Dear Stanley [Watty's 2019. Completed]

Nightmare

Sunday, March 5th

Dear Stanley,

I had the nightmare again.

It seems to keep happening to me - at least once a week. Every time I close my eyes. I see the raging fire. I feel the intense pain. I smell the metallic blood.

It started happening a few days after your disappearance. The nightmare where I am falling into a never ending pit.

It threatens to send me to tears every time I see it happen behind my closed lids. I feel as if my heart is about to burst with fear, as if I am going to drown in the nervous sweat that I always wake up in after the nightmare. My hand is shaking as I am writing this. Shaking with fear.

I don't what it means, Stanley. What is it trying to tell me?

This is the first time that I am acknowledging you after you...left. I woke up today, shivering despite the numerous blankets on top of me, and decided that something had to be done.

So here I am, writing this letter to you, at 4 am on Sunday morning. I feel like I am going to throw up. But I trample the puke down. My words are messy, I am sorry about that. My hand can't seem to stop quivering. I need to take my mind off the nightmare.

I can't believe I am talking to you again. After you left Stanley, it's been horrible. Mom and Dad have become so distant. It's as if I don't exist. Meanwhile, I've been locked up in my room, sulking around. I only go out to to go to school.

And school - school is a disaster. People used to offer their sympathy to me, used to feel sorry for me, give me pitying looks. It made me want to throw my fist in their face. But Stanley, I am not like that. I am a quiet shy boy. Before you disappeared, I was invisible, not only to the school but to the entire small town.

The worst part was that at first, people used to miss you. At least it seemed like it. The school even announced a small paragraph in tribute to you. People were talking about how great of a guy you were, how sad it is that you went missing a few weeks into your senior year. They talked about how lively you were.

Now, it's as if you never even existed. And I am back to being ignored, back to being invisible, back to being the nobody.

It makes me angry, how easily they forget. Don't worry though Stanley. I won't ever forget you. You are inscribed into my heart like my own name.

And I know for a fact Mom and Dad haven't forgotten you either. You seemed to have turned our entire life upside down when you left.

I feel surprisingly good writing these letters. It's as if the words that have been building up inside of me are finally getting out. No one ever used to listen to me before you left, besides you. And even now, after you left, no one listens to me. But writing these to you makes it feel as if I can still converse with you, share with you, open up with you. It's almost like normal.

Except for the fact that you have left somewhere and are probably never coming back.

My guess is that you went to New York. You used to love New York. You used to say New York is where all the magic happens.

I don't blame you. I don't blame you at all for leaving. I always knew this town was too small for you. To restricting. You were - you are - a giant compared to this little town. With your booming voice and easy smile.

But Stanley, I still miss you. So much.