Eighteen Letters To Juan Karlos •COMPLETED•

The Tenth Letter

"The rising sun too bright in her losing eyes." - An Imperial Affliction, The Fault In Our Stars

It was chucking it down. The force of the rain was so strong that it actually hurt. Juan Karlos could have sworn it was going to pierce his skin, icy arrows raining down from above. His T-shirt was soaked, and all four of them, including the two girls, were dripping onto the tour bus carpet.

"Want hot chocolate, JK?" Darren's voice rung out over he bus. He was standing, stooped over the hot drinks machine they had, pressing random buttons. "JK?"

Juan Karlos dropped his gaze, unable to look at him, and ran back to his bunk, stripping off as quickly as he possibly could and putting on a jumper. He was anxious. Darren was acting so, so worried about him and that made the cebuano boy worried because if Darren was worried about him, then that must mean he knew something. Right? JK didn't even know himself what was going on in his mind lately because Addie's letters kept messing with his head, and he was always paranoid someone was going to find out.

Find out what, he didn't know. Find out about the letters? Find out that he was falling in love with a girl just from the power of her words? He wasn't falling in love with her. Right?

Maybe it was just some instinct inside him that made him want to protect the brown-eyed girl, maybe it was something else. All that he knew was that when he curled up into his bunk and opened the tenth letter, he felt like he knew Addie better than he knew anyone else.

Dear Juan Karlos,

It's raining.

It's the kind of rain that makes you think of flash floods and Noah's Ark, make you want to crawl back to bed under the sheets where it's still warm, and safe. It's loud and noisy rain, and it's one of those days where everyone sits around playing card games by the fire and has picnics under makeshift tents made out of blankets and chairs. And maybe if you hear thunder, everyone will count until the lightning reaches and get excited because the lightning is getting closer every time. Which is pretty stupid, because why would you be excited that the lightning is getting closer? Surely you should be scared?

He nearly laughed, it was so absurd. The odds of reading the letter at the same time as the current weather situation was practically impossible and Addie's words were accompanied by Lyca & Darlene's childish counting of 'one, two, three', and Darren's yells of 'we're all going to be electrocuted!' He almost felt a connection with her, because it was raining when she wrote it.

But no, the chances of getting hit by lightning are a million to one. That's the sort of thing that you'll hear about on the news or something and you'll feel bad, but at the same time relieved because thank god it wasn't you.

Juan Karlos swallowed his laughter. She was right, and there was no other way of going on about it.

Kid of like cancer, really. You don't expect it to be you. No one does. But the fact is, people get cancer everyday, and that's the way it's always going to be and though we know this, we still are blissfully ignorant about the whole thing.

I don't know, I used to think it was actually a punishment for me because of what an awful sister I was to her. I know that it wasn't, that whatever I did was never going to stop that moment when she was diagnosed.

Though I definitely blame myself for her death.

She died. Camille died. Poor Addie, JK thought, because it was clear that though the girl had only mentioned her a couple of times, Camille used to be one of the people who she kept close to her heart.

Chain reaction, really. My actions caused an event and that event led to her death. That was used to be my motto, kind of, despite millions of people, thousands of the therapists, physciatrists, social workers all saying the same thing. None of this is your fault.

No, it can't be your fault.

Camille was diagnosed that day with acute promyelocytic leukemia.

She died five years later.

Oh god, I need to stop. My eyes are filling up with tears now. I'm sorry, Juan Karlos. Till next time. I love you.

Lots of love,
Addie

Right after that's JK felt the sympathy for Addie again. And throughout the thunder and lightning, he prayed that Addie was okay.

Sadly, that was not the case.