💌 💀 ( w any muse you want! )
💌 FOR A LETTER FREDDIE WOULD WRITE TO GINA –
I tried to figure out how to start this a hundred times and “dear Gina” felt too formal. It felt like the kind of letter I would write to a stranger. Stranger:a person whom one does not know or with whom one is not familiar. I know that things are the way they are and they’re not going to change anytime soon, but I refuse to let you become a stranger. I refuse to let you become an unfamiliar person to me, not when I am supposed to know you like the back of my hand. “Hey” is something I would say to you. “Hey” is for friends.
I miss you. God, I miss you, more than I have ever missed anyone in my entire life. Seeing you in passing isn’t the same, it isn’t enough. I have Lucy to tell me how you’re doing and that is better than nothing but I need to know for myself. I need to know that you’re okay, no, I need to know that you’re happy. Because I can deal with not being able to hear you laugh as long as I know that you are. I can deal with not being able to see your smile as long as I know you’re wearing it. I can deal with anything as long as you are happy, out of every wish that I made on shooting stars and clocks blinking 11:11, that is the one that I wanted needed to come true.
Do you know how proud I am of you? I don’t think either of us ever dreamed that life would turn out like this, not in a million years. It certainly isn’t the future I envisioned. But look at you, look at what you’ve done, look at how far you’ve come. I never doubted you, not for one second. I doubted a lot of things, I doubted a lot of people. I never doubted you. And I hope, I really hope that you are able too look in the mirror every day and know that every single decision you made in your life brought you here. I hope that you realize you may have been on a path to self destruction but you got yourself off of it. You are capable of more than you ever realized, and I knew that all along. You saved yourself. You did that. Not me. Not Nathan. Not Lucy. No one else. Just you. And I will never stop being proud of the person you are.
It’s weird, isn’t it? That school, it took a lot away from us, all of us. But I never thought I would let it take you.
I love you, Gina Porter. And I would walk through Hell for you a thousand times over. If there is one thing you remember about me, let it be that.
💀 FOR WHAT FREDDIE WOULD SAY UPON HEARING ABOUT GINA’S DEATH –
It was such a disgusting word, so permanent, so sharp. Worse was the name that was attached to the sentence.
They didn’t go together, they were never meant to go together. Death. Gina. Swimming in an explanation that he had tuned out. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. She had gotten clean. She had straightened up. It had been a long time since Freddie had to worry about the girl slipping through his fingers. Years ago, it was his deepest fear, but now? Not even in his nightmares did he imagine her taking a final breath.
Was she alone? Was she afraid?
It had been Gina, it had been her all along. She was the one that he could not lose. She was the one that he had held onto, in the end he had let everyone go without realizing he had made his choice, but not Gina. Never Gina. He needed her as much as she had needed him, maybe more, and he would be okay with letting her go so that she could be happy, so she could be safe. He had. He could live his life without her in it. But not if she wasn’t living at all.
As many words that came to mind, as many fragments of sentences he tried to piece together, the only thing he voiced was a quiet, broken “oh”, everything inside of him collapsing in a way that did not show through his dry eyes.
Denial. It was a beautiful thing.
