𝐈 𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔, sokeefe

love, foster

Dear Keefe,

It's been a long time, hasn't it? A long time since I heard your voice. A long time since I saw your smirk.

Do you even care anymore?

I know you used to. I know you'd go out of your own way to make me laugh. Even when I was with someone else, even when you knew you were the only one you made me happy, you said nothing.

You did nothing.

You just waited and waited and waited.

Until you just had enough one day.

Until you had waited long enough.

Can't you see that I need you? I need you back, Keefe. I don't care how long it's been. I still sit down every day and write to you, with some tiny, slightly crazy part of me hoping you just might leave me another letter.

Why did you give up?

Can't you see how much it broke me? How much it broke all of us?

You were a fighter. You were stubborn. You were so many things.

You were so much to me.

More than I managed to tell you.

Why couldn't you ever see that I cared? We all cared, Keefe. You mattered.

How was I so blind for so long? How did I let it slip through my fingers?

In more ways than one.

And it's never going to go back to normal now.

Nothing will ever be the same.

Ro visited yesterday. It's not quite the same now that she's back at Ravagog, but she still comes around from time to time. We talked about you, you know. She cared too. She always did care, she told me. She wishes she'd told you sooner.

Our friends...well, they won't be the same without you either.

And you don't have any idea how much you've hurt me by letting me care.

That's the thing about this world. It's cruel.

You don't know how much it hurts to care until you actually do.

It was cruel to take you away from me.

Why were you born into a family that didn't deserve you? Why did you let them think you aren't worth the time or care?

I wish you could actually answer these questions, Keefe. I wish you hadn't had to make the sacrifice.

Am I going crazy? Why can't I just leave this alone? Why do I continuously move like an automaton during the day and tromp up during the night to write these letters to you—letters you'll never read?

If you were here, you would have wiped my tears and given me a safe place. Somewhere I could cry and scream without people judging me, without facing the scorn of the world.

But...even though you'll never see this, I want you to know one thing.

You're worth it, Keefe. You're worth every tear I've shed and ever scream I let out—worth being trapped in the madness of my thoughts for.

Maybe I'll write to you forever.

Maybe, just maybe, one day I'll see you again.

Maybe then I can show you these letters.

Because they're the only way I can talk to you anymore.

And once I write until my hand cramps, I talk to your portrait. I tell you about my day, and I swear I can imagine you making jokes and assuring me and comforting me like you used to.

And I will see you again.

No matter how many people tell me it's impossible and give me their condolences and sympathetic stares, I know you'll come back. You always do. You can never stay away, especially from me.

You already came back twice. You will come back.

You will. You won't leave me hanging.

I'll be waiting, Keefe.

Love,

Foster