Letters With a Ghost

Chapter Nineteen

What ensued was an unexpected whirlwind of something that Camryn never expected: Positive public recognition.

As she was giving her speech, the other club presenters stood backstage, listening intently to every word as she made her argument. As she was reading what she had originally written as a private letter to Ayden on the one week anniversary of his death, according to Danielle, their faces lit up as they absorbed every word and every dark emotion.

In the next few weeks, while the board members were deliberating which clubs would make it through, participants in the activities fair, the ones who had listened carefully to Camryn's every word, would stop her in the halls and talk to her. They would compliment her writing and wish her luck for when the results of the board deliberation would come out.

Camryn used to always secretly want someone to praise her for her writing skills. She always considered writing to be her one and only talent. She remembered a time when Ayden stole her writing notebook. She had snatched it from his hands and hit him with it. He told her how much he enjoyed reading it, and that she should keep working on it.

Camryn had pretended to be mad at him, but deep inside his words had meant a lot.

This writing was different. She didn't want recognition for it. To her, it was the same thing as standing in front of a thousand people and reading a diary entry about her most embarrassing moment to a bunch of people she knew. The only reason she had shared that piece in the first place was because Jonathan had convinced her to, saying it was sure to persuade the judges. He said that no one would know what it really meant; to them, it would be just another work of fiction.

To them and to everyone else, yes, Camryn's writing was fiction. After all, how could the girl with the big smile and the bright eyes have such dark thoughts?

Camryn had been writing for many years; she knew well enough that writing can only truly happen and feel truly real if the person writing it can relate to that emotion on a personal level and base it off of their real experiences. To her, writing is just one big visible emotion put on paper for the entertainment of others.

To them it was fiction, but to Camryn it was real.

So real, in fact, that she got off stage and paced behind the curtains, promising to meet up with Danielle and Jonathan after school and failing to keep that promise. She paced up and down, back and forth, shaking, sweating, screaming over and over again in her mind that this was all a nightmare that she would soon wake up from.

She never woke up. Three months after she had gotten that call, and the nightmare continued to apply pressure to the recesses of her mind, telling her that it was only a matter of time until...

She couldn't think that way. She knew it was bad for her, and that thoughts like those were the one and only driving force to a final destination that has no business to be reached at her age, or any age, by the means of one's own hands and will.

Suicide is not the answer, she thought to herself. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Oh, but the word "solution" holds a lot of promise...

Now, sitting in her room, Camryn jammed the heels of her hands into her temples, squeezing her eyes shut, willing the voices to go away, to leave her alone. It already drained one life. She'd be damned if she'd let it drain another one.

She thought about what she had to lose:

Abusive mother

Terrible grades

That wasn't helping. Instead, she thought about who would miss her:

Danielle

Jonathan

Casey

She knew what it was like to miss someone who took their own life. The never-ending pain of not knowing, of knowing that you will never stop not knowing, is one of the most unnerving feelings in the world. She didn't want to put her friends through that.

She really didn't want to put her little sister through that.

Camryn was twelve when Casey was born. There was a huge age difference, though it never seemed to bother them much. It gave Camryn a chance to revisit the days of coloring books and paint sets, pirates and princesses, fairytales and make believe.

A chance to revisit the carefree days of youth.

Camryn had a good childhood. She had toys to play with, food to eat, and most importantly, she had mommy and daddy before daddy was a cheat and mommy was a psychopath.

Those were privileges that Casey didn't have for the whole duration of her childhood. If Camryn added the stress of a dead older sister, Casey would grow up alone, without her father or her mother's mental state, but holding her sister's same desire to no longer exist.

That is a future that no four year old should ever be destined to.

Camryn took a deep breath, allowing her hands to rest at her sides and unclench her fists. If she would stay alive for someone, it would be for her sister.

Dear Ayden,

This is the last time I will write to you. I can't take it anymore. I love you, but I just can't deal with it anymore.

I have to move on. If I don't, I'll die. I can't die, Ayden. I just can't. Not yet.

I will never forget you. You'll make me remember you with the memories you left behind, but I'll try not to let that bother me.

I promised you that I would do whatever it takes to be okay with my life and be happy.

This is the only way I can keep that promise.

Well, it looks like I've finally run out of things to say.

This is the end.

But the story's not over yet.

--Camryn