Work Text:
January 6th, 2017
“Usnavi, I’d like you to meet Alexander Hamilton. Alex, this is Usnavi de la Vega, I thought you two would become good friends.”
Usnavi stood from the desk chair, an overly underweight kid in some overly baggy clothes. Alex stuck his hand out and Usnavi shook it, smiling softly. “Hey, I’m Usnavi. My friends call me Navi, so you’re welcome to.”
Alex smiled softly, biting his lip. “Hey, I’m Alex.”
It surprised Alex how fast the two had become friends. One moment they had just met, and the next they were bonding over art. Usnavi could draw, he said he was taught by a kid in his bodega, and Alex could, of course, write. After a while, they were sharing tricks of the trade, seated next to each other on Alex’s bed. Alex could suddenly draw. Not well, but he could draw better than he had in the past. And Navi could write. Usnavi had surprised Alex with his already well developed writing skills, but with Alex’s help, Navi had improved leaps and bounds.
Days in the facility became weeks. Alex’s birthday had come and passed. Alex had learned how to bake through classes at the facility, and he made a cake that the friends who came to the party ate and loved. His mom, dad, John, Laf, Herc… everyone but the Schuyler sisters. Navi celebrated too. Presents were given, and it had been nice to see his family and friends all at one time. He had been restricted to one visit from friends and three from family per week. Even with those restrictions, he hardly had visitors. Martha and George, a.k.a mom and dad, were getting ready for George’s inauguration on the 20th. The date was coming fast, which meant less and less visitors. On top of that, his friends had semester finals to study for, and they could never come over. Not even John, but he couldn’t come because of his abuela. She was getting sicker and sicker as time went on. It was only a matter of time…
Another week passed. Alex had his stitches taken out. It had been painful, but the pain had triggered… well, something. He had received a hardcover book for his birthday, with a cardstock sleeve. Through tears of self-hatred and loneliness, he shaped the cardstock into an edge and dug into the newly healed scars. Navi was in a class, due back any minute, but that didn’t matter. Not to Alex, because he didn’t matter. He would never matter. Not to himself, not to his friends, not to his family, not to anyone. Nothing mattered.
Usnavi rushed in moments latter. Things were blurry, but he was taken to the emergency medical section of the facility and stitched back up. His arms were wrapped, and his anti depressants were upped. Unfortunately, the medicine for his depression didn’t go well with morphine, and Usnavi couldn’t be in the emergency ward due to his poor health, so Alex was forced to sit in a white room around other sick people, depression spiraling him into the deepest pit he had ever been in.
The nightmares started in the hospital ward two nights after he opened up his wounds. Up until that point, he had refused to speak with Kitty about important things, instead he focused on daily activities. When he woke up the next morning, sobbing, cold, and shivering due to James’ ghost fingertips on his body, he finally opened up. Kitty called it a breakthrough. Alex called it a weakness. Kitty gave him privileges due to opening up, like being able to text friends and family. Alex gave himself even worse nightmares. All the way back to his mother’s death, the Cadwell’s, the Avery’s, James, countless foster homes…
Kitty said he would get worse before he got better. His wounds got wrapped, he was given medication, and sent out to George’s inauguration. His family was ecstatic to see him, yet confused as to why he wasn’t the same. According to them, he should be happy. They didn’t understand what he was going through. None of them knew about him reopening his wounds. None of them knew he didn’t sleep unless he had to, too afraid of the ghost fingertips grabbing his neck, pulling his hair, scratching his back…
None of them knew how dirty he always felt. None of them knew he couldn’t sleep alone anymore. He was always driven to exhaustion before he would fall asleep, tears running down his cheeks as he was led to bed by Usnavi. Usnavi would hold him, tell him stories to help him sleep. It was a mutual agreement between the two of them. Alex wouldn’t tell Kitty when Usnavi would throw up, and Usnavi wouldn’t tell Kitty about how Alex wouldn’t sleep, eat, or how he picked at the scars on his arms. A week bled into a new month, and that’s when things went to shit.
John’s abuela died early in the morning near the end of January. He was admitted to the facility a few days later by Kitty. The school reported he had been worrying them about suicide. John stayed a week, Kitty helped him and he just… left. A day after he left the facility, Navi’s abuela died, too. He was a mess. Couldn’t be helped. Usnavi’s parents had died years earlier, and abuela Claudia was the stand in. Not just for him, but for his cousin Sunny. The young girl had been moved into the foster system. Usnavi couldn’t deal, and a few weeks after the incident, he passed out. Alex had heard him throwing up, but Navi had known he didn’t sleep, and they had the agreement…
Alex never should have agreed.
If he hadn’t agreed, maybe things would have been different.
Maybe he could have changed things.
Maybe Navi would have come back from the hospital ward after passing out.
But he didn’t.
He never came back.
Alex never said goodbye.
Sunny never got to talk to her cousin, practically big brother, and say goodbye. It had been months since they had last breathed a word to each other.
Sunny was flown to Virginia for Navi’s funeral. Alex went, too. Alex was a ghost of who he used to be, though. His shirt hung off his shoulders, and his pants were barely staying up. His cheeks had hollowed, and his hair had grown long and gotten oily. He didn’t look like Alex anymore. But then again, Sunny wasn’t Sunny anymore, either. She was an 11-year-old girl who needed a family.
Many people had shown up to the funeral. Over the months, Alex’s family had become Usnavi’s family. George and Martha were basically surrogate parents, Lafayette a surrogate sibling, Hercules a surrogate brother, along with John. John’s new foster dad, Lin, and mom, Vanessa, and brother, Seb, had become family too. They were this huge family full of love, and a hole had suddenly formed where a teenage boy who needed love had once been.
The parallels between Alex and Usnavi were not hidden at all. The parallels were blatant, at least to Alex. Alex had been front row at the funeral, and he had seen Usnavi’s body lying in that casket. The last time he saw one of his closest friends was a moment he would never forget. It was the turning point, really. As the body was lowered into the ground, Alex felt something click. Usnavi didn’t have enough time, he never got the time he should have had. Seeing his family crying, and seeing Usnavi dead just brought an image into his head of him in the casket, and his family mourning him . What used to be a good image and a fantasy suddenly became a toxic thought. He couldn’t subject his family to more loss. It was time to stop giving up on himself, and to actually believe in himself. Save himself. Save his family. It was time to live.
The crying girl next to him was suddenly noticed. What used to be an afterthought became his center of focus. Usnavi’s voice appeared in his head, a whisper of a name. Sunny . His cousin, Usnavi’s cousin who he wrote to, and talked about non stop. An orphan now, just like how he used to be. Usnavi had mentioned how he was technically an orphan too, but that he was in the facility so it didn’t matter. He also mentioned how scared he was because no one would take his sister.
That would have to be the first thing to change, then.
When two hurting people meet, a connection forms. When two foster kids meet, a connection forms. Granted, when two people meet in general, there is a connection, but never as strong as when they know they have something in common. Usnavi used to write about Alex a lot, and to Sunny, it felt like she already knew the teenage boy sitting next to her. Alex felt the same way. Because of that, it came as no surprise when the two clicked. They were practically glued at the hip, taking care of each other for the rest of the day before Alex was sent back to the facility, and Sunny was supposed to be sent back to New York. Alex had talked to George, though. He knew it was the right thing to do, and George felt the same. A week later, Sunny was the new Washington foster kid, and Alex was improving.
Alex stopped hiding his meds and he actually started to take them. He talked about his feelings. He admitted he was having nightmares, and Kitty helped him with those. He admitted his guilt about the whole situation. Months flew by, scars faded. Nights passed after nights, Alex laying alone in that little white room. One side decorated, the other plain. Obviously the plain side was awaiting a new patient, but Kitty didn’t give it to anyone. She understood how Alex felt. She understood that Usnavi was one of his closest friends, like a brother. He was one of Kitty’s favorite patients, too.
The strong spoken boy left a hole in many hearts, the largest hole being left in Alex’s. He wrote letters to the dead boy, and put them under the teenagers old mattress. He wrote about the day, or the week, or the classes, or the weather, or Sunny… he wrote about everything he could think of. He wrote and wrote, using his pen as a coping mechanism. Words flowed out of him and onto papers. Papers were collected by Kitty when she knew Alex wouldn’t know, and put into a file for Alex to later take home.
After months of therapy, Alex was considered ready to go home in late June. Leaving was hard, but he had friends there to support him. Tons and tons of friends and family. They were always there to support him, and they would always be there, as Alex learned. Going home had been strange, yet calm. He had a room in the white house, decorated exactly like his old room. A journal sat on his desk at his new home, the journal his mother had given him before death. The journal was filled to the brim, only one page left. This blank page sat in the back of his journal, a landmark he could never get past.
A small smile crept onto his face, and his hand plucked a pen out from his pocket. He gingerly sat at the desk and started to fill the final page in his book. Words were not hard to gather, they flowed like they always had. It was bittersweet when his pen hit the page for the last time, a dot marking the last sentence of the last page of his journal. He stood with a sigh, journal in his hand. After glancing down at the cover, he shelved the journal. The boy stood in the center of his room, smiling to his feet, then glancing upward, and smiling to his ceiling. He was happy, and he was at peace. Life was good.
Epilogue
2047
Mother,
For years I’ve put off writing in the last page. I’ve squished words into page margins, but I’ve always kept this one page blank for something important. At the age of 16, it seems I’ve reached that moment. Six months ago, I tried to commit suicide. I saw you, and you told me to stay. Through those months, I made friends, lost family, and gained more than I ever could have dreamed. Not just a gain of knowledge, but a gain of love. I’m a new person, and I value life. I still think of you, you were my original family, but I have a new family now. I have a sibling named Lafayette, a mother named Martha, a father named George, a
sister named Sunny
brother named Sonny, an
uncle
father-in-law named Lin, an
aunt
mother-in-law named Vanessa, a
nephew
brother-in-law named Sebastian, a
boyfriend
husband named John, a best friend named Herc, and countless others. I finally have a family. This time, it’s a family I know will always protect me and love me through everything. I’ve learned that family doesn’t end with blood, and my family is the best family I could ever have. It’s hard to do this, but it’s time to part with the past. It’s time I live in the present. I’ll never forget you, or Usnavi, or others in my life who have passed on. All of you will forever stay in my heart, and I know that I’ll come back in the future to read this one page, but at this moment, I’m taking the step forward into the future. Into my future. With love, Hamilton.
New York Times July 12th 2047
Surrounded by friends and family, Alexander Hamilton, published writer, politician, and America’s sweetheart has passed away at the age of 46 from cancer. In a report from George Washington, 45th president of the United States, he passed away surrounded by family, a smile on his face. He was happy, George reported. He was at peace, and that’s all that matters.