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Dear Mia,
It’s been a long time since we’ve talked–the longest I’ve ever gone without talking to you since we met, actually. Maya is still away training, and your absence in this office is more suffocating than ever. It’s like the building itself knows you're gone.
Dust is starting to collect on your books. I’m sorry I don’t use them like you did. I haven’t taken many cases in a while, so at least the desk has stayed relatively clean. Maya tried to replace your movie poster with Steel Samurai merchandise, but I switched it back after she left. I still kick myself that I never got to ask you the name of it.
The weather has been good. Clear. No major storms or earthquakes lately. Charley is still doing well.
I know I’m stalling, but I don’t know how to say what’s happened. I don’t even really know, myself. This is actually the first time I’ve let myself think about it since I found out... about 3 months ago, I think? God. The weeks have really started blurring together.
Although, maybe I don’t even have to tell you. Maybe you already know. Have you met him there, wherever “there” is? I still don’t really know how all that spirit stuff works.
Well, if you do see him, could you tell him I’m sorry? Or ask him why he did it? Actually, if you could just give him a good punch in the gut for me, that’d be great. Then at least he’ll know how it feels.
Just kidding. But only because I’m not sure if he even is dead. A part of me still refuses to believe it, but I don’t know if that’s actually my instincts telling me that or if it’s just plain, stupid denial. Blind hope. The same naïveté that let me believe I could save someone like him in the first place.
Maybe I should really just learn when it’s time to let go. So what if he’s dead or not? I already know I’m never going to see him again, so what’s the point? He’s gone.
He’s gone, you’re gone, and I’m so lost, Mia. Every day that passes I feel more and more like I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know if I ever have, to be honest, but if I told you that you’d probably say something like, “Oh Phoenix, no professional ever really knows what they’re doing. We’re just constantly adapting to whatever the world decides to throw at us.”
And you’d be right, as always. But, for some reason, it doesn’t really feel the same when I’m the one saying it.
That’s why I’m writing to you, actually. I don’t really know what to do right now. With myself, with the office. I thought I would try to see things from your perspective, to turn it around somehow, but this is kind of just making me feel even more pathetic.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I know I keep saying it, but it’s all I can think about right now. Edgeworth is gone, and I don’t know what to do.
I’m sorry, by the way, that I became a lawyer for such a silly reason. I promise it wasn’t just for him. Your defense genuinely inspired me, and in you, I saw everything that I could be for others. You were my role model, Mia. I wanted to help people, to save them, the way that both you and Miles saved me back then. I didn’t mean for it to turn into me trying to fulfill my own selfish delusions.
But, even more than that, I’m sorry that I don’t know if I want to do it anymore.
Don’t worry, I won’t quit. This is all I have now. Even though I failed, I couldn’t do that to you and everyone else out there who still needs my help. But I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a little more bitter now pinning my badge on every day.
All I can think about is how much I’m letting you down. About how hard you worked for this office, your career and legacy, just for it to get handed down to me. That’s why I’m going to do everything I can to hold on to it, to be a lawyer, even if it kills me.
I know that regardless of everything I’ve said, you’re probably proud of me anyway. I’m sorry that I don’t think I deserve it. But I don’t.
I failed. I couldn’t save Edgeworth.
And now I’m just existing, alone in the aftermath, trying to pick up the pieces of a life I had foolishly built around him.
Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say. I hope I get to see you soon, although every time we get the chance to speak it’s under some horrible circumstances, so… Sorry about that.
I know you’ll never get this letter, or you’re somehow here right now and have read every word. If that’s the case, please don’t ever mention it to me, okay? Thanks.
Yours,
Phoenix