After You

Jacob

Dear Alfie,

I've made a terrible mistake.

I don't just mean in not going to Jess when she asked for help. I've done plenty of torturing myself for that over the last week, I don't need to go over it again. Regrets and guilt can't change the past.

For a long time, I've been angry at everyone else. I've blamed them for your death, I've hated them for things they've said, I've said awful things about them. Fuck, I would have killed Max if the teachers hadn't pulled me off him, and I know why.

I felt like no-one else deserved to miss you. When they were called for bereavement counselling and I found out they were writing the letters too, I felt outraged. What right did they have to be so upset by your death? They didn't know you like I knew you. Their grief seemed to intrude on mine; it felt as though they were muscling on something that was private and personal between the two of us. They were just your friends; I'm your twin brother. No-one deserved to grieve you in the way I was grieving you. Somewhere in my head, that became "no-one deserves to grieve you at all".

I was so wrong. This last week is proof of that.

Jess isn't my sister. I don't know her better than I know myself; we don't share almost all of our DNA; she isn't related to me – and yet the fear I felt when I saw the ambulance outside her house rivals the fear when I heard Mum scream after finding you. The feelings of helplessness and shock when we realised what Jess had done are the same as the feelings I felt when they told us you'd overdosed. The overwhelming guilt of not doing more when I had the chance is just as powerful, and just as devastating.

I didn't have the monopoly on loving you, and I don't have the monopoly on grieving you either. No-one does. I turned grief into a competition, and loathed anyone I saw as a rival. What I did to Max wasn't because he's gay, or because I hated the thought that you might have been gay too. It wasn't even because, if it's true, you kept it a secret from me. It's because he said "I love you".

Did I ever tell you that I loved you?

I know we used to say it as toddlers. There are home videos of us giving each other huge bear hugs and kissing each other on the cheek and saying "I love you", with our parents laughing in the background about how cute we are. When did we stop saying it? I don't remember ever telling you that I loved you.

I always assumed it was obvious. Clearly I didn't love you in the same way that Max did – or, for that matter, the same way that Willow or Finn or Jess did, or anyone else – but you must have known I loved you. I didn't need to say it, because I couldn't imagine a time where it would be necessary to tell you. You'd just know, like I knew you loved me. We've always been a part of one another; how can you not love someone who you've been inextricably attached to your entire life?

When I read Max's letter, guilt sucker-punched me out of nowhere. I wish I'd told you, even once, how much I love you. I wish I'd heard you say it to me. I don't even have a good enough reason for not telling you. It isn't one of those stupid "guys don't tell other guys they love them". We're twins, no-one was ever going to accuse us of being gay, were they?

The only reason I can think of for not telling you is because you were there. You knew, and I knew, and it wasn't like we were going to be separated. We'd have plenty of chances to say it, so what was the urgency? Where was this great, pressing need to tell my twin brother that I loved him? You were always going to be there.

Suddenly, you weren't there any more, and those words would always go unsaid. I pushed it down; I tried to stop beating myself up, but grief is like an ocean. You can't fight the sea; you can maybe get one or two punches in, but it's always going to keep coming back, stronger and faster. Every time I thought I'd won, another wave of sadness and guilt and loss would hit me, to the point where I didn't know how to fight it any longer. I could compare Max's letter to a tsunami, but it wasn't. It was just another wave – but one that I was too worn out and tired to try and battle.

I broke.

We're all broken. Even Willow and Finn, who initially seemed to have done pretty well out of your death, are broken. They're just doing a better job of hiding it than the rest of us. They have each other, but they aren't the people they were this time last year. You wouldn't recognise any of us. Change isn't always bad, but I'm struggling to find a silver lining here. We've all come out of it feeling like shit.

Well, there's one. We're all together. We're battered and bruised and broken, but we're all here together.

It's not much. Your death pushed us apart, and it shouldn't have taken another friend nearly dying to bring us back together. Seeing Jess in this state isn't "worth it" because we've all come together as a result. This should have happened long ago; before she started drinking and before I started beating up friends and before Willow and Finn started getting accused of triggering your suicide. The "what if"s are inescapable, and the end most certainly does not justify the means here.

Jess is going to get better. That's something. I've apologised to Max for beating him up. That's something, too.

Last night, we were all able to come in and see Jess for five minutes, before the doctors came over to enforce the "two visitors at a time" rule. No-one knew what to say. How do you start a conversation after eight months of grief, guilt and remorse? Then Jess looked up at us all, smiled, and said "Well, we're all together again". Everything else melted away, and we laughed. Jesus, it felt good to laugh again. It feels like so long since I actually smiled, let alone laughed.

It's going to take time. Jess needs to recover and get help for her mental health, and I still don't feel that I deserve Max's forgiveness, even though he's given it. It's going to take time to get used to Willow and Finn being together – and of course, there's a huge Alfie-shaped hole in our lives. Things will never be the same without you, but that isn't necessarily a terrible thing. Change is sometimes good, sometimes bad, and sometimes somewhere in between. I'll gladly take "somewhere in between", after everything that's happened.

I love you, Alfie. I wish I'd said it when you were alive, and I hope to God that you knew. I hope you never doubted that I loved you, and I always will.

Jacob