November 1st (Frerard)

Epilogue

Dear Kat,

This is it. This is everything: everything that has ever been and will ever be for encompassed and sealed off. This is all that remains, for me, at least.

You can assume that if you're reading this that I have done something you wouldn't have wanted me to do, and I am sorry, and I'm asking you please not to cry, because every ending is a beginning, and surely something will come of this - I am not the be all or end all of anything at all, and please do not treat me as such. I am just a person. No, not even that. I was just a person.

For this is it. This is November.

It's been so long now: it's been months and months that I have planned this, and now, finally it's been... I mean, presumably, I have done it - killed myself, that is. Because November 1st has been a date holding too much meaning for a rather long time now - it's my suicide date, it's the end, and I'm sorry for anything and everything.

I hope you can forgive me, I hope you're not too sad, because this isn't the end, this isn't the end for you: you have this whole life, this whole world, whereas I... I am... I am nothing.

Don't argue with me, well I mean you can't argue with me. I'm dead. I'm a body at the bottom of the lake. I am peaceful, and I will know the greatest mystery of what it is like to die. You are more than that, you are more than me. Please remind everyone of that: that I dictate very little, and I should materialise as little more than a passing thought from now on, because in an ideal world, no one would be sad, but I know that is a cause for false hope, because I've been to funerals before, I've heard about deaths before, and people are sad, people are always sad, so I have no right or indeed no power to stop you from being sad.

I just wish and ask that at some point you do stop being sad, because you have this whole life ahead of you: you have everything and I'm just your brother, sure you may have known and spent sixteen years of your life with me, but if you live to eighty, that will only be a fifth of your life, and that's hardly anything at all. You will have so much more, you will have this life and you will enjoy it and you will have these experiences, and I- I don't know how to phrase this, but that's just not for me.

I don't agree with the concept of living happy lives, because I'm fucked up, aren't I? I can't do that. I can't live like that, because I'm fucked up in the head and I won't take pills because they don't help. So that makes me a headcase, just trouble, just a mess no one really wants to deal with. I don't see anything in my future. I don't see anything to do, in fact, it seems like the only date my life has ever built itself up to is November 1st, but by now we've passed that date: we've passed into November, and I am gone, but you, you are still alive, and I miss you, and I'm sorry, but this is how it is going to be. Let me decide that for myself, let me be selfish, let me scream at the top of my lungs, let me make a bad decisions, because it's the only thing that could ever make me feel alive.

I hope Frank is okay. I know it's bad timing. I know the morning after his birthday was not a good choice at all, but it's over now - it happened, there's nothing anyone can change about this - all there is left is the matter of acceptance and moving on, because you can move on, and you will, and everything will be okay, because you're strong, Kat, you really are. I do worry about Frank, though, because we never got quite enough time together, we only had a month, but November 1st was so much bigger than him; he was never revolutionary, he was never the be all and end all of everything - he's just a boy, just a boy I happened to like a lot, and I want him to say the same for me, but I doubt that it could be so.

Make sure that he's okay, though, look after him for me, but please look after yourself first. You matter a lot Kat, I love you so much.

Tell mum this wasn't her fault too, and please try to accept her, be kind to her nw, for my sake, at least, because she's lost a husband and a son. Don't let her lose herself again, you have to stay with her. She loves you, Kat, she's your mother - you need to stop overthinking everything.