Dear Friend,

September 8, 2013

Dear friend,

    I sent you an email to my story.  I am writing to you because you listen and understand and didn't try to hurt that person at that party even though you could have.  Please don't try to figure out where i am because then you might figure out who I am, and I really don't want you to do that.  I don't want you to find me.  I mean nothing bad by this.  Honest.

     I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn't try to hurt people even if they could have.  I need to know that people like you exist.  Like if you met me, you wouldn't think I was the weird kid who spent time in the hospital. And you wouldn't treat me differently.  I hope it's okay for me to think that.

     I think you of all people would understand that because I think you of all people are alive and appreciate what that means. At least I hope you do because I really admire that.  Here people hurt me just because they can.  I don’t know why they hurt me, they just do.  But you are not like that.  People look up to you for strength and friendship.  And right now I really need a friend.  I am writing to you because I can’t hold it in any longer.  I have to tell someone.  Please don’t try to figure out who I am.  I want to tell someone without being punished. 

     So, this is my life.  And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.

     I try to think of my step mum as a reason for me being this way, especially after my father passed away three years ago.  I was 9 years old.  When he died I was truly alone.  Before when he came home from work I knew I was safe.  When he wasn’t around bad things happened.  He was like my super hero, I was happy when he was home.  Sad when he was gone.  Now he’s never coming home again.  Now I’m never going to be safe.  I miss him terribly.  Sometimes I dream that he never died, that he is right here next to me.  When I wake up I sometimes think he is still here. 

     I don't really remember much of what happened the day he died except that my uncle Rob came over and told me to stop crying.  My cousin hit me and called me a cry baby. . . I guess I was pretty messy because my uncle locked me in the dark room again.  But I deserved the pain. . . because it is all my fault that he is gone. I'm the reason he isn't here anymore and that makes me really very sad.

     At the guidance counselor sessions, they asked me lots of questions.  I think they were afraid that I would try to kill myself or something because they looked very tense.

         This one guidance counselor asked me:

     "How are you doing, Daniel?"

     What was so strange about this was the fact that I had never met this man because he was a "specialist" and he knew my name even though I wasn't wearing a name tag.

     "Well, my father was a really good man and I don't understand why he had to die. I want him to be here, I can’t live without him!  I don’t know what I am going to do!  Why did he have to leave me?  He promised to always be here for me!  I'ts all my fault!  All my fault!  MY FAULT!"

    When I said all this I was crying.  I never did stop crying.

     The counselor said that the drunk driver that killed my father will be put in prison.  He then said that I wasn’t alone. . . that I still had my step mum and no matter how bad I felt it wasn't my fault he died.  But I know the truth.

     Then, I started screaming at the guidance counselor that I didn’t want my step mum I wanted my father.  And that I wished she had died instead.  I started crying even harder when I said that.  He tried to calm me down but it didn't work and eventually my step mum came by the primary school to pick me up.

     For the rest of the school year, my teacher treated me different and gave me better grades even though I didn't get any smarter.  To tell you the truth, I think I made her nervous.

     My father’s funeral was strange because my step mum didn't cry.  I think about it sometimes.  I wonder what went on in her mind.  I wish I knew.  It really scares me.  I miss my dad so much.  I need him now more than ever.

    At school, after some of the kids where picking at me my friend Anna said that they act out because they must have problems at home.  I wonder if I have problems at home.  I think I do because my step mum always makes me cry, but it seems to me that a lot of other people have it a lot worse.  Like when my best friend Anna’s first boyfriend started going around with another girl and Anna cried for the whole weekend.

     I told my father when he was still here and he said, "There are other people who have it a lot worse."

    A month later, Anna was happy again. 

   I’m an only child.  My mother passed away when I was very little.  She always wanted more children and her and my father talked about having more when she got better.  she never did got better.  She was always sickly. She passed away when I was four years old of cancer.  She was always so sick and then stupid cancer had to come.  Why?  I don’t understand it.  She got through so much.  It’s not fare. . .  why couldn't she hold on?  But I guess that is selfish of me to want.  after everything. . .  Even though she was so sick she was always there for me.  She held me and read me stories and played games with me.  She could have said she didn’t feel well enough, or that she just didn’t want to be with me, but she never did.  Every night she said, “I love you, forever and ever, no matter what.”  Soon cancer took over and she died in her sleep, in her bed, holding my father’s hand.  She is the most beautiful women I ever knew.  Before she died she gave me her old teddy bear.  It’s the only thing I have of her now.  I sleep with it every night.  It’s like I still have a piece of her with me.  I’m never letting anything happen to it.  My mother was my favorite person in the whole world. 

     My father got remarried when I was seven  years old.  I wasn't sure how i felt about the marriage at the time.  To me it seemed like my step mum had two personalities.  The way she acted when my father was around and the way she acted around me.  With my father she was always very sweet and kind but. . . when i was alone with her she was cruel and violent.  But I never told anyone.  I'm not going to tell anyone.  How could I when at the time she made my father so happy?  Now. . . i'm scared to death of her.         

     I should probably go to sleep now.  It's very late.  I don't know why I wrote a lot of this down for you to read.  The reason I wrote this post is because I start Secondary school tomorrow and I am really afraid of going.

     Love always,

     Daniel