Letters to No One

Chapter 20

Dear No One,

Life is a rattling subject. It's confusing, it's frustrating, and it can be depressing, but everyone has it. What I mean by everyone has it is, everyone has a choice or a chance to live life. Some people have the choice and they can choose if they want to live, if they want to enjoy it, or if they want to end it just because. Others have a chance, they are put here and given a life to live, but they don't really have a choice for how long it is going to be or how short. 

Nick had a chance. He was given a short time and in that short time he was given the choice to enjoy it. To live how they want to, but like most people that only have a chance, they get stuck. They get stuck on making the choice because something is holding them back, but they never find out what. 

Nick was held back by this orphanage. And when he tried breaking free from being held back, his chance was up. 

I think I had a choice. Right from the beginning I had the choice of how I wanted to live my life, and I lived it how I wanted to except for having that barrier of being able to choose to live in an orphanage or not. I feel like after Nick died, all my choices were blocked off by barriers and I became stuck.

To think about life in this perspective may be confusing to others but this is how I view it. This is how I make sense of it all.

Nolan left the hospital about two weeks ago… one week after I last wrote. So all together it’s been three weeks now since I’ve last wrote.

When Nolan came back to the orphanage he broke down. Anne came running to me because he had been calling my name through his sobs. I took his hand and brought him back to my bunk. We laid there in silence before he started telling me everything. He just snapped. His walls shattered and he told me the whole story.

He told me that the three of us wanted to get out. We wanted to get out of this hell hole, so one night we tried.

 We climbed through the window that was near Nick’s bed, and somehow we safely made it down the ladder that was attached to the side of the building. Once we were down the ladder, Nolan said we ran out of the dark alley and onto the bright street.

Nolan doesn’t know what made Nick run across the street, but he did and when I saw him I ran after him, then of course Nolan ran after me. He said he saw bright lights but that’s all.

These past two weeks since he told me that… I haven’t cried. I know what happened to Nick now… and I still haven’t cried. I’ve just been lying on my bunk staring at the ceiling counting those lights. 13. Every time.

Nolan comes and lays with me for most of the day… but then I think he gets bored or something so he climbs down. He doesn’t leave. No. He will never leave. He just gives me space.

I haven’t thought much about the accident since Nolan told me about it. That’s a good thing I think. I don’t want to think about it.

Ms. Webb didn’t know for the first week that Nolan told me, until either Nolan told her, or she just finally noticed how I just laid in the same spot the whole day. So this past week, she has been asking questions wanting to talk about it all but I just ignore her…just like I use to.

It seems I’m just waiting for the day Nolan and I can leave here. Leave all those things in the past. This book. This journal. All these letters…should be part of the past as well. They hold the past and I don’t want it back.

 I want to count new lights on a new ceiling. Different lights on a different ceiling. And they don’t add up to 13..maybe 15 this time… or maybe less I’m not really sure.