Before sending the letter, I prepared myself for all kinds of negative responses,or what I found likeliest: no response whatsoever.The only outcome that I didn't prepare myself for was the one that I then gota typed confession from Tom, full of disarming regret.As it turns out, he, too, had been imprisoned by silence.And this marked the start of an eight-year-long correspondence that God knows was never easy, but always honest.I relieved myself of the burdens that I'd wrongfully shouldered,and he, in turn, wholeheartedly owned up to what he'd done.Our written exchanges became a platform to dissect the consequences of that night,and they were everything from gut-wrenching to healing beyond words.And yet, it didn't bring about closure for me.Perhaps because the email format didn't feel personal enough,perhaps because it's easy to be brave when you're hiding behind a computer screen on the other side of the planet.But we'd begun a dialogue that I felt was necessary to explore to its fullest.So, after eight years of writing, and nearly 16 years after that dire night,I mustered the courage to propose a wild idea: that we'd meet up in person and face our past once and for all.
