six feet under

VII. LOVE, THEY SAID

I'm not doing well.

Physically, of course. I won't list all the symptoms - I'm too afraid it'd make them come back. And then, mentally. I'm not so sure about what's going on in my head anymore.

I just

*

I tried to write that sentence but I almost got knocked out by one of those bloody headaches and now I'm afraid it might come back.

I abruptly realised something this afternoon. I mean I don't know if it really is the afternoon. I just woke up a few hours ago which makes it my afternoon, I guess.

You're not here. Not really.

I know I wrote several times that I knew it, and I think I did believe it myself, until I realised that I didn't.

Does it make sense ?

I find it hard to tell now. I feel like I'm not sure what sense is anymore.

All I said to you about my memories of who you were before the Maze. It wasn't you.

That time when I told you about how I got my limp. It wasn't you.

All the things I confessed, all the times I asked you something- it wasn't you.

And I can't have that.

*

It's making me want to cry, which is weird because I can usually hold it in better than that.

Maybe all these defences I built are crumbling down. It wouldn't be surprising.

Or maybe it's just that I'm having trouble remembering what the real you knows and what he doesn't. What you don't ?

I should've known it would end like this.

*

So it's not you I'm speaking to. It's me. It's no one. Brilliant. Fantastic.

I can say whatever the bloody hell I want.

Suddenly I don't want to say anything anymore.

What's the point ?

*

I've never felt so alone.

All these days I spent writing in this bloody journal, there was more than pretending you could hear me, or read me. There was you, in some way. I can't bloody explain it, and I won't blame the Flare, for once. It's just me and my stupid feelings that I couldn't repress when there was still time.

Although I'm not sure there's any way you can control feelings. If there was, I would've found it by now. I tried so hard.

So much effort. For nothing.

I'm just shucking alone.

*

Nothing has changed since yesterday, yet there is so much pressure on my heart it could implode any second.

Love, they said. Love is the answer. Looks like they never actually met my question.

The Flare has no answer. No cure. And it certainly won't be easier for me to bear if I give a chance to love.

I know because I tried. I gave it a chance- well, my heart did. I didn't have much of a choice, although it took me a while to understand it. Fighting it was pointless, but I fought anyway. I couldn't risk it. And here we are...

Is it some kind of rite of passage, an obligatory stage in the life of every human being who has ever walked this earth, whatever his ending might be ? I already knew about birth and death, but if love is part of the list, I didn't get the memo.

And I know I shouldn't be complaining, because life is life, and it woudln't change anything, right ? But I'm tired of it. My life was a nightmare, but I'll be wide awake when death comes. I survived until now, only to become this terrified wreck of a person. And if someone came to my door right now asking me if I want to end it all, I'd say yes before they can finish their sentence. And if they told me I didn't make the most of my life, I'd tell them it never actually belonged to me.

It belonged to the WICKED all along. And to the monsters living inside my head, taking turns up here ever since I can remember.

Why are you not here ?

Tommy ? I just want you to know.

*

In a world ruled by darkness, you should have been the light.

I don't know what went wrong. I wonder if there was something I could've done to make our ending different. I know you're immune and I'm not. I just hoped... I don't really know what I hoped, since I tried not to. I just know I did it anyway, deep down.

There's no way you can control feelings. This time, it might be for you that I'm saying it. To make sure you know I don't blame you. I would never blame you for not feeling the same. In a few weeks, none of this will matter anymore.

We didn't spend a lot of time in the Glade together, but it was enough for me to know. I knew I had suffered enough, and I knew that if my heart was in a million pieces already, you wouldn't be the glue that holds them together but the hammer that gives the final blow.

I let you in anyway.

Maybe some part of me truly believed you could fix it. Fix me like you solved the Maze. One miracle after another. Isn't that what I said to you when you arrived ? Everything you can think of, we tried it. Yet you got us out of there. Maybe you could do the same with me.

Maybe I still believe it to be possible. I know there's still something to be saved despite the Flare. But I don't think it's worth the heartbreak afterwards. There is no cure. No time. Maybe it's for the best.

Anyway, I shouldn't write about this, I shouldn't even think about this, when there's clearly nothing to say, for you.

First there was Teresa. I hate her for what she did to you. Mostly, I hate her for getting your love without deserving it.

Then... you and Brenda were holding hands, the other day.

You know what? it doesn't make any sense. Any of it. I'll stop there.

I'm going to stop writing to you.