"I swear, if I'm dying tonight because of you, I'm gonna haunt your ass so hard, Harrington!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah! I'm gonna go full Poltergeist and shit!"
"Then bring it, Graveswood."
"Challenge accepted."
***
In which after years of suppressing their...
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Chapter One-Hundred-And-Sixty-Nine: Two Days Later
(The Piggyback, Pt. 9)
***
'Dear Rowan,
I have so much to say about you, what knowing you has done for me, but I don't have a lot of time, and even if I had more time, I couldn't say it all without this being like, twenty pages or so long. So, I'm just gonna... say the most important stuff.
The first time I saw you was that moment Billy almost hit you with his stupid car and you screamed at him for it. And in that moment, I was shocked because I never saw a girl stand up to him before or not be... completely, sickeningly in love with him. And it felt... satisfying, to see a girl yell at him and slap him, to see that maybe I might do that too. And I kept hearing about you—from Billy, from Al—until I actually met you, and I saw you were just as awesome and badass as from what I heard about you and when I saw you that first time. And then, in the car ride, I saw you were also kind and caring, and how you loved Al and your aunt so much, and how you all loved each other. How I saw what a real older sibling should be like, what a real brother and sister, a real family, should be like.
And then, the junkyard. And you kept acting like that—cool, caring, and protective. Maybe violent, but I didn't care because again, I felt like that's what an older sibling should really be like. And when monsters and people with superpowers were real, including you and Al, when you and Steve protected us, and when you slammed Billy's face into the floor and you threatened him after you broke his nose a day ago, you just became even more awesome in my eyes. More than that, you became my fucking role model.
You're my role model, Rowan. My role model, and my sister—the sister I wished I had, the sister I'm so glad I had with you, the sister I chose. That moment back in Starcourt when you said I was like your sister, that you also chose me as your sister... I never felt so happy in my life. So... so loved. You made me feel like a family was possible, with you and Al and Aco. That... that I could have this, the older sibling, that I didn't with Billy. And I am never more happy—or more grateful—than I am with that.
I hope you find a way to break this curse, but I know that isn't possible. Even now, I can feel Vecna, I can feel that asshole's curse, I can hear that stupid clock. I don't know if... if I'll be dead when you come back from Pennhurst or I'll live just long enough that I can actually say goodbye, but if I can't, then I'll say it now, in here.
Goodbye, Rowan. Goodbye, and thank you, for being so awesome, badass and cool, for being my role model and for being the sister I've never had, the sister I chose.
Love, the sister you also chose,
Max. '
Rowan stared at the letter, reading it for the fifth time again. And just like the first time, tears sprung to her eyes as she looked up from the letter, closing it so no tears could smear the words written on the paper. Even though Rowan had memorised them, had imprinted them onto her heart, she refused to let anything mar these words, the last words Max had written, her final goodbye to Rowan.
