The Letter

October 24th, 2009

“Well, of course you can see him. He likes to have someone to talk to on quiet, lazy days. His room is just this way,” the petite woman said, leading a rather tall man down a hallway. She stopped in front of a blank white door that had a green name plate to the side. The name ‘Lane Anderson’ was printed in neat white letters on the plate, and under it was a piece of paper that had a smiley face drawn on it.

It looked like a child had drawn it.

“Lane? You have a visitor! His name is Dillon, and he’ll be staying with you today! Are you okay with that?” the little woman asked, her voice cheery and Dillon could sense that she had the same air about her as a parent would with their little children.

“He said hi to me today, Marie. He said he loved me, and we were happy again!” Dillon heard a childish voice exclaim.

“I’m sure he did, honey. Can Dillon come in and talk to you?”

“Yeah. Yeah, but he has to know the password. And you can’t tell him! That’s cheating!”

“It’s cauliflower this week,” Marie said quietly before walking away and leaving Dillon standing awkwardly in the doorway while Lane looked down at a piece of paper he held between his large fingers.

“Cauliflower?” Dillon asked, smiling when Lane nodded and told him to shut the door behind him, “Hi there, Lane. Do you remember me?” he asked, smiling when Lane shook his head happily.

“Nope!” he exclaimed, looking back down at the piece of paper.

Dillon looked around the room. A small white hospital bed was pushed into a corner of the white room, and a little brown table was sitting next to it, a vase of flowers setting on it.

Lane was sitting at a little table that had three white chairs pushed around it. Dillon sat down in the one closest to Lane and looked at the piece of paper.

“What’s that?” he asked, looking expectantly at Lane, who looked up at him with a sad look on his face.

Lane held out his hand and let Dillon take the paper, then looked away, twiddling his thumbs nervously.

Dillon looked down at the paper and took in the small red dot in the corner of the page, but ignored it, instead focusing on the faded writing;

Dear Lane,
Please know I love you, and that this isn’t your fault. I wasn’t good enough for you. This was my only way of getting out the bad in me that you didn’t like. I know you’re blaming yourself, but please don’t.
Just know that I love you, and that I never wanted to hurt you; I just couldn’t take knowing that there was still a part of me that you didn’t like.
Please tell my mom that I love her. I know she’s not going to believe me in a note, but I need her to know that I love her, and that I don’t blame her for anything. She was a great mother, and had nothing to do with this.
I just needed to get rid of all the things you didn’t love about me, which turned out to be all of me.
Do you remember when we went to the beach last year? You were wearing those really loose surfer shorts, and I was wearing some of my dad’s old shorts because I forgot mine. That was the first time I realized I liked you more then I should.
You’re always been the one for me, Lane. I knew it that day at the beach, and I know it now. I’ll always love you, and I know I’ll miss you, even in death.
Even if it’s just one stupid memory, I’ll always hold onto the beach, and I hope you will, too.
I love you so much, and I know that even if you don’t love me back, that will never stop me from loving you.
Love,
Seth
P.S. Don’t blame yourself.

------

September 2nd, 2009

Seth looked on sadly at Lane, knowing he needed to find some way to get his point across.

“You… I-I… Look.. Well..-” he stuttered. Lane cut him off with a very prompt, very annoyed,

“What?”

“I.. I really like y-you, a-and I was hoping you l-liked me b-back. If you d-don’t, then that’s okay, I-I just n-needed t-t-t-to t-tell you,” he muttered, cursing everything that was good and holy for his stuttering problem.

It was only when he was really, really embarrassed or nervous that he would stutter, and those times were very few. The last time he’d stuttered was at the doctor’s office, over five years ago, when the doctor had asked him if he was a virgin while his mother and boyfriend looked on.

Why his boyfriend had been there, he couldn’t remember, but it made no difference now.

“Um, well, Seth.. We’ve been friends for a long time, and I know that you don’t tell everyone you like that you like them, and that you have a hard time telling those you do like that you like them, but,” That word broke his heart.

He tuned everything out after that, his head nodding gently the whole time Lane was talking.

“Seth, were you even listening?” Lane asked. Seth just kept nodding, not really paying attention to Lane.

When he said really liked, he meant that he loved Lane. No, not since he first met him, and not for a very long time.

It was just recently that Seth noticed that his ‘Well, I only like you a little more than I should,’ feelings were beginning to skyrocket.

He would get upset if Lane didn’t call him when he said he would, he would cry if he and Lane argued, he would smile like crazy if Lane said something nice about him.

He felt a weird tugging in his chest when Lane would touch him in any way, and he just felt… Happier around Lane.

It might be a very strong infatuation, but Seth likes to believe that he loves his best friend, and he’s perfectly fine in that belief.

“Seth, please listen to me. I like you, but not anymore than a friend. I’m sorry,” he whispered, not looking directly at Seth for he knew what lay in their depths; sadness, hurt, anger, and resentment.

He knew Seth would probably hate him, but he couldn’t help how he felt, could he?

“I understand, Lane. I’ll let you get back to… Whatever you were d-doing,” Seth whispered, standing up and walking away quickly, not allowing the tears behind his eyelids to fall until he was safe in his room and away from the prying eyes of the world.

He opened the door quickly and ran up the stairs, the tears beginning to fall. He was so close to his door, so close he could almost touch the door knob, when his mom stopped him and asked if he wanted to go out to dinner with her and a few of her friends that night.

“N-no, Mom,” he said, making sure to sound normal for his mom. He didn’t need her worrying about him, she had enough to worry about.

“Ok, honey. I’ll see you in a few hours,” she said, “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Mom,” he said, opening his door quickly and flinging himself on his bed, not bothering to close his door.

No one was going to be home, so what was the point?

He waited until he heard his mom’s crappy old car drive away before letting his tears fall.

They fell, and fell, and fell, for almost an hour.

He had crawled into his blankets and was now lying there, just looking at the wall, not really taking in anything around him; he was just staring, a small frown on his lips.

He picked up his cell phone and texted three words to Lane.

Three words that confused Lane to no end.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he set his fork down, forgetting the little bit of spaghetti still clinging to the prongs, quickly extracting the metallic little thing from his jeans and flipping open the top, feeling guilty when he saw it was Seth who had texted him.

’Don’t blame yourself.

He furrowed his eyebrows together and sighed, shutting the phone and putting it back in his pocket.

Seth can be so confusing sometimes, he thought as he picked up the fork again, smiling at a joke his roommate said.

------

Seth sniffled and wiped away a tear that hadn’t fallen all the way yet.

He’d been lying here for about 30 minutes, just staring; staring, and thinking.

He was thinking about everything.

He was wondering why he was made to be so pathetic, so ugly that even his best friend didn’t love him in any way more than what is friendly and expected between best friends.

He faintly hears a buzzing noise, but he can’t be sure if that’s his phone, the doorbell, or the ringing in his ears.

He ignores it and goes back to staring, forming a plan in his head.

------

Lane sighed after his fifth time of trying to call Seth and decided he would have to drive to his house if he wanted to get any response from Seth.

“Dillon, I’m going out, I’ll be back in a while!” he yelled, hoping his roommate heard him.

“Yeah, okay!” Dillon yelled back, not paying as much attention to what Lane was saying as he was to the two very beautiful woman now kissing each other shyly on his TV screen.

He got his keys out of his jacket pocket and ran outside, subconsciously driving a little faster, because, deep down, he knew something was wrong, he just didn’t want to admit it to himself.

------

The house was dark when Lane opened the door; Seth’s mom must have been out with her friends. They went out to bars to hit on younger men often in an attempt to regain their youth.

“Seth?” Lane called, feeling the silence pressing down on him.

Even when everyone was gone, the house was never this silent.

“Seth?” Lane called again, getting worried when there was no answer for a second time.

He flipped the light switch on and looked around the spacious living room, making sure Seth was not in it, before starting towards the stairs. He could check the laundry room and kitchen later.

He knocked on Seth’s closed door and stepped inside when there was no answer.

There were no lights on in here, either, so he flipped the switch and didn’t see anything, so he turned off the light and shut the door quietly.

“Seth? You’re scaring me. Where are you?” he asked, getting very worried now.

He heard a slight sniffle coming from the bathroom and walked slowly to the door, scared of what he would see.

Preparing for the worst, he pushed the door open softly, a soft choked sob escaping his throat when he saw Seth lying on the floor, a dazed smile on his lips.

“Lane!” he cried, smiling wider and looking up at Lane, squinting against the light, “Shut the door, they’ll get away,” he whispered, raising a wrist up to his eyes in an attempt to block out the light, but instead showing Lane the sloppy bandages that were stained a deep crimson.

“Seth, what did you do?” Lane asked, his voice deep and cracking from the sobs that he knew were coming.

“I tried to make it stop, but it just didn’t, and now I’m gonna die!” Seth said, the same smile still on his lips as his chest heaved a couple of times and his head slumped to the side awkwardly.

“Seth,” Lane said, walking to where Seth was now lying, his hands grasping at Seth’s shoulders and shaking him, “Seth! Wake up, please! You’re just dreaming, Lane! Nothing’s wrong!,” Lane said, slapping his face roughly.

A tear fell when he opened his eyes and saw that Seth was still dead, that he was never coming back.

He pulled out his phone and shakily dialed 911.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“M-my f-f-friend kil-killed him-mself,” he started. The woman asked for the address and told him not to worry, that an ambulance would be there shortly.

Lane thanked her quietly and turned back to Seth, and softly kissed his lips, wanting to know what It was like to kiss an angel.

He put his lips close to Seth’s ear and whispered a strangled, “I hate you so much, Seth,” before getting up and walking to Seth’s room, where he took a deep sigh and looked around, taking in everything.

He walked to the bed and laid down, wrapping his arms around a pillow and crying until he thought he had no more tears left.

The ambulance arrived and carried Seth away. An offer to go with them was turned down by Lane, who just needed to be alone.

He asked the EMT for a few seconds alone with Seth, and he nodded solemnly, walking away to go to the ambulance, just watching on sadly at the display Lane would probably put on.

“Why did you do this, Seth? Why?! Why couldn’t you have just been a man about it and lived. I hate you so much! I just.. Ugh! Why’d you leave me? Why, Seth? You’re a liar. You remember 3rd grade? When you said you’d be there for me forever? You’re a fucking liar,” Lane whispered, balling his fists up at his side as he stared down at Seth’s peaceful face.

He sighed and kissed Seth’s cheek again before walking inside and up to Seth’s room once again.

He sat at the desk Seth had in the corner of his room and looked, not really knowing what he was looking for; just looking.

He found a note that had a dried blood stain in the corner and read it, more tears falling as he read.