I’m not one to speak ill of the dead, but right now, I’m angry with Christopher.
I am one to speak ill of the living though, and right now, I despise Jaxson.
They left me, not caring about any damage they’d leave behind.
After I read Christopher’s letter to Jax, I called my father.
Because sometimes, a girl needs her dad to assure her that everything will be okay. Sometimes, we need to be with the one man in the world who we know will handle us with the utmost gentleness and care. Which is why I was at my parents’ house when Jax texted me.
I wait on the porch, a thick sweater wrapped around me, until Jax’s headlights disappear into the night.
I walk into the living room to find my dad on the couch, nursing a glass of orange juice. It’s funny, watching him drink such juvenile drinks as if they hold alcohol.
My father glances at me with worry as I sit on the chair by him.
He opens his mouth, but I beat him to it. “Do you remember what was in the boxes that were thrown around my bedroom when you cleaned it up …” I pause to brace myself. “When you cleaned it up after Christopher killed himself?”
I rarely say those words in reference to what he did. The same with the word suicide. I tend to stick with when we lost Christopher or when Christopher left us.
He rests his drink on the coffee table, and his eyes flash with comfort. “Pictures of you and your friends, notebooks, yearbooks, stuff along those lines. Why?”
I drag my knees to my chest. “My diary was in one of those boxes, and Christopher read it.”
My heart thrums in my chest, and I take a deep breath before telling my father everything.
My father gathers me in his arms as I sob and kisses the top of my head. “I lost a girlfriend in high school,” he says when I’m finished, his voice soft-spoken.
I draw back and blink away tears to stare at him. “What?”
My father isn’t a sharer. He keeps his emotions to a minimum and hardly mentions his teenage years. I once asked him if he’d even attended high school since he never talked about it. He paled, and my mother told me not to ask that again.
He swallows and grows unusually quiet for a moment before going on, “Her brother was my best friend, so we were sneaking around. He was drunk when he found out, and it ended in them both dying in a car accident.” There’s a sadness in his voice that I recognize. “The circumstances aren’t the same, but I understand how hard it is, pointing the guilty finger at yourself in a situation like this. I struggled for years, and like you and Jax, I lived as if I wasn’t deserving of happiness. I hate seeing you hurt like this. It breaks my heart, seeing you experience so much of the pain I felt. And I might still be in that sorrow had your mother not dragged me out of it. Give yourself time. Give Jax time. You don’t have to be together in the end, but you need to find happiness.”
And for what seems like the first time, other than when my younger sister was born, my father’s eyes well with tears.
He blows out a breath. “Now, come on. I paid off a cook at Shirley’s Diner for their hot chocolate recipe. I think tonight calls for one.”
I stare at the envelope with my name written on it.
This small object scares me, and my heart races as if I were watching a scary movie and waiting for the murderer to jump out. I know it’s coming, but I don’t know when or how.
I have to do this.
It needs to be done.
Sitting on my bed in the room I grew up in, a framed photo of Christopher and me on my nightstand, I rip the envelope open.
Amelia,
I want to start this letter off by apologizing for the pain I’ve caused. I’m not sure how I caused it yet, but I know, no matter what, you will be the most wrecked from losing me.
So many times, I lay next to you in bed and wonder how I deserve you. The answer is, I don’t. I was the loner, the practically homeless and poor kid living with his friend’s parents, but you still love me. You love me when I thought I’d never be loved.
But you also don’t know all of me. I hide so much, in fear that I’ll be too much for you to handle.
Three years ago, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It was that time you insisted I seek counseling because I was having one of my low moments. I told you I talked to them, but I never told you what they said. I took my medication and was proud of myself for how well I was handling it while hiding it from everyone.
Then, Corey died.
I don’t know why it hit me so hard, but all I could think about was him begging me not to leave with Jax and Maliki and me selfishly walking away from him. He had been going through the same hell as me, and it’d probably gotten worse after I left.
My brother didn’t have an Amelia, a Jax, a Sierra, or a Maliki. All he had were the people who’d done nothing but hurt him. I had been happy while he was suffering.
So, I stopped taking my medicine. You noticed the change in me. I saw it, and I feared it, but I couldn’t fix it.
I went and saw my mother yesterday. I don’t know why. She hasn’t changed and made sure to tell me that you’d never love me for me, for the trash that I was. Later that same day, when I came home, you asked to postpone our wedding.
It was as if she’d spoken the truth.
I’ve thought about dying since I was six years old. I don’t know why either. It’s just always been there, like a monster lurking in the shadows. When I shave, sometimes, I look at the blade and consider slitting my wrists. There are times I’m driving, and I wonder if I should drive off a bridge. It’s always there, in the back of my mind, teasing me, like Mick did all those years.
I could tell you. I should tell you. You’d do everything that you could to help me, but no one can help me. Not even the prettiest girl I’ve ever set eyes on, the one who has given me years of happiness I never thought I’d get and the one who isn’t ready to marry me.
I don’t blame you either.
A man who wants to kill himself isn’t a man anyone should marry.
And I am a man who wants to kill himself, and I don’t know how much longer I can keep that monster in the shadows.
I love you.
Christopher
I cover my nose and mouth to choke back tears, and my hand holding the letter falls limp, the piece of paper hanging loosely, not feeling as heavy as the words scribbled along its lines.
Christopher’s letter confuses me. There are parts that make so much sense as I think back on our relationship. The change in behavior I thought was due to stress and his past. When he went to a therapist, he said it felt good to talk it out, and that was it. I asked him if he wanted to talk with me, but the more distant he became, the less he shared with me. It was almost like he became a stranger.
The part I don’t understand is, why Jax and not me?
Where was the anger and the accusations that were in Jax’s letter?
Jax and I had done the same thing, so why did he point all the blame at Jax?
I want to call Jax, crawl into his bed, and have him hold me. I need his comfort now more than ever, but that’s no longer an option. I’m stuck in this bedroom, crying over two men who did nothing but break me.
I wake up with Christopher’s letter in my hand.
Then, I walk into the kitchen, hug my mother, and tell my parents, “I think it’s time for me to go home.”
They drive me home and hug me good-bye. My mother asks if I want them to come in and spend some time with me. I thank them but say I need a minute to myself.
I walk into my home with a sense of dread, but I know it has to be done.
And with a deep breath, I enter my bedroom.
I walk in and I force myself not to run out.