Hi there —

I recently reached the amends stage of my 12-step anger management program, so I’m reaching out to people I’ve hurt and/or whose romantic lives I’m about to ruin for the next thirty years. You came to mind when I saw you lying on your bed, clutching your stuffed animal in a stupor after wrapping up Chapter XXXIV of Wuthering Heights. (You’re 12? What kind of merciless sadist gave you that to read?)

One thing I’ve learned in this program is how important it is to take responsibility for your actions, which, yeah, maybe I didn’t do when I died yelling “No regrets, bitches!” after I intergenerationally destroyed several members of the Yorkshire gentry out of rage, greed, jealousy, and pure vindictiveness in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. (It was quite well-executed though, wasn’t it?) So I’m owning my role in your henceforth totally distorted attitudes to romantic relationships and passing on a little wisdom I’ve gained while perfecting that dark tan I’m famous for down in the fifth—well, let’s be honest, basically all of the circles of Hell.

Can I take this rustic apparition of a chair? Thanks. The thing to keep in mind is that it’s not like the world is actually structured as a Manichean opposition between serene, orderly Civilization and wild, passionate Nature. Even if it were, just hypothetically, well, obviously you’d want to go for the first of those as a long-term prospect, amirite? I mean, even an emotionally delayed 12-year-old on the cusp of a life-defining erotic transition could understand that simple piece of advice. Go for the stable guy with the nice house, the personality of cold custard, and the tiny (does he even have one?) dick. I think we all made that perfectly clear back in 1847.

Hang on a second; I just need to remove this torn white linen blouse and use it to wipe the sweat off my impeccably sculpted and fiendishly hairy torso.

Wait, do you hear that scratching sound, sort of near the window? Hmm, I did order a raw animal carcass that I was planning to rip apart with my bare hands as a mid-afternoon snack, but usually they bring it around the front. Anyway, you get that it was basically a comedy, right? An ironic repurposing of the conventions of the Gothic novel? Like when I heard that Cathy had died and I howled like a savage beast and beat my head against that tree till blood streamed down my monstrous forehead and soaked my sinister brows and the very granite boulders of the moor trembled under the weight of my agony and sexual frustration… Funny, haha! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SWEET JESUS I’LL NEVER GET OVER THAT BOLD SAUCY INFERNAL WENCH so, yeah, like I was saying, it’s one long (very long) joke.

The other thing you’ve got to get a grip on is that if it’s a no, it’s a no. Even if you two have an otherworldly connection that’s like a demonic vortex of desire, death and destruction, if she’s insisting on choosing the other guy FOR TOTALLY INEXPLICABLE REASONS, OTHER THAN INANE SOCIAL CLIMBING AND WANTING TO FUCK WITH YOU—omg, Edgar Linton?!? EDGAR LINTON??!?!? Doesn’t it make you want to rip the loins out of your sniveling and ineffectual first-born child who you conceived as a cold-blooded act of revenge on… Or wait, was he my cousin? Or my nephew? I lose track… Excuse me, what was I saying? Ah, yes, I was saying that you have to accept her decision gracefully and move on.

What in Satan’s name is that damnable scratching noise?

As you may recall, I’ve had some issues with getting over my ex. There was that time I tried to break into her grave, and then that other time I tried to break into her grave, plus a series of grief-related diabolical machinations that we don’t really need to get into right now. What I’ve come to see is that she and I were caught up in a morbid fantasy of each other as twinned souls, alike as blades of heather whipp’d by the same violent gale, unchanging as the moor, turn’d ever inward, lock’d in eternal repetition, heedless, amidst our fev’rish passion, of the norms of conventional morality and the sickly march of human progress. That’s no foundation on which to establish a lifelong partnership where each party can draw on each other’s strengths in order to achieve authentic personal growth and contribute productively to society. (It’s hot, though, isn’t it? You’ve got to admit it’s hot.)

I’m going to go check on that window.

CATHY—CAN IT REALLY BE YOU, MY OWN DARLING, AT LAST? YOUR CHEEKS ARE SO PALE, YOUR HAIR SO FRENZIED! PHANTOM OR NO, CLUTCH ME WITH THINE ICY FINGERS, WRENCH MINE HEART FROM ITS BARREN CAVITY, TWIN IT WITH YOURS IN THE THANKLESS EARTH.

Ahem, lost myself for a little there. It’s a process. Going to head back to the Heights now for some light physical activity, meditation, and self-soothing, or just to light the whole place up in flames.

Sorry.

— Heathcliff