and wouldn’t always be around.
She didn’t tell Vincenzo any of this. Just that Saul kept her safe.
She knew he was worried, but he couldn’t do anything about it, so she learned what she could to keep herself safe because she didn’t want to end up like a lot of the girls she went to school with.
She heard enough stories and was grateful that she was invisible to everyone at school.
After all these years, no one spoke to her, not even the teachers.
The only person who ever even acknowledged her was the librarian at their school and the one at the local library.
Those two women were kind to her, loved her and even bought her small presents.
One of them even made certain that she had presents for Christmas because she knew enough of her story to know her mom didn’t care about whether or not her daughter got presents.
But, Mrs. Amos, or Rose as she asked to be called, wanted to let Harper know she was special.
It made Harper feel like someone, aside from Vincenzo, loved her.
