𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐲 𝐔𝐬 𝐀𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞 ; ᴹᶦᵏᵉ ᵂʰᵉᵉˡᵉʳ

Dear Alex

Max went her own way to read her safe letter to Billy in private. Ian, however, had to walk down the hill for a bit in search of his sister's grave.

He had never visited it before. He was much too scared.

But now, here he was, standing in front of it, just out of view of Lucas, Steve, and Dustin. He decided to man up and talk to Alex while Max was talking to Billy, taking this as his only opportunity to do so.

He sits on his knees in front of her grave, his hands trembling. He opens up the piece of notebook paper, his messy handwriting covering the page in half-legible words. He fails to make any noise at first, skimming over it, but he's able to conjur the voice he needed.

"Hi, Alex. I miss you. I miss you a lot, more than you could imagine. I took you for granted, and I regret it so much. I wish you were still here. I always fantasized about doing sibling things with you, like eating ice cream and going on road trips, what normal siblings did. I'm sorry. I always yelled at you and made you miserable. It was always my fault. I don't know why I blamed you."

He lightly sighs, feeling tears pricking his eyes.

"You were sixteen stuck with a twelve year old brother who wanted nothing to do with you. Nothing I can say can make up for everything I did to you. And don't think I'm gonna say you were never in the wrong because Robin was more of a sister to me than you ever will be. You saw me as a burden, which was why I left. And nothing you said before you died will ever make me forgive you now."

He stops himself for a moment, realizing how out of order this whole thing was. He contradicted himself a lot, it seemed.

"I'll never not hate you, yet I still find somewhere deep down to love you. You brought me around people who wanted to hurt me, even Billy, after he tried to run me over in his stupid blue Camaro. You couldn't even do the bare minimum for me, I would go to school starving most days, and I had to wear dad's old clothes, which still to this day reek of beer and cigarettes. You weren't a sister until the very end, like you were planning on dying and wanted to try and make ammends, so I'd miss you. I do miss you, but I miss the daydreaming and thinking I'd have a chance to be a normal family with you."

He crumples up the paper, his words coming from the heart now. He throws it a few feet away, not wanting to look at it as he stands up.

"I'm done pretending to miss you. I miss what I thought I had. I made up a fake version of you to cope with the fact that you couldn't care less about me. I have a real family now, and I'm glad you're not here to fuck it up this time. I apologize for my tween attitude, but that doesn't mean it wasn't deserved. You berated and bullied me, like I wasn't your brother. I fucking hate you. I hate myself for even thinking about missing you. I hope you're rotting in Hell, it's the best place for you. Don't think I forgot about the letters talking about selling me or giving me up. I will never forget everything you did to me. You couldn't even find a better reason to hate me other than being a fag, being a nerd, or beinf your brother."

He breathes shakily, his words becoming more and more slurred as he goes on.

"I dreaded the thought of coming here, and standing here now, I still stand on that. I wish I gave you up long before summer when you died, it would've saved me a lot of hurt and having to talk to Ms. Kelley." He looks down at his arms, cuts and scars covering him. "I still love you though. Maybe my heart won't be so cold next time I see you, if even. Just know I think about you far much more than I should, and I wish we could've been real family. Bye."

He turns around, back facing the grave as he was going to take the road back up to the group, not wanting to slide down the hill a million times as it was so steep. He grabs the crumpled paper and stuffs it in his pocket, looking back up to see Alex down at the road a few feet away.