The Sun Also Sets

“Yo, Brock, there’s a letter here for you,” Jared said.

Kennedy instantly smiled when Jared handed it to him. He tore it open and left the envelope on the couch next to him.

Kennedy,

I can’t say I’m disappointed that you wrote.

I don’t know what to tell you about me. I’m twenty-two on April 1. (Someone once told me my life was a joke.) I was born in Scottsdale but I moved to Tempe when I was three years old. I met Eric on the first day of preschool and he’s my best friend; my only friend, really.

I played soccer in high school and got a full ride scholarship to Arizona State. I didn’t end up playing, and I can’t remember the last time I did play. I guess you could say I miss it.

I haven’t always been this way, either. I never won a senior personality for best smile, but I almost always had one on my face. I used to laugh a lot, too. I got detention once for ‘excessive laughing.’

It’s hard to laugh like that anymore. People have tried, especially Eric. I just don’t find things enjoyable anymore. I’m not trying to bring you down, but it’s nearly impossible to forget I’m in a hospital.

I tried to kill myself, Kennedy. You know that. I tried to kill myself because I hate the life I have lived and it’s just not fair. I honestly believed, do believe, that the world would be better without me.

I don’t remember how I got along being happy and carefree, in love and loved, like I was in high school. All I can remember is how I got to be this way, and it’s the only life I have known for too long.

But maybe this clinic will help me. Maybe your sister will become my best friend and I’ll finally love that I am alive. Or maybe it won’t help, and I’ll be stuck, just like I have been for four years.

John is right. I’m not good for you. But I’m really only doing this so you have a fair warning. I want you to write me back, but if you don’t, I understand that too.

-Hayden

Kennedy folded the paper back up and put it in the envelope. He already liked Hayden so much, just as a person in general. He could see it in her, that small spark that proved to him she was worth it.

He lied when he said he wasn’t trying to fix her. He needed this; a kind of closure he supposed. If he could fix her then maybe it would compensate for his past mistakes.

Maybe he could make it up to the one person he had let down so many years ago.

*

John walked backstage after the show, sweat dripping down his face that he wiped with the towel sitting around his neck. He sat down on the couch and let out a deep breath. He loved what he was able to do every night.

No one else was in the room with him; they were either tearing down the stage or talking to fans. He opened his eyes and they immediately fell on the envelope next to him. He recognized her handwriting before he saw her name.

He looked to the door before he grabbed it carefully and took the letter out of it. He read it once, and twice, and three times before he finally folded it back up and placed it where he had found it.

That was supposed to be an introduction letter? It didn’t even tell anything about her.

Kennedy would never know what John knew. He didn’t know anything about Hayden.

Not that she had never once dyed her hair. Or that her favorite drink was peach champagne. He didn’t know that he and Hayden had won cutest couple in high school.

Kennedy didn’t know that Hayden could draw. People, objects, landscapes, animals-anything, she could draw it, perfectly. He could watch her for hours as she concentrated until she finished.

He probably didn’t even know she had a tattoo on the inside of her wrist.

But of course she didn’t tell him the most important thing. Probably the only thing that Kennedy wanted to know; what did she do?

She was too much of a coward. Hayden wouldn’t tell anyone that didn’t know already what she had done. She would make John the bad guy and herself the victim. It made him sick.

There are two things John wished for whenever he got the chance. He became cliché, looking for the clock to be 11:11, keeping his birthday wishes secrets. He needed this.

The first was that this had never happened. That she was still here and he could still hold her and hear her laugh. He wished that God had not taken her so unjustly.

Second, he wished he had never met Hayden Reynolds. Nothing she had done had benefited him in the slightest. He used to tell her that he loved her and that they would be together forever. But back then he didn’t know what love was.

Love was unconditional and never failing. You weren’t supposed to look back on the ones you loved and regret every single moment, every touch, all the time spent.

He missed her, though. And he didn’t deny it. He missed the friend he had lost and he missed the girl she used to be.

Sometimes, not very often, the thought crossed his brain that maybe it was his fault. Maybe he had held her to too high of a pedestal and she was bound to fall off of it soon enough.

There was a part of his heart and conscience that knew she did not do what she did intentionally. But she did enough of it knowingly, and that was enough for John to justify his hatred.

John took out his cell phone and dialed Eric’s number, he answered after the first ring.

“Hey best friend!”

“What’s up, Halvo? Sorry I haven’t called in a while, it’s been hectic the past few weeks,” he said.

“Same here,” he said, more quietly now, “Hold on.”

John could hear Eric shuffling past people before he got to a quiet place, “Where are you?”

“Currently?” Eric started, “A linen room in the hospital.”

“It’s ten o’clock at night. Why are you still there?” John asked.

“I mostly stay all night. The nurses really like me and they’re all scared of Hayden so they let me stay,” he said.

John spoke after a pause, “How is she doing?”

“Better,” he replied, “She’s been sleeping more and she’s healing up nicely. She still doesn’t eat very much though… says she’s not hungry.”

“Hayden? Not hungry? Right,” John chuckled.

“I know, right?” Eric laughed, but his tone fell more serious next, “I’m scared, John. Don’t call me a pussy or whatever. I know you are too.”

“I’m really not,” John said.

“She told me that you called her.”

John sighed, “It’s hard to forget about someone you cared about for so long.”

“I know, I know. But you’re just making it worse. She still loves you and I can’t let you do this,” Eric said.

“Do what, exactly?”

“Mess with her head. I saw you two talk at the party we had. What did you say to her?” he asked.

“Nothing. Nothing important,” John said.

“It doesn’t make you sick that whatever you said may have been the reason she killed herself?” Halvo asked.

“I did not make her jump. I did not push her or throw her off. It was her choice and her mistake for not doing it right.”

Eric’s voice was much calmer than John’s, “Who are you? You are not who you used to be. I understand what you’re going through but-”

“No, no you don’t. You never will so do not pull this crap. I have a right to hate her,” John said firmly.

“But you do not have the right to wish her dead. I don’t care what you say or what you do but don’t you dare think that you have the right to say these things. Especially when I know you don’t mean them,” Eric said.

John gripped his hair in his hands as he put his forehead against the wall, “I don’t know when I became like this, Halvo. I hate myself but the only thing that keeps me going is knowing that she hates herself just as bad.”

“So what happens when she gets through this and realizes it wasn’t her fault?”

John shook his head as if Eric could see, “I don’t know.”

“You better figure it out pretty damn quick because if I have anything to say about it she’s going to come out of this and if you make me choose her or you, I promise I’ll choose her,” Eric said strongly.

“I haven’t asked you to choose in four years. You think I want this, Eric? Huh? If she had never done what she did I wouldn’t be this way.”

“Yeah and if you had never met me you wouldn’t have met her. I bet you wish for that back, too?” Eric questioned.

“Halvo, don’t turn this into something it’s not.”

The line stayed silent until Eric spoke, “She needs us right now.”

“She needs you.”

“No. What she really needs is a family, and that was us before all of it went down. Her mom and dad sent her a notice that she still needs to pay them,” Eric told him.

“God, they have always just been awful, haven’t they? What about Caleb?”

“He hasn’t spoken to her in years. I think it’s probably just based on what he has heard his parents say; he was too young to really understand it,” Halvo said, “I think that’s the worst part for her.”

“My mom asks about her sometimes. I don’t get it,” John said.

“Jesus, does no one know how to forgive in this world? You hate Hayden; Hayden hates you, all because you both just can’t get over it. Neither of you can change what happened so stop acting like five year olds.”

“It’s not that easy, I don’t know how else to tell you that,” John said, defeated.

“When do you guys get back?”

“In a week,” John replied.

“She’s transferring to the clinic in the next few days. You should think about coming to visit her,” Eric suggested, knowing it was probably futile.

“No.”

“Awesome, good talk. I have to get going, I’m all she has and we’re going to have a movie night. We’re watching The Godfather on my laptop,” Eric told him, smiling.

“Have fun. Wait, what is going on with Kennedy and Hayden? That’s why I called, not so we could have this emotionally draining talk,” John told him honestly.

“I don’t know. He’s just being nice and it’s definitely helping. Don’t do anything stupid,” Eric warned, seeing right through John’s casual facade.

“Mhmm,” John mumbled, “I have to go. See you next week.”

John hung up and collapsed back on the couch, rubbing one of his hands excessively over his face as if he was trying to remove the years of worry and stress that had left their marks.

Sometimes, when Eric told him he was being a dick, he knew it was true. He needed it every once in a while. But after about the first year, his life didn’t revolve around Hayden anymore. It wasn’t like he focused all of his energy on hating her. That’s why he did everything he could to make this band work.

Arizona reminded him of everything that happened, but he didn’t have to be home year round. He thought about Hayden every day, but it didn’t consume his every thought.

Up until the past few weeks.

But as he glanced at the letter that was addressed to Kennedy from the girl that held his own past in the palm of her hand, he felt a feeling in the pit of his stomach that he didn’t recognize.

It was a feeling he couldn’t quite name, just because it had been so long since he had felt it. But when Kennedy walked in, a usual smile on his face as he spoke on the phone to whomever, John recognized what this feeling was.

Jealousy.

And it made him sick. He didn’t believe he could ever feel anything besides detest for Hayden. But now he was jealous, and instead of silently hoping Hayden had done a better job at her attempt, he almost wished he had been there to catch her-almost.

He wasn’t only jealous of Kennedy, though. He was jealous of the heart that Eric had that let him love everyone unfailingly. He was jealous that he got to still have movie nights, and that he was the only one she felt comfortable around.

It should be him, he thought. When Hayden tried to kill herself John felt like she was only doing it for attention; he was sure of it.

But now, knowing everything she was going through and finally admitting that it may have been his fault, he thought that maybe, just maybe, it was a cry for help.

A cry meant just for him; a cry that was ringing loud in his ears.