Dear Hannibal,

I am sorry I missed our appointment. I was supposed to come and visit you, to discuss the evolution of the Great Red Dragon case, and I never showed up.
I am sorry I left you waiting for me.

I had some therapy sessions with Dr. Du Maurier. She's the only one who's ever known you for real, the one who's been with you behind the veil, as she once told me herself, the only one who's ever truly seen through you and, as a consequence of my becoming some sort of reflection and projection of you, through me. 
She sees us. She knows how deep and twisted and intimate our bond is. She understands it better than anyone,at least far better than I ever have, or ever will.
So I talked to her, and it was illuminating. I talked to her honestly. About my nightmares, about my fears and my desires, about you, and about us.
And suddenly a question hit me. 
A question that, I realize now, had been hiding somewhere in me forever, quietly waiting to be released and spoken out loud, a question I had never had the courage to ask anyone, especially not myself. I don't know what let it out, what brought me, in that particular moment, to ask her. But I did.
She answered the way she always did: articulatly, but at the same time honestly, directly, brutally even. 
And to my surprise, that answer sounded so familiar, so known, I wasn't surprised at all: it felt just like remembering something deep down you have always known. It came to me like an old memory I was unaware to have kept, or maybe like one of those I hoped I had forgotten. That answer caressed my ear like one of those old melodies you can't quite recall where you've heard and that yet you still know by heart.
I realized it had been hiding somewhere in me forever just like the question, only maybe hidden a little deeper. 
Thing is, I couldn't go back. At that point, I could not pretend that I hadn't heard what was now clearly stuck in my head and was probably going to be there forever. That question, and its answer, were a turning point. There was no going back from a thing like that. 
Why did I ask that damn question? What was the point of it, what was I hoping to find? And what was that feeling inside me? Was it pain? Was it happiness? Was it shock? No, definitely not shock.
I still don't really know what happened next, what mental process started in me in the following moments. I was scared. That's what I can tell. I was terrified that the answer Bedelia gave me would turn out to be all I had been looking for every day of my confused, painful, broken, shattered life. 
I couldn't bear the burdain that came with knowledge, the weight that accompanied the realization of another horryfing truth, a truth even more disturbing than the one Bedelia had helped me find: in a very twisted and inexplicable way, in my own way, I loved you too.

Dear Hannibal, I wish we had run away, that night, you and me.
I wish you had shown me that place you had made for us, a place where we could finally disappear from the world, a timeless place just made of our silent complicity, built entirely on our everlasting conversations and our eloquent looks, and where the air is filled only by the music of your piano and the hypnotic sound of your voice.
I wish our child were still alive, and free of our wrong intoxicating love. 
I wish I had done so many things differently. I wish I were different, and I wish you were too.
But you and I both know: time cannot be reversed.
As much as we tried to gather the pieces back together again, our efforts were doomed from the very beginning, and destined to remain vain: our teacup had been broken for a long time, it broke on that rainy night, on the floor of your kitchen, years ago.
I broke it.

My dearest Hannibal, I am so sorry I missed our appointment.
I was supposed to come and visit you, to discuss the evolution of the Great Red Dragon case, and I never showed up. 
I am sorry I left you waiting for me, all those years ago.

I asked Jack and Alana never to give you any information about me, about my disappearence, and they know very little themselves: I just left a note saying goodbye, wishing them the closest thing to happiness that people like us are allowed to reach, peace.
I hope you have found peace too. 
I never have.

It's been almost thirty years and I still feel the need to caress the scar on my stomach to feel close to you again and, sometimes, I can almost forget all the wrinkles on my face when I put my own hand on it, my eyes closed, pretending it's yours.


Still and forever yours,

Will