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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 he had stuffed in his pocket, 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 conjure 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 do. I'm sorry. I always yelled at you and made you miserable. It was always my fault. I-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 amends, 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 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 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 being your brother."
