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A Letter
The following is an email that I was supposed to send my father. I wrote it up last night. It's all my feelings. Please don't steal it.
Hey, Dad. Here I am again, sending you another foolish email. I should know better, considering last year’s episode. That’s not something I want to repeat under any circumstances.
But right now, my urge to write you has become so strong that I cannot deny it. And alongside that urge is the desire to talk to Kevin again.
Now you may be thinking, “Oh, it’s another email saying ‘Let me just talk to him please, and I’ll do whatever you want.’” No, this is different. I’m not going to ask you if I can talk to him. I’m going to tell you why I want to so badly.
Before you stepped in, I’d been talking to this person nearly every day for three months. It had become a part of my routine. If I was able to, I would get online and talk to him about anything and everything at all: school, friends, homework, teachers, movies, video games, the weather, writing, science, racism; anything you can think of, we’ve probably talked about. And it had become such a large part of my life that I was sure that once you had taken that away, I wouldn’t be me. I would be hurting so much to the point where I would collapse. Call me in denial if you will. But I really thought that.
I now see that I was wrong. I am able to live without him. But it’s not the life I would have chosen if I had the opportunity.
You see, every night before I go to bed, all my thoughts are for him. I wonder if he’s okay. I saw that there’s a hurricane heading his way, and I wonder constantly if he’s getting hit by it. If anything happened to him, I’m not sure what would happen to me. But I know I would be hurt. So I have to wonder. I hope he’s coping with life without “his love,” me. But I can’t ever know for sure.
It’s a little odd that I would want to talk to someone as depressed and sad as him, I know, but I know a side of him (as small and insignificant it may be) that’s not depressed, that still listens to the voice of reason occasionally, that enables him to be a good person. Sure, he may have tricked me into thinking he was dead for a minute or two, but that good side of him apologized and tried to make it all better.
And that good side of him is missing me. And I miss it. And you're right, when we're talking online we're only talking in one dimension. I only know him one way, really. I've heard his voice, but it doesn't let me know him any better.
I’m just rambling on, but I really miss him. It’s almost as bad as if you suddenly told me I couldn’t talk to Nicole or Julia or Eleanor. I considered Kevin to be one of my best friends, despite our rough times. And I was hoping to be able to talk to him for a while.
It’s completely irrelevant, but might I let you inside my head for a while? Recently, I’ve felt a little heavier than normal. I’m not talking about weight. I’m talking about mental burdens. I think I know why I feel that way. I haven’t cried, really, since…I don’t know when. There hasn’t been a time in the past year when I haven’t sucked it up and acted brave. And I just want to let it out. I just want to close my door, get a box of Tissues, lay back, and cry. But I can’t. And I don’t know why.
It bothers me that even after so much has happened to me and my friends, I can’t shed a tear for them. Julia’s friend passes away. Well that’s nice, I cry because Julia’s depressed and I can’t help her, but then I suck it up and pretend like it never happened. I find out that Nicole has had a past similar to Kevin’s, and I tear up just thinking about it, but then move on. I think of Kevin dying, and sure, it’s sad, but it doesn’t do anything to me. And that just feels…wrong.
The big question: do I love Kevin? Of course I do. As a friend, and no more. Just like I love Julia and Eleanor and Nicole. As friends. My life has been so much better because of all of them, Kevin included. And for that, he is a great friend.
How could that be, you ask? How could Kevin have changed my life for the better? Well, that’s a good question. He’s kept my brain alive with his science and math talk. He kept the Grammar Nazi in me on my toes. He’s provided an outlet for all my extra energy, and I can go to sleep knowing that I did some good in the world. However, if I just stop talking to him, then won’t all that good go to waste? He’ll slip back into depression, and he’ll try killing himself again, and he might succeed.
I don’t want that. If he does that, I can’t tell you what it’ll do to me. Maybe I’ll cry, but who knows?
Why won’t I move on? Because I don’t want to. I’ll never forget him, no matter what Mom (Sam) might say, and I’ll certainly miss him. He’ll always be on my mind. But I can only hope that he’ll forget about me.
That’s hypocrisy! Well, yes and no. I know that he’ll probably never get over me. We already know I can live without him, and I’m quite fine. But I’m worried about him. He needs to get over it. Sort of like, “Cry me a river, build me a bridge, and get over it.” Yes, that’ll do just fine for him.
But…I’ve hurt him. By not talking to him, I’ve removed his “ray of hope,” the only thing that can get him to be himself. Hurting people makes me sad. I don’t want to hurt people, especially not people I know and love. For instance, I would never intentionally hurt you. Not Sean, nor either of my moms, nor Julia, nor Nicole, nor Eleanor, nor anyone. Hurting people hurts me.
What hurts me more is this: knowing that I’ve done a wrong and I’m letting it go. I’m not doing anything about it. I’m just continuing to let it hurt people. It’s not right. I have to fix it. If I don’t, I’ll go crazy—well, crazier than I already am.
I don’t really know where I’m going with this. I’m not sure of much anymore. I was so sure that I would always be there to help Kevin with any of his problems, but I’m not. I was positive that not talking to him would hurt me, but it didn’t, at least not to the extent I had imagined. The one thing I’m absolutely sure will never change is that I am a protector. By nature, I will shield my loved ones from anything, with everything I’ve got. And I want to shield Kevin from not only the forces that made him depressed in the first place, but also from the two people who can hurt him most: me and him.
That’s why I sort of choke up whenever I talk about him and everything gets confusing. I’m unsure. I don’t really know anything about him. And I don’t have any proof that he is the nice, kind guy I say he is. So I just have to tread on thin ice—really, really thin ice—and hope it doesn’t break.
The bottom line is, I’m going against everything I am and believe in when I’m letting him go. I’m trying, really I am. But it’s so hard. I’ve never done it before, and I don’t want to do it ever again. I don’t want to continue hurting people anymore. He’s in no way hurting me. I’m the happiest person I know, and he’s the saddest person I know. If only I were able to bottle up some of my happiness and give it to him, so that his darkened life might have at least a little light in it.
I feel really bad for giving you a hard time about this. Why can’t I just give up and let go? I’ve been able to step back a little these days and see that it’s a better idea to just let him be. But I can’t find it in myself to do that. I may be really blind or something, but I know what I want and I know what he wants, and they are the same (to some extent). We want to talk to each other. It’s quite literally killing him, I’m sure. And I don’t want him to die, in any sense. I don’t want him gone in any way. I want him here, in my life, to be my friend. I could use some more, even if they aren't the happiest people on the planet.
I’m not quite sure what else to say. I could say a lot of things, reasons why it’s better for me to talk to him rather than not. Many of those have to do with sparing him pain, preventing him from killing himself. I want to be able to talk to him, make him feel necessary in this world, and when I’m positive that he’ll be good on his own, I’ll let him go and watch him fly (metaphorically).
But I hate endings. Maybe that’s why this is such a long letter?
After all this, I do know one thing for sure: I’m crazy. I’m sure you’ve noticed that, too. And all I have to say is this. Who really cares? I mean, does it really matter that one more person, an insignificant teenage girl, has gone insane? No! As long as I enjoy living, then that’s all that matters. I’m having a great time living life and being happy. And I want to help people who aren’t happy. I have to do something with all this extra joy I have.
I hope this document has shown you why I want to talk to him so badly. I don’t know what to do. But I’ll be quiet now. I’m sure I’ve bored you long enough.
With love,
Cherry
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