Dear Alex. [AlexGaskarth] *Coming Soon*

I didn't realize exactly how much I loved her until she was gone. She wasn't physically gone, but she was no longer the person I had known. But I had never known that. Until I watched her literally seem like she was dissolving into nothing. It's like in winter and in the autumn when you pick up the leaves, crinkling the dark material in your hands. If the wind is strong enough, it lets them fly, carrying them away somewhere you aren't sure where.

She was the leaf, crinkling away into pieces. But there was no wind to bring her to a safe place. She was stuck here in this dead end town with no one to catch her if she fell. I wonder sometimes if maybe I could have been the one, but she was already falling apart at my fingertips whenever I tried.

If I wouldn't have found her, then I'm not sure what would've happened. I wish I would've known everything about her. But in this town, in this school we were forced into, that kind of thing didn't happen. Either everyone knew everything about you, including the first person you kissed, the last person you dated, your brother's girlfriend or anything to that nature, or they knew nothing.

If you chose the latter, like she had, then nobody cared. You were faceless, nameless, you were literally nothing to anyone. I was somehow able to keep myself in the middle, but I was one of the luckier ones. How I had managed it, I wasn't sure.

I was quiet, and did my homework, but only because I needed to graduate. I wanted to get out of here. I needed to leave this place, and all it's memories, behind. That was what everyone wanted, but for some families, it wasn't that easy.

Maybe that was what she was trying to get away from. But I didn't want to think about it. I regretted a lot of things that happened between her and myself. I had seen her all the time, but in the end it didn't seem to matter to her if I was a stranger or not. She had been in so much pain.

I didn't think I'd ever seen anyone in that much pain before. My family was the classic all American family, complete with family barbecues and fireworks on July 4th and a two car garage. But it had never satisfied me.

And now I know why. I had wanted to be able to love someone, to care for someone, to make somebody happy. And my family didn't count. I couldn't discuss this with them either. Not even my friends. It wasn't like it mattered.

Things at our school were always bad, but it was always worse when she was in the room. I'd been her lab partner in a memory, and she didn't say much. She did her share of the work and that was all. But in another memory I was her savior, and she said a lot.

She was beautiful once. She still is, but even if I tell her that she won't believe me. Before that night, her eyes were always sparkling like diamonds, her irises a beautiful blue color. She had soft blonde curls that fell around her thin shoulders. She was really pale, her skin always looking like porcelain.

She liked to wear band shirts, and it was often I saw her sporting shirts with logos such as Avenged Sevenfold, The Ramones, or The Misfits. Even though the rooms of the classroom were hot with the lingering summer air, she wore jackets, and she always pulled the sleeves down.

I'd never asked why, until I found her. It had been at a football game. I was with Jack, and I saw the flash of her blonde hair going behind the bleachers. I told Jack that I'd see him later, following her.

"Cosette?" I called out. I was staring at her back, and she wouldn't turn around. She had her sleeve pulled up and she wouldn't turn around to face me. I remembered hearing the soft sound of a Nine Inch Nails song in the background.

I stepped closer, and she turned, her blue eyes wide and sparkling tears falling from them. It took me a moment to realize what was happening. Then I saw the razor in her hand. The deep cuts lining up and down her pale forearm.

She had been cutting herself. But why here? At the school? That seemed like the wrong place to do anything like that. But that didn't matter. I moved closer to her, and she backed up farther away. Was she afraid of me?

I opened my arms for her, signaling I wasn't going to move closer. She stared at me, her blue eyes looking chilling in the dim light. But I didn't moved and I wasn't going to until she dropped the razor.

After a few minutes of our mental Cold War, she dropped it, letting her sleeves fall back down over her skin. She moved forward, allowing me to wrap my arms around her thin body. She didn't even feel like she had any skin. All I felt was bone.

But I didn't mind. I'd only been her lab partner, but now I was much more than that. I was her savior. Later, after a few years she'd explain to me that she'd always needed me, but I didn't know that now.

She didn't cry. She didn't say anything, not at first. It was almost unaudible when she spoke, but it was worth it. It was worth hearing the sweet sound.

"I was going to make them pay, Alex."

"What? What do you mean?" I asked, holding her, and letting her cling onto my shirt.

"I was going to do it. End it right here. That's why I'm here. I wanted them to see what they did to me."

I was confused, but didn't show it. Who was she talking about? I didn't know. But it didn't matter. I just nodded, sliding my hands under her knees and lifting her up in my arms, carrying her back to my house first. My parents weren't home, but I needed to help her bandage her wounds.

I brought her inside, setting her down on the counter and finding some bandages, cleaning up the blood that spilled from her skin and wrapping it in the gauze bandages.

She didn't say anything, and I wasn't expecting her to. But it made me look a little closer at people. She'd been hiding for so long from the people she had always known, not bothering to talk to any one of them about this.

So why me?

Maybe it was just because I'd been there. Whatever the reason, I had to be there from now on. I had to be able to help her from now on.

I wanted that, but I never got the chance. She was taken from me. I hadn't been able to save her before she'd jumped from the bridge in town, a bag of bricks tied to her ankles. She hadn't been talking to me like usual. I should've gotten the signs. I wished I'd known the whole story, instead of what the rumors had told me.

And now, a year later, when I'm sitting at home, I still think about it. I'd cried so much that night. There was so much about her I'd never gotten to see, never gotten to know. She hadn't trusted me at all.

It still hurt. She kept some of her things here sometimes, when she'd fallen asleep in my bed and j had to take her home. I sighed, looking up at the ceiling. I felt restless. Today was the anniversary of her death, so I knew the reason.

I stood, running a hand through my hair and looking around the room. I looked down at my feet, taking a deep breath. Beneath my bed, where the blanket spilled onto the floor, was the corner of a small box.

I raised an eyebrow, bending down and picking it up. What were these? I pulled it out, seeing a small black box. I pulled back the top, seeing a stack of papers resting inside.

I pulled one out, seeing it was a letter. Then it hit me. It was her writing. These were letters she had written, and they were all to me.

I swallowed. It looked like she'd written one every day we had been together. I sighed. I needed to read these, no matter how much it hurt.

I started with the first one.

"Dear Alex..."