Ughh, I guess

Just logged into this place after God knows how long and ohhhh boy.

There was almost a yearning in me to come back here since I learned the news about Liam. I still cannot believe it and it takes everything in my power to not break down at the mere mention of him.

I cried many nights in a row after his passing, and even though its gotten easier to reckon with the reality that he is gone, my grief does not go away. It is lingering. I feel like I have unfinished business with him. ME PERSONALLY. I feel the need to speak to him directly, and I have many times but I wish I knew for sure that HE can hear me and us.

I am back here to say all of this into the void because today is my 26th birthday today, and I owe the last 10 years I got to live extra to him and One Direction.

I need to thank him for saving my life all those years ago when I was a broken 16 year old. I keep thinking about the fact that he must've been so scared and confused in his last moments, just as I had been then; the only difference is he was there for me, knowingly or unknowingly, but I, and we, weren't there for him. I feel as if I abandoned my dear, beloved, best friend from when I was a kid, and this feeling doesn't go away.

I wish we had done more to tell him he was just as talented, just as beautiful, just as loved and wanted and cherished as the other 4. We rallied around them and for them, why did we abandon Liam? The management and industry had been just as cruel to him as to Zayn or Harry or Louis or Niall, so why did we stop talking about Liam?

IDK. I'm not accusing us as a fandom for causing this, no. But I cannot shake the guilt. I just wish I had it in my power to be there for this man thousands of miles away from me to whom I was only a stranger, but whose voice sang me to sleep the day I attempted to leave this world under very similar circumstances.

To Liam,

I'm sorry. I love you. It's because of you that I am still here, but it pains me to think you are not. Thank you for everything. Every time I pray I will pray for you because that is all I have now. And maybe at the end of all this, I will meet you and I will say all this to you in person.