Letters To Suicidal

1165 | epilogue

"Hey, it'll be alright." Kyler smiled as he took Eumee's hand into his. Eumee looked at him, her eyes brimming with soft tears as she forced a smile to crawl onto her pale face. He squeezed her hand, and Eumee closed her eyes.

Years.

It's been years since Kyler saw Eumee back at the train station. Years since he'd read the first suicidal letter. Years since he fell in love with her.

But now Eumee was lying down on the hospital bed, her eyes closed and hair disheveled. Her chest rose up and down in even, steady breaths. Her lips were a shade of pink, and her cheeks were tinted with a rosy red in contrast to the pale white her face was. Her hands were limp as he held them in his large ones.

She fell asleep, and Kyler let out a small breath through his mouth as he lay his head down low.

His eyes felt hot in the corners, but he wouldn't cry. He couldn't cry in front of Eumee. It would only make things so much worse than everything else. If he cried, she'd see the gravity of the situation and how much it was hurting him.

It would only make her feel like she caused his pain.

"Everything is going to be fine," he muttered, reassuring himself as he let go of Eumee's hands and stood up, the chair scraping against the pure white tiles. He headed out of the hospital room and closed the door behind him.

He brought the keys out of his pockets and made his way out of the hospital and into the parking lot, and he sent one last glance to the hospital before he crawled into his car and sped away.

Kyler looked terrible. He hadn't slept for days. He hadn't eaten anything aside from a bagel. He was worried sick and he didn't plan on doing anything else aside from taking care of Eumee.

Because what if he lost her?

What if he lost her again?

Kyler parked his car in front of the orphanage and trudged his way up to his room. Payton greeted him with a solemn look on her face, but he didn't stop. He made it to his room in a mad dash and locked the door.

He crept up to his bed and kneeled, his arm reaching out for the shoebox under the bed.

When he got it out, he breathed out a sigh and opened it up to reveal letters. Letters Eumee wrote. Letters he wrote. Replies. And he dug through all of them, plucking out one with a red envelope and one other.

"Dear Kyler,

I'm crying right now.

Everything feels so wrong. My problems, my issues, my life. Us. Everything isn't right. I feel so weak and confused, and I thought that maybe today I'd look for you. Maybe today, I'd see you again. Maybe we can start writing letters to each other again, and maybe, just maybe, I can be happy.

Happy.

What does the word even mean? Joy? Love?

I hate it. I hate the word. I've never been happy before, so I'd never felt happiness. It's supposed to be that emotion where everything was so perfect and you're too joyful for anything else that you wouldn't notice the world around you anymore. It's supposed to be that feeling you get on the spot.

When I read your letter, I felt happy. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't joyful. It wasn't on the spot.

It came from your words and your sentences, your eyes and your lips. It came from your hair and your hands, your gestures and your expressions. Happiness isn't something you experience everyday, but it's alright.