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Will,
I know you deserve more than a letter but we both know I’m not very good at expressing my feelings coherently, at least not in a meaningful way. I’m worried I’ll get flustered and won’t have the guts to actually say it out loud … especially now. I know you’ve seen me become guarded, and though I’m softer with you, I’ve become less expressive and emotionless in the last few years I guess… I don’t know… I think you need to know why. I wanted you to have something tangible to keep, some proof of how I feel and felt if you ever question it… something concreate, It’s the least I can do for you. How do I begin to say goodbye though? I’m not sure I can if that’s where this is going. I wish I didn’t have to think about it. I don’t even know what to write in this letter, how to express how I feel and not forget anything. I hope you don’t have to read it or if you do that, I’m sitting with you when you do and everyone is okay.
I don’t know how max had so many kind things to say in her letter, to me at least… which I know we weren’t supposed to read, but I wasn’t sure she was going to wake from that coma as much as I wanted her to, and I got curious… I wanted her to wake up even more after reading it. I sat with her when I read it, it was the Saturday before her birthday, I’d made sure I went after I knew Lucas was gone so it was just us… I cried for an hour at least and only left when the nurse escorted me out, never told anyone until now. I wonder if anyone else read there’s, It wasn’t overly mushy but it made me appreciate her friendship more than I will tell her… so if you could keep this secret for me too, I know its a lot to ask but you can just add it to the rest we share, maybe in a few years you can tell her… as for our others secrets, those are up to your discretion, I trust you.
I guess it gave me perspective knowing how close we came to loosing her, and what I’d have done in lucas’ shoes… I don’t think I can handle another loss, I keep thinking back to everyone else we have lost over the last few years dealing with the upside down. I think it might be catching up to me how much it has actually affected me, I haven’t slept well in years I think. I hope your nightmares are less frequent than mine and you don’t feel as heavy as I do with all these thoughts… but knowing how much more you went through, I’d guess they’re worse for you. I should have asked, I selfishly didn’t want to hear how bad it was I think? mine leave me breathless, unable to move or breath, sobbing with the sound of nothing loudly ringing and I didn’t want to imagine you alone like that too, trying to comfort yourself. Maybe if I’d said something we could have been there for each other… I’m sorry. I mess up from talking and not talking, I don’t know how to fix that… I’m just… I’m sorry.
I keep thinking back to that trip a few years ago, driving back from California… i didn’t even flinch in that desert, when we did that thing that we can never talk about, before finding the address. I feel like I should have felt something, should have cried or something… I don’t know if I could feel enough to cry even now, even after this whole thing is over. I don’t know what we are up against but at least we will always be a team, I promised you that and I intend on keeping it. I wanted to talk to you sitting on that car after about how I was feeling but I wouldn’t let myself think about it or feel it, he wasn’t the only thing I buried out there, I thought I would bring it up later but so much happened and like always I let myself get distracted... we definitely had a moment though. It wasn’t just you.
Speaking of not that… I feel like our D&D characters have never been scared enough entering those fights we put them in because I’m so petrified… I’m curious if we’ve been through more or they have- which of us have had it worse, mike or the paladin... or if we are just one with our characters at this point, I mean… you definitely are alike with yours, powerful and all. These fights we get into though are no small thing and I think we are going to have a lifetime of nightmares from them, or at least I know you and I both will, Will.
I still haven’t got to the point of this letter and I might be stalling but at least you will have plenty to read. I’m going to say a lot of things in this letter because I’m not editing it, there’s no time and if you have to remember me in this way, I guess you will get the full raw experience so I hope that’s okay. I wanted to explain a few things bout me that you may not know, that I keep hidden and I haven’t told anyone, and being my best friend, you deserve to know. I know you know I’m not perfect, but I still kept these dark deep thoughts to myself to protect you and let you think of me in the light I see you… but I want you to see everything, know everything… the darkness, secrets and vulnerability, the hurt, the pain, the love and the regret. I wanted to explain and apologise for some of the things I put you through over the last few years. I know I can never fully make up for them and this is not an excuse but I hope it gives you some context and closure, it might not make sense to you but I hope you can read through the metaphors and see the full picture and know you knew me, you really knew all of me and I hope it doesn’t change how you saw me, at least not in a bad way. I guess I won’t know, and that’s maybe a bad joke… sorry again... but here we go, my soul, fears and heart I’m giving to you, handle it with care.
I was always worried that I didn’t know how to exist correctly, like there was a mistake or a malfunction somewhere. The smallest of tasks known instinctively for everyone else felt foreign for me, like they were inherently wrong somehow like I was wrong somehow... like taking a breath for example… I breathe wrong, like I don’t actually know how to do it correctly in the first place. It felt inevitable, that someone would notice and point it out, and the other things too, the careful steps I make, know it was different or rehearsed, know that I was different... that I didn’t... belong that i wasn’t normal. Being normal, playing that part seemed to be the most important thing for a while, it was something I thought we all did, but it’s not… is it?..
I’m calculated until my emotions are too much, are too full, are too present and raw. The carefully created plans I make fall apart when it becomes too much and impulse kicks in… before I know it, I’m falling down an endless rabbit hole, trying to grip the walls to stop from hitting the ground. I do the wrong thing, I say the wrong thing and sometimes I just can’t believe it happened until its too late. I’ve said some stupid things over the years, and done some even stupider things to grasp the reality I thought I was supposed to want, supposed to need. I won’t outline them, I know you know and I remember your face vividly when I said them. Consequences and Karma stick with my guilt like they’re old friends, I run on pure and raw heart when I can’t contain myself and it bursts hitting everything around me with shards of that hurt, and you’re always around me. I wish I let myself give in control when it mattered… not when it was scared and defensive but when it was full and in love, when you deserved to feel it, to be touched by it.
My Heart and Head play tug of war in a way that’s comfortable, only in the sense that its familiar, in reality its radiating pain that echoes through the hollow chamber that my body has become… it feels like Its running low on energy and I know it can’t hold on forever. The trauma and unresolved issues fight past the heart that loves, the heart that’s not sure it deserves you. I let my head numb me and rob me of you and I don’t know how to stop it, not because I don’t love you enough but because I love you too much and I was never taught how to handle that. To handle this. I know I would lose myself in you and giving up that control and free falling is a frightening concept, it would change everything I thought I knew about myself and take the ground under my feet. We both had mothers who loved us with every breath and every beat of their heart, and fathers who didn’t deserve us… while you took that pain and pushed it out, I pulled it in and let it eat me alive. I’m so sorry Will. I wish I had figured it out sooner. I wish I had fought it sooner, before I became this.
If you read this, something went wrong in the Abyss. I thought you should know the things I kept in and hid from you and everyone else, all my secrets… you know everything else and someone should know the whole truth. You should know the truth… the whole me… even if I can’t say it to you myself. You need to know that I felt it, I always did, I was just too stupid and stubborn to let myself. I was too selfish and frightened to be brave. Maybe you’re right and I was the heart, but you were always the Brave that let me be that. I would never of truly found myself without you, and I hope you find the love you always deserved and I’m sorry if I couldn’t be the one to give that to you. The truth is painful and you might not like it but if you want it and chose it, here it is. A last warning, it’s about to get very real very quick. I really hope I’m there to hold you for this part, or someone is.
I cried every night you were missing in 1983. I wanted to join you when I thought you died in the lake, I said it was to save Dustin when I jumped but it wasn’t the only reason... I didn’t want to exist in a world where you weren’t. I didn’t know how to live without you and I didn’t want to, I was so angry and upset and reckless. When we thought they found you in that lake, I almost crashed several times biking home because I couldn’t see through the tears. When I saw my mom that night I broke down, hugging her for the first time in a long time, I held her until I fell asleep crying, I woke up in the middle of the night and went to the basement and l looked through your drawings I still have.
I stay up as long as I can watching you sleep sometimes… it started after the possession when I’d watch you from the floor of your room to make sure you were okay before letting myself rest. I would listen to you breathing to help me sleep when I was scared at sleep overs, and once recognised yours in a walkie talkie when you were in the upside down. I had and still have nightmares that you have forgotten me or been taken away from me again, at least once a week I think. Nancy had to hold me on more than one occasion during a panic attack when you were possessed, and sometimes even now when the nightmares get too bad and I wake in a sweat. Sometimes the nightmares are about the upside down and sometimes they’re just about us and things I did, like when we fought in the rain. I meant to tell you to grow up like my dad always told me to but that’s not how it came out, and it was so much more hurtful than I intended… I’m pretty sure I was projecting and I have felt bad about it every day since. I always go to fix things with you immediately after every argument because it feels like my chest is collapsing in and I’m so scared of losing you, I can’t think about anything else till we are okay.
I hope you do read into this… there’s a binder of all the drawings you have ever given me under my bed. I look through it regularly when I can’t sleep, or need to think… it helps the panic when I feel like I’m losing you, when I feel the most vulnerable and frightened. I have added a box next to it with all the letters I never sent you while you were in California, you can have both of them, and just be kind about the letters, they weren’t as thought through as well as this and have a lot of talk of D&D and Eddie. I think you two would have gotten along really well, and maybe it would have forced me to see my feelings for you earlier… especially having to look at you both looking at each other, the jealousy would have been undeniable. Back to California, I called every day but it never went through, and I was embarrassed to tell you because I thought you didn’t want to talk to me... That was until our fight when we went roller skating, and I realised you were trying to reach me too. By the time I woke up to it, it was too late to take back, or at least I was too stubborn to. I didn’t hug you properly that visit because you didn’t look like the Will that left and it made me feel things I wasn’t ready to… I also realised the distance between us and didn’t feel like I knew you anymore. I didn’t push about the painting in the airport because it hurt that you had made one for someone else, someone you liked and I was jealous. I told myself that the jealousy was because we weren’t close enough for you to tell me about her yourself, but I think I thought she replaced me in your life and I hated that you liked someone more than me.
I was also just overwhelmingly nervous that entire trip and angry at myself for the way I was feeling. Everything felt off and intense and you not enjoying my company heightened every emotion and every detail, I was trying to figure out what was going on with us and I couldn’t stop looking at you the whole time I was there, it was like I was trying to memorise you or adjust to the person you grew into… trying to find where I fit because I desperately just wanted a place again, I tried to stay angry at the way you made me feel but every smile I couldn’t help but return, your green eyes were glassy and beautiful and your clothes fit you better. You had confidence I hadn’t seen and it was overwhelming, the tension became worse the more I spent time with you and the anger faded faster than it came but the fire never went out, I think we both know it sent me spiralling. I think it was the closest I came to accepting that my feelings for you were more than platonic.
On the subject of California, I was more excited to see you than anyone else, which is awful to admit but hey, while we are being honest… I was never going to tell El I loved her that trip. I was trying to tell her that I cared about her but she didn’t see me the way I wanted to be seen, that I loved her but in the way I love Dustin and Lucas. I could only tell her I loved her when I heard my heart reflected back to me with the painting, which I now know was you. I also missed some of your speech in the van when your wrist touched mine because the wind left my lungs and my breath caught in my chest in a way that’s never happened to me before. I’m not sure I’ve ever been that speechless or lost for words – That should have told me what I needed to know but it didn’t… maybe that was in part of the speech that I missed when you distracted me. After California we never got back together, her and I… I didn’t realise it happened for a while because I’m oblivious but I know I didn’t try and there was a lot going on but I think it was more than that, I think we both knew I wasn’t being honest with her. I always lost her when I reached for you, and lost you when I tried to hold her… it’s like I didn’t have enough love in my heart for you both at once, but on instinct my heart always ran to you first.
There's just one more thing and it might be the most important part. There's a tape I made you for Christmas in the box with the letters. I figured I’d get you something to go with it at some point, maybe a necklace or write you a story or something… I’m not sure. I can’t give you that mix though not unless you read this first, it might be too much... On the cassette there’s some songs I thought you might like, some I know you love and one that you hate but I love, it’s my favourite… and I recorded a little message for you at the end, that’s the main reason I can’t give it to you.. I say things on it… things I’ve never said it to anyone, but I’ve said it to your feelings before, even if I didn’t know it at the time so I hope its not too crazy.
I need you to know how much you gave me… you gave me happiness, and friendship, you gave me a hobby for life, a passion for writing and a love for art (yours mostly). You gave me endless smiles, companionship and a feeling I tried so hard to run from but you were persistent with. You made my chest hurt and my heart ache but you made it warm and expressive and accepting. You made me feel seen, like you make everyone feel, you made me feel like I wasn’t a mistake, that being different made me special, not a freak… you made me feel heard and strong when I desperately needed it, and above all else… you make me feel loved for exactly who I am… and if I made you feel even a fraction of how you made me feel, how you make me feel, then I know we would have made it. We would have been good to each other and for each other. I hope we do, I hope I can hug you after this, and kiss you after this.. But just in case I can’t, I need you to know I wanted to, and make it clear… you are the real heart. My heart.
All my Love,
Mike.