Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
CHAPTER FIVE. champagne for the pain
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
DEAR NOVA,
If you're reading this then I'm dead. I know that's so cliche for me to say and something you only see in the movies, but it's true. I'm sorry for leaving you like this. I just couldn't do it any longer. I thought using drugs would help me forget about everything, all my problems, but it only made it worse. I started having these nightmares, and I was too addicted to stop, so the nightmares just continued. All the secrets and the lying drove me to this. I've made peace with my decision, now so do you.
You have to know it wasn't your fault, Nova. I know you'll try and blame yourself, but there was nothing you could have done. I made this decision, and as selfish as it might sound, you and everyone else will have to live with it. You don't have to carry the guilt of my decisions because there was nothing you could have done for me. My death was written in stone the second I decided to fall in deep with the mystery behind The Royal Merchant.
For the past year, I've been looking for the Merchant. I wanted to find the gold and make dad proud of me because I finally did something amazing. He already saw me as a disappointment because of the decisions I made growing up. I thought that if I found the gold then I could finally get him to look at me the same way he always looked at you — with pride. But I underestimated how dangerous it would be. There are a lot of people with lots of power after this stupid shipwreck too, and I had to see innocent people pay the consequences.
That's why I'm leaving you this letter, hiding it in the one place you would be able to find it. I can't say much because the last thing I want is to drag you into the same mess that resulted in my own suicide. I had to take my own life to escape the secrets and the constant lies. I couldn't live with what I knew, but I won't burden you with those same secrets too. But as your older brother, the last thing I can still do before I'm gone is protect you, even in death. So, all I'm going to say is this. . .
