After You

Max

Alfie,

Jess is awake.

I haven't been in to see her yet, but they're going to move her to a normal ward so that she can recover, and then we can go and sit with her. I don't think I've ever been so relieved in my life. I've spent the last half an hour thanking every God there is, even though I don't believe in any of them, because we came so close to losing her. It was a matter of minutes, and it was so lucky that Jess' mum checked in on her when she did.

I feel like I've been sat in this corridor for days, even though it's only been a couple of hours. Apart from going home to sleep, I've spent the last three days at the hospital, waiting for any kind of news. The others have been here too, but I haven't seen them much. None of us are really in a chatty mood. I was able to sit in the same room as Jacob for an hour or so yesterday, which feels like progress. Maybe he just doesn't have the strength to be angry any more. I know I don't.

We're all exhausted. Not just physically, although I do feel I could sleep for a week after this. Emotionally, mentally, everything. We're drained. I don't know how much of this letter will even make sense, because the words are all blurring into one on the paper. I doubt my handwriting is even legible at this point. I've had about three hours of sleep in three days.

I feel so guilty. I let this stupid feud with Jacob get in the way of me helping Jess. I should never have ignored that text. I can't believe I suspected them of trying to lure me in, and then it turns out that Jess needed us more than ever. She needed us to be there, and we all ignored her. We assumed someone else would do it, or suspected her of trying to trick us, and now she's in hospital. She's going to be here for a while, I think. Once she's recovered from the overdose itself, they'll want to keep her in for treatment. I didn't even realise she was depressed.

I mean, I had my suspicions. She was so quiet and withdrawn, and all the drinking and the drugs. I thought she was just struggling without you, like we all were. I figured that the drinking was her way of coping with it. I had the letters, Finn and Willow had each other, and Jess had alcohol and drugs. I should have realised that it was more than just a coping mechanism. She's been slowly killing herself for the last eight months, and we've been so oblivious to it all. So consumed with the drama.

I've been trying to cling to you; trying desperately to keep you with me. It's like trying to catch smoke; desperately grasping at the air as the wisps dissipate. All that time I spent on an impossible task, and I could have been helping Jess. I could have spotted what was happening before it was too late. I've been so blind, and so stupid.

Alfie, I don't think I'm going to write to you again. Please don't think this means that I've forgotten about you. I never will – you were, and always will be, my first love. These letters have been my way of trying to keep you with me, and I need to let you go. No matter how much I've tried to convince myself that I wasn't in denial, I know fully well that I have been. In writing these letters, I've been refusing to accept that you are really gone. I could write the most beautiful prose for you and it wouldn't bring you back, no matter how hard I try – and I would gladly spend my life trying.

I can't.

What happened to Jess must never happen again, to any of us. I can't sit by and let the people I love disappear. I can't let life disappear. I contemplated giving up on the idea of going to university this year – and for what? What good would it do to spend another year at home, writing letters to you and letting life pass me by? It's an insult to your memory. All of the life you missed out on; we have a responsibility to live it for you. You would be furious if you were alive. If you saw that we'd allowed this to happen; that we'd missed the fact that Jess is depressed, you'd never forgive any of us. This wouldn't have happened if you were alive.

But you aren't. You aren't alive, and you're never going to be alive again, and I need to stop living in this fantasy land where you're going to walk into school one day and sweep me off my feet and we'll live happily ever after. That isn't reality.

Reality was when we sat together in my bedroom on that August afternoon, and before I knew what was happening, your hand reached for mine. You squeezed it tightly, and I looked up at you, and you were crying. I'd never seen you cry before. I thought it was because of what you were telling me; about Willow kissing Finn and the feeling that they'd both betrayed you. I thought you were devastated at the thought of losing your girlfriend to your best friend.

I didn't know what the correct protocol was. Did I just sit there and let you hold my hand? Would it be weird if I gave you a hug? Was I supposed to give you some platitudes about how I was sure Willow would realise her mistake; that it was a temporary indiscretion; that she'd come back to you before long, when all I wanted to say was love me instead. Did I risk it all and say that?

Kissing was easier than speaking. Either your lips met mine, or mine met yours, or we met somewhere in the middle, but it was perfect and wrong and brilliant and crazy and so much easier than talking; as easy as breathing. It was over so quickly, and then you pulled away and you stared into my eyes and you breathed out this laugh and said "I couldn't live without you".

For so long, I hated you for that. You couldn't live without me, and yet – just a week later – you killed yourself, and sentenced me to a lifetime without you? I fell into the trap. I told myself that I couldn't live without you either. It would be an existence, not a life. If I'd died, I wouldn't want that for you. I'd want you to live. I'd want you to go and see new places and meet new people and continue to support and love our friends.

I need to live, and I need to make sure that my friends live too. I can't just exist for the next seventy years, and I know you wouldn't want me to. Here's an Oscar Wilde quote for you.

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

Not me, not any more. Jess is going to pull through this; she has to. And then I'm not taking anything for granted again, Alfie. I'm going to live my life the way you would have wanted me to, and the way I wish you could have done. You had so much to give, so much potential, and it was wasted. Jess came very close to doing the same. I'm not going to let that happen again.

I love you.

Max