All The Reasons Why ✔️

Letter Twenty-Six

Dedicated to @covfefe_ thank you so much for inspiring me and for making me feel like this wasn't as bad of a story as I thought.

I told you in my last letter that I should never have picked those pills back up, but as you know I did. I started popping them with a vengeance, never wanting to feel the way I felt again. I even went as far as to buy some from a guy behind the school a few times.

Of course, you used to always tell me I have the worst luck. Maybe that's why that happened to be the only time our school's lazy liaison officer actually went on his patrols. Maybe that's why I punched him in his stupid face and told him to fuck off. Maybe that's why he tossed me to the ground and put handcuffs on me then took me to jail for the night.

But hey, at least my parents finally paid attention to me.

Well, that is before they forced me to go to rehab. That's how I found myself sitting in the car the next morning driving to the nearest center, fresh out of jail. What a hell of a night that was, Tatiana.

Truth: I spent the entire time I was there thinking about you.

All I could do was think, and the only thing I wanted to think of was you anyway. I wondered if you knew where I was if you knew what happened to me. I found out three months later that my so-called best friend Alessandra told you that I'd be in rehab for a year. That she told you that I wanted you to move on, to forget me.

But because you're a damn idiot with a heart bigger than anyone I have ever met, you didn't give up on me. You were determined to wait those twelve months, even if it killed you.

I also had a lot of time to think of all the reasons why I loved you. In the end, there was exactly one hundred and thirty-four.

Do you remember the day I got out of rehab and I came to see you? Because I do. Vividly. You looked ragged, trying to force a smile at a boy who didn't mean shit you. You told me that you had agreed to go out with him because he had asked you four times and that you just wanted to shut him up.

When I called your name, you looked back at me like it wasn't the first time you had heard me say it. You looked at me like I was a ghost over your shoulder that you had spent all your life trying to convince yourself wasn't real. I remember the shock on your face when you realized I was really in front of you.

You ran over to me with tears in your eyes and threw your arms around me. And god, did it feel amazing to hold you again. You explained that you didn't expect me back for months, that you had missed me so much, that you never wanted me to leave again.

I swore I wouldn't.

But I did. I left two more times after that. One was for good.

It was in that moment, when you looked at me with tear-filled eyes, that I realized I wasn't the only one with an addiction. I was addicted to pills and needles. You were addicted to me.

I still haven't figured out which is more deadly.

Aidan