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At the bottom of the first drawer of his nightstand, along with his Da's old broken watch he gave him before he left home, and a ring he stole from his Ma just a few days before she left him, Jesper Fahey keeps the first and the last ever letters that Kaz Brekker gave to him. He guesses there's something poetic in it. Something melancholic and so bitter he feels sick when he touches it, when he remembers it. Or maybe it’s just the same shameful hope as always what keeps him from throwing them away, breaking them in a million pieces, burning them until they, and Kaz with them, are gone, gone, gone.
Sometimes he just stares at it. At the letters (the second of which he still hasn’t read), at the watch, at the ring. His sacred collection of little objects, of things now turned reminders of what once stood alongside him. He could've written something about it, he kind of wanted to. But he wasn't good with words. Not the way Kaz was.
So he just stares, sat on the floor next to his bed, a trembling hand hanging on its way to the nightstand. No. You’re strong enough. A voice inside his head tries to remind him. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? That’s the big lie everyone’s been trying to sell him: he’s strong enough. He isn’t. He’s never been. He knows as much. He’s always known. Jesper picks up Kaz’s last letter to him.
February 8 th .
To Jesper.
Therapist said to just try to be as honest as possible in these. I’m trying. You know it’s hard. But I’m trying.
Maybe the next one will be easier.
KB.
Kaz started going to therapy about a month before he started his relationship with Jesper. The zemeni man received the first ever letter a few days after they made it official, and he didn’t really know what to make of it at first. It came in a beautiful cream envelope, immaculate except from a little cursive J in the middle, black ink staining the otherwise blank canvas in a way that felt loud but contained. It was left on top of his pillow for him to find one day after Kaz left his apartment for the night. Edgelord. He opened it gently, unfolding the piece of (fucking perfumed?) paper and holding it in front of him, taking everything in. It had a small drawing of a feather on the top corner. Kaz’s handwriting was sharp and clean and quick.
Jesper read and reread the words until his eyes started to itch. He fell asleep still holding it that night. The next morning, he folded it, put it back into the envelope, and stored it along with his most prized possessions, in the top drawer of their nightstand. He went back to it from time to time, when it got hard, when it got good, or just as a reminder that the man he loved was trying his best.
The next one came a month later. A few days passed, another letter. A week more, two letters more. It became a regular thing, light envelopes appearing on his pillow for Jesper to read, to memorize and to keep like the best gift anyone could ever give him. He started writing back.
Jes wrote his thoughts as if they fell from his mind to his hands then to the piece of paper. It calmed him in a way they didn’t think it was possible. Hell, he didn’t even enjoy reading that much for that matter. But this, the process of extracting intangible things from his mind and putting them into words, it somehow made it simpler. HIs handwriting was almost messy, but readable, elongated and light strokes crafting lines and lines out of his hurricane brain. There were asterisks, and doodles, and call outs in the margins. It was real, and raw, and truthful, and pure.
Kaz, at least at first, had been much humbler with his words. He was quick, direct, to the point. Then, with practice, he learnt. Learnt how to pick up a pen and take his time and compose the most beautiful and honest yet guarded sentences Jesper had ever read. Metaphors poured from his gloved hands like water through his fingertips.
“If I don’t have to say it out loud… if I can have it just exist on paper—it’s easier,” he had told Jesper once. “It doesn’t make any of it less real, it’s just… easier.”
And Jesper understood.
In the letter that came on their six month anniversary, Kaz told Jesper that he loved him. He didn’t hide this time, didn’t leave the letter for Jesper to find later. This time, he stood in front of him, put his usual envelope in Jesper’s hands, and watched him open it and read it in silence, in awe, in absolute surprise. When gray eyes looked back up at him, for once lost for words, he took Jesper’s hand in his, caressed the bare skin, felt it through the leather of his gloves.
“You don’t have to say it back,” he whispered before swallowing hard.
Jesper’s expression was, for once, unreadable. Kaz wondered if it was because of his own anxiety that clouded his mind that it was hard for him to see through Jesper in that moment, or if it was something else. Did Jesper realize he deserved better? Better than someone who couldn’t even say I love you out loud, that had to write it on a fucking piece of paper to be able to express the thought. He did. He did deserve better, Kaz knew that much. Did Jesper know? Had he had enough? Would he leave him now?
Jesper’s hand let go of Kaz’s, gently. Kaz closed his eyes, eyelids as heavy as his heart. This is it.
“May I…?” a breeze of a voice brushed his ears, he felt it before he became aware that Jesper had lifted his arm so his hand was close to his face, ready to cup his cheek. Kaz nodded. He didn’t realize he’d been shaking until the other man’s fingertips met his skin and grounded him. It was a bittersweet touch. It still stung, slightly, but it warmed him from the inside out, it carried him to shore. It was unknown yet safe at the same time. He allowed it. His eyes caught Jesper’s, and he could read the truth in them before he spoke out loud.
“I love you.”
They spent the night telling each other in their own secret language.
The next morning, Kaz was gone. A cream envelope was on his side of the bed, that and his scent still on Jesper’s sheets being the only sign that he had been there, that it hadn’t been a dream. He opened the letter.
July 9 th .
I’m sorry.
KB.
There was no explanation. There were only unreturned phone calls, left on read messages, ignored doorbell rings. There were no more letters. There was only the memory of hushed I love you’s and soft touches in the middle of the night, a memory poisoned by the loneliness of the next morning. An aftertaste that spread through the following days, weeks, months, years? Jesper couldn’t have known anyway. In the midst of grief, time seemed to blend together in an unknowable way. In the midst of grief, there was only time and space for wondering why. And since breaking habits was never Jesper’s strong suit, he finds himself drowning in letters unsent, meaningless papers that surround him and scream his own words back at him. Maybe that will work. Maybe writing is, as it seems to have been, both the reason and solution to all of his problems.
I love you.
I miss you.
I’m sorry.
Kaz, come back.
Kaz.
What did I do wrong?
Why did you leave?
He writes everything he can’t say to him. Everything he needs to get out of their chest before he sends it over text. Not that it matters. Not that he would read, or reply. He wonders if Kaz does the same. If somewhere in his apartment, perfectly stacked up, sits a pile of cream envelopes filled with Kaz’s neat handwriting, explaining why he left, answering each and every one of Jesper’s unpronounced questions, waiting to be sent if Kaz ever summoned the courage to do so. He wonders if it even makes sense to make that effort, to pick up pen and paper when he can barely carry himself through the days, weeks, months, if no one would be waiting to read his loud, messy thoughts turned into clean, quiescent ink. But he writes anyway.
Coward.
I deserve at least an explanation.
What happened?
Why did you leave?
Did I scare you away?
Why did you leave me?
Sadness turns to anger, to love, to hatred, turns to sadness back again, that motion being the only way to tell the passage of time. He barely goes outside, doesn’t allow anyone in their apartment, only checks with his friends just to let them know he’s there. Before he realizes, summer has swallowed him and spat them back to the beginning of autumn. And he only knows so because it’s September 23rd when Kaz reappears into his life.
The doorbell rings that night and Jesper walks up to it expecting the delivery guy with his dinner. So when he opens and sees his ex-boyfriend (was he an ex if there had never been a real break up?) standing there, he needs every bit of strength left in him to not slam the door in his face or shove himself on him and kiss him numb. He’s not really sure of which one seems more likely to happen.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he mutters, watching Kaz, who looks at him unmoving, unbothered even. Kaz clears his throat before speaking.
“Jesper,” he says his name and Jesper’s knees, involuntary response, threaten to buckle. In the fold of a second, there’s a ray of hope, of that same shameful, stupid, overwhelming hope, that pierces him through his chest. He’s back. For me . In the fold of a second, Jesper loves him as they always have and there’s nothing wrong, and he’s never left, and Kaz is Jesper’s his as much as he is Kaz’s. In the fold of a second, he’s already given in to him. Then Kaz opens his mouth, and fire eats up that illusion like it would a piece of paper. “I believe I owe you an explanation. I—”
“You believe?” Jesper snaps, voice louder than he would’ve ideally liked. But he can’t bring himself to care. His heart has sank to his feet momentarily before bolting back up to pump pure rage through his veins, and now there’s poison rushing through them, angry and foreign and raw. “YOU BELIEVE?” he repeats, stronger. He scoffs. “Get fucked, Kaz. “An explanation”. An explanation would’ve been fucking nice when it was due, Kaz, ALMOST THREE MONTHS AGO. NOW? Weeks after you left me, with absolutely NO explanation? After you told me you loved me and left me, for no fucking reason—or at least not that I know because you didn’t have the fucking balls to tell me—, NOW you want to explain? Go fuck yourself, Kaz. Leave me the fuck alone, I don’t want you here, I don’t want you in my life.”
His words are out of his mouth before he can control them. Of course, they’re a lie. Of course, any other moment, if his mind wasn’t as foggy with anger as it is, he’d be on his knees, begging him not for an explanation, but for him to stay. But there’s only venom inside of him. There’s only the moment he found Kaz’s last card, the silence of the heartbreak that drowned him, the silence from Kaz all these weeks. It replays in his mind and fuels the poison he spits with every syllable he speaks.
In front of him, Kaz takes it all in. He stands, once more, in silence, still unmoving, still, seemingly, unbothered. Then he nods. He nods and he says he understands, but it feels and sounds distant and untrue and unfair, and the only thing that keeps Jesper from breaking in that moment is a last miniscule trace of pride he has still left in him. But, God, he wants to scream at him. Why is it that easy? Why aren’t you fighting for me? Why is it just an explanation, why won’t you try? You fucked up but I’d let you back, you know I would, just try. Just—
“I’m sorry,” he says, and it’s the last blow Jesper needs to come undone. He feels heavy, drowsy, sick to his stomach. He knows his eyes are filled with tears now, but he won’t let them fall, not in front of someone who didn’t have the courage to, at least, break up with him in person. Don’t fucking “understand”, don’t be sorry, do something.
But he’s Kaz. He’s the same person that left him without notice. And he’s Jesper, the same person that wasn’t even worth an explanation. The same person who believed Kaz when he told him he loved him, only to leave him right after.
So Kaz turns. Leaves. And Jesper lets him. Because he’s Kaz, and he’s Jesper. Because he’s the same person who isn’t worth it for Kaz to fight for.
It doesn’t really get better after the fight. Days seem the same, nights are just sunless prolongations of them. But there’s something there. The beginning of closure, somehow. Or the promise of it, at least. Not knowing why still eats him up. It haunts his dreams most nights. It’s a curse he’s not able to lift off himself and he never will be because the truth is only held by Kaz and he doesn’t want to know anything about him for now. And even if he knew—would that make any change? Would it be any good, hearing him say “I left you because…”? “Because you’re not good enough”, “because you’re not worth my time, my getting better”, “because I realized I don’t really love you when I said it”. No, Jesper thinks. It wouldn’t be any good.
“At least you told him to fuck off,” Nina offers one night she and Wylan are over for dinner. They’re over for dinner most nights recently. Ever since Jesper’s and Kaz’s last encounter, he’s allowed his friends to be there for him, which he hadn’t really before. And that comment, and Wylan raising his wine glass to it, and surprisingly, because he hasn’t laughed in weeks, earns a chuckle-slash-scoff from Jesper.
“The thing is,” he begins after a moment of silence, trying to avoid choking on the lump on his throat, “I still kind of want him to do something. I don’t even know if I’d take him back—like, right now I’m sure he doesn’t even want to but if he did and if he tried—or maybe he’s just being Kaz and he does want me and—I just… I just want him to show that he cares. Or that he cared, at some point,” his voice is nothing but a tiny stream of water when he’s done talking. Because half of it is a lie, and he knows, and he knows that his friends know.
“Babe…,” Nina starts, but Jesper cuts her off with a hand.
“I know, I know.” He’s Kaz, and that’s all the explanation there ever is. That’s all the explanation any of them can ever ask for. And that’s fine, most of the time. He just… He just.
“He does. Care,” says Wylan, warmly but matter-of-factly, though he seems to change his stance when Nina elbows his side. “Not that you should care, anyway.”
“ Exactly, you’re better off,” immediately adds Nina, flicking her wrist to accompany her statement.
Jesper, feeling something tug his heart, smiles lamely. They spend the rest of the night drinking wine and talking about Kaz. When Jesper falls asleep, he does so on Wylan’s chest, hugged by both Wylan and Nina, and there are tears streaming down his face and he’ll wake up with puffy eyes and a headache, but beginning to turn a page.
Healing, Jesper thinks, sucks It just plain fucking sucks. He wishes he could just skip the whole process, wake up one day and be done with it. Be over Kaz, be over their break-up. Maybe even be able to be friends with him again. No, not friends. He doesn’t even deserve me as a friend. Some other times, he wishes he could wake up in Kaz’s arms, and when he finds himself wishing that, he thinks again, Healing. Sucks. And some other times, while hanging out with the group, someone will mention Kaz and look at him from the corner of their eye, checking if that’s okay, if that’s allowed, if mentioning his ex after almost half a year after they had their last fight, is fine, and he will, once again think Healing. Sucks. Because it’s been more than enough time for their friend group to stop tiptoeing around the subject of their break-up or to stop scheduling meet-ups so they’re not both together. Because it’s been more than enough time for him to get over Kaz, but still, sometimes, when their friends mention him, he still feels his absence like a bullet ripping a hole through his chest.
It sucks that he’s still finding letters that Kaz gave him around the apartment because Jesper never stored them in one place. It sucks that, involuntarily, out of pure habit, he still buys Kaz’s favourite cookies (I don’t even fucking like them). It sucks that he remembers the precise weight of Kaz’s lips on his when he kissed him. That he misses it and that it makes his lips burn with want and misery. It sucks that Kaz stole his favorite ring and didn’t give it back, and it sucks that he left his favorite sleeping shirt at Kaz’s apartment, and it kills him that he hasn’t seen him in five months and that he doesn’t know when he will again, it kills him that he doesn’t even know if he wants to.
It sucks that he knows by heart the first ever letter that Kaz gave him, the one he keeps in the first drawer of his nightstand. It sucks that he can’t bring themself to throw it out.
You ruined me and I would do it all again, he writes, and then he crumbles up the paper and throws it in the bin.
I miss you.
I hate you and I don’t want to see you again in my life.
I hope you come back. I want you to come back.
You’re a coward.
Please.
If you ever read this, know that I will never forgive you.
If you ever read this, know that I love you.
Healing, Jesper thinks, works in mysterious ways. It’s been almost a full year since Kaz left him, but for all he knew, it could’ve been a week, or it could’ve been a century. For the most part, he’s forgotten. For the most part, he’s healed. That’s what he tells everybody, anyway. He’s vaguely aware that everybody is vaguely aware that he’s lying, but isn’t that what everybody does, anyway? Whatever. He’s even tried dating again, emphasis on tried.
“Step by step, Jes, it’ll be better next time,” Nina offers after he tells them about a particularly bad date with a girl from Matthias’ job. She’d been lovely. Too lovely.
“You could try with you-know-who,” teases Inej, smirking, making Wylan, by her side, raise his eyebrows with confused interest.
“Who’s you-know-who?” he asks, oblivious of course to the fact that he is you-know-who, but his voice gets kind of lost under Nina’s approving, suggestive sounds and Jesper’s denying murmurs.
“I can’t do that to him. Not now,” Jesper replies, a certain warmth and fondness to his tone, and Inej smiles, comforting, understanding, because healing, she knows as well, works in mysterious ways. They brush it off and continue their breakfast meet-up without mentioning dates, or Kaz, or the fact that, in a little over a week, it’ll be July 9th again.
Healing, Jesper thinks, as he watches his ex-boyfriend once again stand at his doorway later that same day, is really fucking difficult when this motherfucker won’t quit tormenting me. And he almost finds it funny when the thought crosses his mind. The piercing, stinging feeling that seems to part his chest in half kind of takes away any humor out of the situation, though.
“What the fu—?” he starts, and it feels like a déjà vu. But this time, he can’t finish the sentence because Kaz interrupts.
“Please,” is the first and only word to leave his mouth.
There’s something in it, in the way he pronounces the word, in the way he packs every single letter with intention, like he means it, like he’s begging. It sounds like he’s said it through gritted teeth, like he’s building up the courage to say it, like he can barely manage to. But it sounds real. It sounds genuine, and almost desperate. Definitely desperate. Jesper can’t even begin to wonder what Kaz is going to say after, but hearing him say please that way is enough for him to be okay with anything. He opens the door a bit more, a peace offering for the time being, a truce. He leans on the frame. He’s tired, but he’ll listen. He gives Kaz a small nod, and watches as he visibly relaxes. Not bad being on this side.
“Do you remember how I told you it was easier for me to write than to talk?” Kaz asks, and it takes Jesper a lot of self-restraint to not roll his eyes. Of course he remembers. It’s mostly all he’s been thinking about these months. The letters, how they gave him everything then took it all away. Jesper nods, watches Kaz pull a single cream envelope from the inside pocket of his coat, and hand it to him. The light from the bulb right above the door falls directly on it and it makes it look even brighter, a white dove between the black stain that is Kaz and the million colors palette that is Jesper. It could be beautiful.
It’s not.
Jesper is about to laugh, about to tell him he doesn’t get to do that, about to close the door on him and tell him where he can shove this letter as well as the rest of them, but he catches Kaz’s eyes, and they’ve never been more of a mirror than right now. Hope. That’s all there is. Childish, ridiculous, overwhelming hope on a deep brown canvas, a wish not said out loud in case it was too optimistic to even think about asking for it.
“I can’t promise I’ll read it. Or at least not now, anyway.”
“Take as much time as you need,” Kaz says with a nod. He looks like he’s about to say something else, opens his mouth, closes it. They stay in silence for a short moment before Jesper talks again.
“I can’t invite you in either.”
“I understand. Just… if you ever read it. Please. Call me.”
There it is again, that word, that beg, that prayer to Jesper. It sounds like gold. He’s not quite sure he loves it, but for now, it feels good. It feels right.
“Oh, your phone still works then? Good to know!” he teases, lively, unable to stop himself, and because right now, it feels as if he has the upper hand of this conversation, and it feels right to do so. Hm.
It feels even better when he sees his ex blushing at the implications. Or, well, the Kaz Brekker equivalent of blushing. If one could even describe that.
“I’m so—.”
“Don’t,” Jesper cuts him, but it’s not sharp. He just doesn’t want to hear it right now. “I’ll think about it. I’ll call.”
Before Kaz can react to it, he closes the door, leaning back on it and breathing deeply once he finds himself alone, inside. Outside, a hopeful Kaz stays for a few moments in front of the door. When Jesper hears him leave, he looks down at his hands, the envelope familiar on them as if it belonged there. The soft touch of the paper, the curved J that called upon him, the promise of Kaz Brekker and his poet mind inside. He knows he can’t trust himself with it right now, so he quickly stores it, somewhere that might tame the temptation, that helps him stay grounded. Somewhere that reminds him of what he’s lost.
From the bottom of the first drawer of his nightstand, along with his Da's old broken watch, and the ring he stole from his Ma, Jesper Fahey picks up the last ever letter that Kaz Brekker gave to him. It’s been a few days, maybe three, or maybe five, which Jesper deems enough because he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it any given minute ever since. No, he isn’t strong enough to resist this. He’s not sure he wants to be, anyway.
The perfumed paper still has the scent of a freshly written letter. A smile shyly finds its way to his lips when he realizes. Edgelord. With a sigh, he brings it out of the envelope and unfolds the paper. He’s careful with it, slow, gentle. As if he were touching Kaz himself, as if he were still allowed to do so. He reads in silence.
June 30th.
To Jesper.
I know that no amount of letters could ever make up for the way I left or the pain I put you through. No amount of “I’m sorry”’s would do either, and I don’t want to be apologizing forever. I believe I owe you peace, more than anything, and the opportunity to heal. The opportunity to live a great life without me. But I will try, just once, and if you don’t want me back, I will understand, and I will not bother you any longer.
That night when I told you I loved you, I meant it. I have never in my life spoken truer words or felt more honest feelings than the fact of. I just couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud. And I knew then that I wasn’t worthy of your love. You deserved someone who could tell you. Who could celebrate you and give you all the affection in the world, in ways I thought I could never. Your love is loud and colorful, a precious treasure that I somehow was lucky enough to be blessed with. It makes me better just by existing, the fact that someone like you could feel that way about me made me feel worthy. And I wanted, more than anything, to be just that: worthy, of you, of your love.
So that’s what I’ve been trying. I’m not trying to sell you some “I’m a changed man” bullshit, but know that I’m trying. And I will continue trying, for you. I’ve realized a lot of things these past months, some big realizations, some small. Some I will hopefully tell you someday, some others you will hopefully see for yourself.
I told you once if I didn’t have to say how I felt out loud it was easier for me. It didn’t make it any less real, just easier for me to express. This is not the reason why I’m writing to you today, instead of saying it all to your face. I just wanted this to be proof. For you to be able to go back, if you ever needed, to these words. I’ll try to tell you in person, as I said, I’ll try to be better at this. But if I’m ever being difficult, if it gets bad, if I can’t always be the man you deserve. Just, please, know I’m trying.
With hope, for once, and yours, always,
KB.
Jesper picks up the phone.
“Jes?” Kaz calls, and, again, it sounds like pure desire. It sounds like hope.
“Come over.”
That July 9th, Jesper wakes up in his bed, aware before he fully wakes of what day it is, and takes a minute to breathe. There’s complete silence in the room. It feels again like déjà vu. But this time, when he turns his body on his side, instead of emptiness, neat folded sheets, and the promise of loneliness, there’s Kaz, staring at him. And instead of a cream envelope that said I’m sorry but didn’t really ask for forgiveness, there’s deep brown eyes that tell Jesper the truth before Kaz can say it out loud.
“I love you.”