Cracking Zeenath

To Ericka: From the Other Side of My World

A/N: Thank you so so so much for getting this book up past the 1k reads mark! *celebrates*
This means a lot to me, that you all have stuck with me this long. So here's my gift to you. I'm doing a double update!! (Not that this hasn't happened before, but it's a bit past midnight here so I stayed up late to post this first thing on Friday!)

~October.

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To Ericka,

Hey.

      I know we haven't talked much, or at all really. Not since I've left. It feels weird to be writing this letter to you. Like I've unearthed some long forgotten relationship out of the ground and it's all rusty. I don't know how to navigate it yet. Its...ah. Ericka.

      I...I'm sorry. I should've been here for you. When Evelyn...when she...after what happened to her, I swallowed my sorrow and wallowed in it for months. I'm so stupid. I should've been there for you. For everyone, really. We all lost her, not just me.

And then I ran away.

      Haha...this is the point where you'd tell me that I didn't. But I did. I always do and I hate that about myself. Whenever I start to miss someone, or something like this happens, I leave. I don't go back and talk to the people I miss. I don't go back and try to work my way through things like this. I leave.

This letter should be for everyone really, I let down everyone.

But I think both you and I know why I left. The whole reason.

Yes, there were reminders.

Yes, I'd turn around to the desk behind me in science and find it empty.

Yes, I'd walk out of my house and without even knowing it, I'd end up at Evelyn's doorstep before remembering that she'd never answer the door.

Yes, I once sent a text to her dead number asking if she wanted to come over and join me for dinner because I was home alone again.

Of course she wouldn't respond.

      And at those moments, you know what happened to me? All of it, all of the pain, the loss, the emptiness would come crashing back down over me like a tidal wave and I'd be left shivering, feeling that hole in my heart grow even bigger.

I'd need a moment to myself as I tried to get a hold of myself. I still do that. It still happens.

But you know, that wasn't the only reason why I left.

I would've gotten used to it eventually, if that had been the only reason. I had all of you, right?

Except that was the problem.

I didn't. At least, I didn't feel like I did.

As much as I tried to hide it, everyone knew how I felt about Nick, including you. Everyone except Nick. Ironic, isn't it?

You know before you two were together, you know who he'd come to for advice? Me.

As if he never truly understood how I felt. Funny how that works. And he only came to me because both Evelyn and Noel ignored him.

Those were the times when we were the closest. It was before you two were...a thing. So Evelyn was still around, and other than my boy problems, nothing was really the matter.

He used to find me near my little cliff, the one I showed you only a few days before I left. That is...was where I'd go to get some personal space. Where I'd go to think.