After You

Finn

Alfie,

Things are not good here. I don't know whether it's Jacob or Max, but someone has screwed up, big time.

I thought the last letter I wrote to you would be the final one, after I'd gotten everything off my chest and confessed all those things to you. I need to talk to someone, though, and I don't know who else to turn to. Willow is in a bit of a state over everything that's happened, and Jess has vanished off the face of the planet yet again. No-one else would understand, and when you're sat in an A&E waiting room, your options are a bit limited. That's not saying that you're my last resort, but... well, you are. Sorry, mate.

Max is the reason I'm sat in the A&E waiting room. Or maybe Jacob is. Actually, they both are. They are both the reason I'm sat on the most uncomfortable chair ever, in an empty hospital waiting room when I should be in Biology class, and I'm equally pissed off at both of them. What Jacob has done is so incredibly wrong, but Max can't pretend he's innocent in all of this. He must have known what he was doing.

I need to rewind, I'm just ranting. I don't know what's going on, Alf. If you were here, you'd be as confused as I am. Then again, I guess if you were here, this wouldn't have happened. That doesn't make it your fault. You can't help being dead. Well, I suppose you could have, but I'm going off on a tangent again. Sorry.

Jacob has been arrested, and Max is in hospital.

Shit. I thought writing it down would make it seem less crazy and terrifying, but it doesn't. In fact, seeing it in black and white kind of makes it worse.

I knew Jacob was angry about the letter. Willow told me what happened. She was gutted about it too, because she likes Max and she trusted him and it felt like he'd made up a load of fantasy gay stuff just to humiliate her in front of everyone. It does sound pretty bad. I don't know what Max was thinking when he wrote the letter. I mean, fair enough, we've all been writing private stuff in these letters to you, but no-one's actually going to see them. Max went and handed one in as coursework, and it wasn't just a "Dear Alfie, I miss you, love Max" kind of letter. He said that you two kissed. That's messed up.

Not the gay stuff. You know I have no problem with gay stuff. I mean the fact that he'd make something like that up about someone who's dead. You can't even defend yourself and tell everyone that it's lies. That doesn't seem fair, and now there might be people from that class who think that it's true and that you cheated on Willow with Max, or that you were secretly gay and your whole relationship with Willow was a lie, when I know that isn't true. I know you loved her.

Ok, so if we're on the subject of total honesty, I suppose there's always been something at the back of my mind, questioning whether you were only into girls... but I think that was just the way you acted. You weren't into football or wrestling when the rest of us were. You liked reading and talking to girls. That doesn't make someone gay, though, and the thought of you and Max having some kind of love affair behind Willow's back just seems too crazy to be anything but fiction.

Still, he didn't deserve to get his face smashed in. I understand that Jacob was angry, but he went absolutely crazy. Max was unconscious for five minutes, which is why they called the ambulance. No-one else volunteered to go with him, and I didn't want him to be alone, so I went along. Willow text me a few minutes ago to tell me that Jacob has been arrested. They're calling it a hate crime, because it was motivated by homophobia. I don't know, I can't get my head around Jacob being homophobic. He never seemed like that sort of person.

It's hard to deny it now. He called Max all sorts of things – a liar, a prick, a traitor – and Max just stood there, taking it. It was only when he called him a "lying fag" that Max seemed really hurt, and then Jacob lost it and everyone was screaming and it was all a bit of a blur. I know Jacob has been having a tougher time of it than the rest of us – he's your brother, after all – but I'm finding it hard to try and excuse what he called Max.

This time a year ago, we were all so close. We felt inseparable, and even though we knew we'd all be heading off to universities soon – presumably different ones at that – we felt like nothing could bring us down. I felt so happy to have five best friends who'd have my back through anything, and they knew I'd have their back too. Today is enough of an example of how things have gone. None of us know where Jess is. Willow is still at school. Jacob is at the police station, Max is having his face glued back together, and I'm sat here in the most depressing hospital waiting room I've ever seen.

And you're dead.

I've tried so hard not to get angry at you, because you must have been fighting some demons in your head, mate, but this is rough. If you hadn't done it – if maybe you'd just told us, told even one of us, how you were feeling, none of this would be happening. And you don't have to endure any of it. You're not trying to hold everyone together when everything is trying to tear us apart.

Sometimes it feels like you're the lucky one.

Finn