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Letter Series
By carpesomediem
The Letter Just Sits There
The letter mocks me with a certain air of defiance. There's no reason it should still sit there, but it does, and no matter how many times I enter her room with a reason to set it a flame with the lighter I always bring with me, I just can't torch it.
I just can't, and as much as it kills me to admit it, secretly, I could never bring any harm to that letter. It would be like hurting her, and she's already been hurt enough.
She's laying there in that hospital bed. It should be me. It should be Nicole. It should be anybody but her. She doesn't deserve this. She never did. Nevertheless, she's lying there in that hospital bed all alone, because she hasn't woken up, yet… and it's been four months.
Four months since I wrote that letter… that letter that now sits emptily on her desk amidst pictures, unfinished chemistry assignments, and hair products. It's a disgustingly sick tribute almost, considering a half consumed Diet Coke also sits on that desk. Nobody's had the heart to clean off the desk and wipe away the dust bunnies gathered as time goes ever on day-after-day without so much as a care in the world as her life wastes away.
I remember when I wrote the letter, the day before junior prom, the day before Harrison made his choice. It wasn't his fault that this had happened; sometimes I think it's solely my fault. If I would've just given her the letter instead of carefully placing it on her desk right before we left the Palace for the restaurant that night so that she would find it the next day when she arrived home exhausted from a night of dancing and partying.
Sitting in my bed, I thought carefully how I would tell her how I felt. Then, it just came to me, and I started writing with a fervor I'd never known in my life.
There's something you need to know. I've never had the courage to tell you to your face for a million different reasons but tonight is different. Tonight, no matter who Harrison chooses, I know in my heart that it'll be the wrong choice. I know now that there's only one person in this world that I love more than life itself, and that's you. It's always been you. It could be nobody but you. You just need to know that. I love you. I've always loved you. And I just thought you should know.
Now, she lies in her bed at the hospital oblivious to the world as she lies in her coma, because she never went to prom and she never came home to read my letter.
So, for now, I'll just visit the letter everyday before I go to bed. Just like I visit her everyday at the hospital before school. Until she comes home, reads the letter, and says, "I love you, too, Sam."
The Letter in My Purse
The letter just sits there in my purse. It just sits there, crushed by the weight of the tire that ran over it along with my cell phone, driver's license, and my favorite compact complete with mirror. The glass probably shattered into the letter, cutting up the sentences ever so slightly.
I'm sure she'd notice if she read it that that's what the glass did. But, she'll never find it. It's in county lock-up along with Nicole Julian, the one that hit me, never to see the light of day again. It's probably gathering dust in some evidence box that won't even be used at trial.
The police just took the purse away, I didn't see it, but I've seen enough Law and Order to know that's what they do. That's what they always do. They take away important things from people when a crime's been committed to stash in some white cardboard box on a metal shelf stacked miles high with other boxes labeled with some obscure date a crime.
Mine: Hit and run - May 2001.
That's where the letter will remain, until the end of time or a fire sweeps away the police station and destroys all the evidence. Who knows? Nicole might be deranged enough to torch the place herself, who knows? I thought she was my friend…
And now because of my friend, she'll never read my letter, the letter that took me months to compose, because I couldn't find the right words to say what I so desperately needed to say to her. Then, slowly, it just became simply what it was and what it needed to be.
I wish I had the words to tell you what I need to say. You say the simplest things so beautifully that sometimes I just wish all I could hear are you. Today I want you to hear me in the only words I know how to say what I need to say: I love you. I love you.
She'll never get to see it. She'll never get to read it. She'll never get to hold it in her hands, unfold it, and read it. I was going to give it to her before Harrison arrived at the restaurant to make his choice, because I didn't want him to pick me and I didn't want him to pick her, and her smile and be bathed in happiness, because it would've killed me.
All I wanted was for her to read the letter, take my hand, and say, "I love you, Brooke, I love you, too," before whisking me to prom to dance the night away.
The End