I Called You Mine

Haunted

Riley's POV

Emma's survey on life being meaningless led me to do my own research about my wishes that I was never born. Apparently it's called passive suicide, but is it really suicidal if I wish I was never born but I don't actively want to die? I knew that nobody in a pristine state of mind would say that, and of course a suicidal person would say it, but the suicidal person would want to die. I'm not living for others, not entirely, I have a will to live. I worry about Blake and Emma though because they seem a bit too invested in the whole life is pointless thing. Blake has openly admitted there were nights she didn't think she'd survive, and Emma was in a psych ward one (for three hours, but still, for suicidal thoughts.) I got bored spending my weekend without Blake so I briefly considered sending my dad a letter so his marriage will fall apart, vengeance for hurting my mom and never knowing me. However, I have not reached that level of pettiness yet. Sure, my bio dad was an asshole to me in his reply letter, but I give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't have the energy to give him my spite. I bookmark the idea though, could be a fun thing to do.

I am kind of haunted by the words he wrote to me. That he hated me, he stayed out of my life for a reason and how dare I threaten to ruin his life. I already ruined my mom's though, but she learned to love me enough that she doesn't regret having me. The thing I don't get though, is that he bothered to reply. He could've just pretended he was dead and I wouldn't know the difference. He clearly let all that build up, and he's a grown man. He's like, thirty years old. He has a wife and a child he is going to raise, but he still lashed out at his biological daughter from a teenage fling in 2009. You know what, maybe I will write that letter and address it to his wife this time. Just put Mrs. since I don't know her name. I will tear his marriage apart and not regret it, I have nothing else to do. My mom could yell at me for being petty, my bio dad could send letters of hate, my stepdad could tell me I'm a fatherless failure, but I don't care anymore. I've been wondering for years about what if I felt my dad lift me up over my head the way I used to see my friends get lifted?  What if I didn't sit alone on donuts for dads day? I was ultimately happy as a kid, but those things reminded me of what I didn't have. So I write that letter in my finest cursive, straight from that one week they taught us in third grade, and I feel so alive. 

I read the letter back to myself and make sure it details the terrible things my dad wrote me and makes it very clear how I was conceived (using my limited knowledge on how I was conceived. You really thought I'd have an in depth explanation? No, my mom and bio dad were skipping the mile and somehow ended up caught in the act. They were both expelled for six calendar months and I showed up that November.) The damning evidence that my dad is a terrible person and she deserves better, even if it means her kid will grow up fatherless the way I did. I know what will happen when I send this letter though, and even though I'd love to see it play out, there are consequences that come with it. I might only have a straw of empathy for the pathetic man who makes up half my DNA, but it's still something I feel empathetically for him. He moved far from his hometown after I was born, because he felt he had to. Maybe he never would've left Dunwoody if I wasn't born. Does he miss this place? Should I really be ruining his new life in his new town? However, you only get one second chance, and maybe I disturbed the delicate balance of his mini world where he's having his second chance by demanding to know him in a capacity. He could've just ignored me though, he should've, because as I think about who I am as a person and if I am the kind of person who would break up a marriage, I realize I am.

I haunt everyone who gets near me in some way. I am not the kind of person who is forgettable if you got to know me. This is just who I am, a petty ghost, dare I say poltergeist because of the trouble I cause and how much I disrupt. I would send the letter, and I want to, but there's another part of me that doesn't want to be me. Who wants to do the right thing because she knows she was born objectively wrong. That little girl, six year old Riley, who is just starting to read her bible and realize what the church's, and by extension God's opinion on her was. She knew her Ten Commandments and is telling me to hide the letter, maybe even rip it up and burn it. She does not yet understand that sometimes faith has to be put after yourself, that it might be okay to be greedy this time. So I ask my mom for an envelope as six year old me starts panicking about how we are going to go to h-e- double hockey sticks. I swear I can hear her crying, but this is my own head, I can control her sobs. So I shut her up and mail the letter. I know this is a terrible defense, but if I get in trouble I'll say it's because grounding me made me bored. Then they can't ground me or I'll just start a chain reaction of doing stuff under that defense.

Blake's POV

I am reconsidering my reasons to live. I have determined that I am essentially living to die, because I'm living so that I don't waste my dad's money on surgery, and after that living for my high school diploma, a college degree, a job, so I can afford to live. To do what? See the end of the world? Everyone says it won't happen in this life, but they're also saying it's imminent by 2050. I'd be forty in 2050, that would be a half a life. So if my life is going to be cut short why not cut it shorter? That's a very pessimistic thing to say, but I am so terrified that I will change as a person after surgery. I don't even know why. If it's really true, I will stick to the deal I made with Emma and die by the end of this year. That thought terrifies me though, there's a tiny spark in me telling me to live but not one bit of me knows what to live for. So I'm just waiting to see if I can figure out life by the end of this year or if I'll fare better dead. I won't entirely be gone, I believe in the paranormal, that I will be a ghost. 

January 8th 2024, my twin brothers turn sixteen. Dad made pancakes, and the faster I get out the door the faster I will be reunited with Riley. Maybe that is my reason to live, that happiness I feel with Riley. It's so small though, so insignificant when you think about it from a broader perspective. Is that enough to justify living a life? What is the threshold of things that make life worth living? I don't even want to go that deep, I'm scared that thinking too hard about it will be a slippery slope. It's not even time to think about dying yet, five months until surgery, I should be thinking about anything else. I said that death was plan B if surgery doesn't turn out. Yet the thought that peace is right there, I could just tie something around my neck and achieve peace. It haunts me, and I want someone to tell me it's okay, I will like myself post surgery. I won't be dead by the end of the year, I just have to tel myself I will be okay.

I have to be okay.

I really hope I'll be okay.

So I pretend I'm okay as I hug Riley and try so hard to feel truly okay. Fake it till you make it. Of course, she can tell something is off with me.

"What's going on?" She asks. So I tell her about the deal I made with Emma, and when I see Emma approach the bus stop, I make Riley stay quiet. She is trying to look okay but it's clear that she is concerned I'm going to follow through, that I won't be okay after surgery.

But I have to be okay, better than okay.

I have to thrive. 

I have to have no regrets

But I'm already regretting something that hasn't even happened yet.

That afternoon, I'm making a birthday cake for the twins and staring into the distance, still wondering if it really came down to it, how quickly would I end it? What is the meaning of life? You know, the usual existential crises. Christian snaps me out of my thoughts. 

"For someone making a cake, you look absolutely miserable" He says.

I don't really know what to say, I can't tell him the truth, and I can't say nothing. He knows me too well. But I'm okay. I'm more than okay, I'm happy. I put a smile on and decide it's better for him to know something is up but not know what than for him to know what's really on my mind. I can't ruin his birthday.