Dear X,
It turns out it wasn't your mom that called. That was a prank by some person from your town. She's dead. Everyone's dead. There was a fire in your house a couple weeks ago and everything burned with you in it. You didn't hang yourself. Your sister called and told me the last time I wrote, she was the only one that survived. I'm sorry for being mad at you, you didn't mean to die. It doesn't matter anymore. You're still dead. I miss you I guess. Things have been lonely without you. I haven't decided if I wanted you dead or not, but I knew from the second I found out I wasn't going to the funeral. I don't like big rooms with crying people, and the whole process just bores me. I don't want a funeral, just burn me and throw away the ashes. It's not like I mattered.
I live every day with the fear that everyone hates me and they're all lying. I'm scared they see me as useless, and that when they leave it's because they finally saw me as I see myself. I wish I was perfect like my friends. I don't really fit in with them, they all know it. I'm just there. I don't like being different. I don't like being sad all the time. I don't like feeling disgusting every time I eat and throw it back up. I'm tired of never being good enough for anyone, I'm tired of being compared to everybody. I'm tired of trying my hardest but being told that my best isn't worth anything, that even though I care so much I'm constantly being accused of not. No one notices that I care more about everyone than they do me. If you asked me, "Do you care about (insert close friend's name here)?" I probably wouldn't say much other than 'yeah'. I promise you that my friends mean the entire world to me and they don't know it.
I would tell you about how nothing is right and I feel like dying, but I'm too numb to care. I need to go smoke some more, but I'm out of cigarettes and I don't want my cousins seeing me. They deserve more than me. They should've chosen my older cousin to be a role model, not me. She's athletic, smart, and everything I'm not. The oldest who's six said she want to be just like me. I didn't know how to tell her that she's already throwing her life away.
-Casely
