Not a letter, not anything.

The things I can't tell you.

When I wake up in the mornings it takes me a long time to really wake up. If I don't have school I just lie there for up to two hours without doing a thing. I watch Rascal but usually he just sits in a corner until I'm up. Then I call home. I call the landline, mom's cell, dad's cell and Jake's cell. They're all turned off now and none of them has a voicebox. Then I call Jenna. Hearing her voice. . . She always laughs at the fact she's not picking up the phone, that this isn't normal obviously so "Don't bother leaving a message, just call back in five minutes." And I do. I wait five minutes and call back and during those five minutes I have this conversation in my head where she tells me what an adventure it's been. How grumpy my dad is but not really angry because he supports the military. And how angry my mom is because this is supposed to be a democracy and you can't just keep people from calling their loved ones for so long. Jake will be thrilled because of the secret military bunkers. He'll be so big headed about the whole thing and Jenna. . . she'll just tell me how hot the soldiers were and how annoyingly protective her husband was of her. And she'll be so oblivious of how worried I was but it's okay because I won't be anymore and we'll laugh about it all and how crazy it was. And then I call back after those five minutes and she tells me to call back again in five minutes because this is, obviously, not normal. So don't bother leaving a message.

So I cling to this message all day because when I don't. . . The only way I can think of to stop the hurting is to fall asleep and not wake up again. I think of how cold the lake must be and how easy it would be to dive in and swim until I can't anymore. I think about how all this cold medicine you bought me might not go too well together if I take all of it at once with some painkillers too maybe. I think about how it's snowing out and I could just walk up to that place by the lake or the cemetary and drink the poisonous green Nyquil and fall asleep somewhere pretty. I'm so tired and I have to struggle to remind myself that it's been less than two weeks so I have no right to be tired yet. But then I think if I'm this tired after less than two weeks, how will I feel in three. . . four? And you tell me they're all dead, that people don't come back from this and maybe it's true. Maybe I should give up hope because it keeps me crashing like a wave against a rock over and over with no new results. Maybe I should decide that they're really dead and mourn them. If they turn up alive I'll feel guilty for giving up but it'll fade in seconds because they'll be there, alive. . .

Maybe you're right and I can't go on like this because I'm stretching myself thin and I'll probably collapse if I keep at it. Or maybe I'll collapse if I lose hope. What you said, it cut me open. I haven't been able to fix myself up and going to class tomorrow. . . I can't imagine it. I don't want to be that girl sitting in the back with a scowl and everyone wonders what her problem is and I can't tell them because they'll think I'm crazy. I think about making up a story but they all involve my family dying and then one day they might turn up alive and everyone will think I'm this horrible person who lies about serious stuff like that for attention. And I can almost hear you say that I shouldn't care what other people think but I do. I'm not used to people looking at me like they did in Ohio, I never want to be looked at in that way again.

A part of it that I hate the most is my mother's face in my mind when she finds out how hard it has been and how people treated me there. All she ever wanted was for me and Jake to be happy and when something happens to us she gets so upset. It'd break her heart if she knew and I will never, ever tell her. All my mom will ever know is that I'm doing great in school, I've made good friends and I'm still doing everything she told me to do before I left. Keep swimming, focus on my studies and be a good person.