The Letter

I found a letter tucked inside a book on my shelf.
One I hadn't seen before.Someone else had put it there when I lived in another house and I'd taken the book with me, not knowing.
The letter was from my landlord. To someone crazy I was caring for.
The crazy person and me were in a lot of trouble. The landlord wanted his house back, and he had brought in solicitors; he was serving notice.
He'd offered us purchase of the property. I didn't know this.
The letter said I'd blown it by walking away from the deal.
"Bruce's attitude makes that impossible," he said. My attitude. Unknowing, ignorant of all.
It was the house where I'd looked after my mother. The house where my mother had died one terrible summer morning.
The landlord said the crazy person's last letter was "unpleasant".
The landlord said we would be financially liable for damages to the house.
The landlord was a good guy. We'd exploited his kindness for a long time, though it didn't look that way to us then.
I can't quite remember where my head was back then.
Except this other person was crazy.
Living solely off my income. But freaking out if I worked.
Covering the appliances in bubble wrap.
Leaving loose leaves of paper all over the house with abuse of me scrawled all over it, the good parts underlined, in capitals, with three exclamation marks .
I can remember I put a heavy box in front of my bedroom door every night, fearing she'd come in and kill me.
That she told me the landlord had sexually abused her. That he'd raped her and touched her with his cock every time he got near her.
I was so fucked up I barely held down my job.
I had the definite feeling that the end might be coming.
When I reread that letter last night, all the fear, the confusion, the depression, of that time returned.
I wanted to get drunk.
I wanted to go to sleep and turn off my head.
I tore up the letter and buried it as deep as I could in the bin.
I don't want to remember that shit ever again.