REAPING INNOCENCE ◦ STILINSKI [3]

LETTERS TO CARTER

STILES' LETTER TO:
❝ A LOST SOULMATE ❞

❝Hey, Baby,

I miss you.

I wish that was enough to accurately describe how I feel, but it isn't, not even close. I don't just miss you; I feel so much more than a mere longing. I could create a galaxy full of life with what I feel for you. I feel; how crazy is that? I feel everything. My heart hurts so much, but it also is filled with so much love, especially for you.

I miss your laugh, your lame jokes, your hugs, your singing and dancing, I miss your "hi" text every morning from twenty feet away. I miss you. I miss you. I miss you. I can't say it enough. I miss seeing everyone happy. I miss studying with you. I miss stuffing our faces until it hurt to breathe. I miss cuddling.

I thought 182 days would lessen the sorrow and aching I feel, but it didn't. It's been 182 of your absence, 182 days of missing you, 182 days of "being strong". It's been 182 days of trying to forget, 182 days trying not to care, not letting anyone close enough to hurt me, to leave me. It's been 182 days and I feel everything stronger than ever, and it hurts so much more than this string of words could ever portray. I don't understand, baby. I thought time was supposed to heal; it hasn't healed anything, only replaced memories and has served as a constant reminder that you're gone.

Happiness is seldom what I feel, no matter the smile on my face or laugh in my throat or twinkle in my eyes. You're all I see, everywhere and it hardly makes me smile, especially as of recent. It's impossible to be truly happy when the only person who never left my side, actually left and I will never get back. Every time I think I'm getting better, I remember what I was running from to begin with and am brought right back to the start.

I think the past six months I pretended it never happened and with your half-year anniversary approaching, I couldn't run anymore, I couldn't hide from the fact that I missed you. I had to face it and trying to be strong became so difficult and for the first time was at a loss for words. It got increasingly harder to be grateful for the time we did have. I feel like it's happening all over again and it hurts just as badly, if not worse.

I tried everything to accept that you were gone, or at least forget. I tried going out, having fun, drinking. I tried detaching myself from everyone. I wanted to be invisible, transparent, forgotten. I tried not to exist. I tried becoming overly involved in something you loved. I pretended to be happy; I let myself be sad. I tried not caring about anyone or anything, not taking anything seriously. I tried taking everything seriously, caring too much; but, nothing brought you back, nothing changed what happened, nothing made this okay. You're still gone.

The longer you've been gone, the worst my breakdowns get. The pain is unbearable, each time hurting in a way it never had before while clean tears stream down my flushed face. I stay that way for what seems like hours but could only been a minute unable to breathe; crying and crying and then I go unmoved. I feel nothing. Not a movement of the face, no aching, no flutter of the heart, twitch of the fingers, nothing. I still don't know what is worse, feeling everything so intensely or nothing at all.

Half a year ago, I slid down the wall of the hospital waiting room as my last attempt to keep you with me failed. I cried out to the earth, moon, and stars with a shattering desperation—please stay—the only two words I could fathom moments before your time of death was called: 12:01 a.m. March 24, 2014. You died at midnight, but it took three hours for them to find you on the quarry's bank. The pain I felt in my chest was indescribable. All I was thinking was this is a dream, a terrible terrible dream, but it wasn't, it was a nightmare that I still haven't woken up from. I felt like everything was falling away from me into oblivion. I was alone and for the first time knew my world was in fact ending.