Better Late Than Never

lilmissprincess

I wrote this while listening to Alanis Morissette "The Collection". Mainly teh song "Simple Together" but some others mixed in too.

Dear Michael,
You told me to write to you, so I guess that’s what this is. Keeping in contact with the people you love. Even if it is three years overdue. There's just been stuff going on, and I’ve just never had time.
I’m now sixteen, old enough to do absolutely nothing, except leave school forever. And quite honestly I couldn’t be bothered. I’m only in it for another year, then the exams, and then I’m free. To do whatever the hell I like. Do you remember when we used to discuss what we wanted to be when we finally grew up? I always wanted to be a famous pop star, or famous actress or whatever. Just wanted to have my face all over the media, be known, have people wanting me wherever I went. It’s kind of hard to believe that that was only three years ago now, that things have changed so much. I now want to be a nobody, be known to as little people as possible. I know it’s not your fault, but I can’t help but feel that that was what triggered it. I’m a self-confessed loner these days, and that’s what I want to be.
I got pretty good marks in the Junior Cert, the 3 A’s I wanted, passed everything. Went out to celebrate with Elaine, no alcohol or anything (this good-girl thing has been on the go for a while, you’d be surprised), just hanging around, went for a Chinese. I’d have rathered to celebrate with you, my best friend, but since I haven’t spoken to you for three years that could be a little hard. We had school the next day, in which they told us they were proud, but get over it, move on type thing. They make such a big deal out of something and then downsize the goodness out of it. It makes you wonder what the hell is the point of it all.
I hang around with the same people every day, and quite honestly I don’t care to hang around with any more. Elaine and Jessica are my so-called best friends, who think they know everything about me, and who I wander about my life with. They know a lot about me, like my favourite film/colour/food, who I like, the name of my first pet, but not everything. They don’t know about you. I made friends with them in second year, the school year after you left. They never asked, and I never said. Nobody does ask, and I really don’t know why I bother hoping they might any more. It seems that they’ve forgotten all about the seemingly shy boy who they went through first year with. Then again, that year it was basically me and you. Us against the world. Snowflake and Sprinkles fighting all the evils together. Fun times, dude. I miss them a lot, but I know that re-makes would be just pathetic imitations and a scar to the memory.
Jessica is sixteen, Elaine seventeen. We go to gigs, listen to the same music, watch DVDs together at weekends, and complain about the same teachers and subjects. You’d probably like them. Elaine is mad about Monty Python films, like you. Jessica is opinionated, strong, what you wanted me to be. If anything, I’ve gone further and further away from that. I’m no longer the nutty little confidence bubble you know me to be, not really. Sure, I’m happy, if you look at my outside shell. I have a great life. Two loving parents who still love each other( enough to bless me with a little brother a few years back…remember how much I hated that?), a nice house over my head, good friends, great education. I should be happy. I know that. It’s just that something is missing. Someone. You.
I haven’t been the same since you left, moved away to that godforsaken place. I was this little thirteen year old ripped from her best friend of nine years, pathetic without him because I’d warded away everyone else. And the other thing happened, and I fell apart completely. It was midterm break, I was nearly fourteen, and I needed you more than ever. You were too far away, little did I know, and the event kind of ripped me apart. Do you know how it feels to feel like that? Maybe you do, maybe you don’t.
You only moved to Clare. A few counties away, a few hours on a bus maybe, I don’t know. We were thirteen and torn away from each other. There was so much stuff I never told you. We planned to write, we planned to visit, and we planned to have joint birthday parties and everything. Yours on the eighteenth, mine on the 21st. Trick or treating. None of it happened, of course, maybe that’s what went wrong.
I can’t help but blame part of me for what happened. If I was a better friend, kept in contact, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. If I had written a letter, you wouldn’t have felt that way. If I had begged my mother to let you stay a few weekends things would be different. That if I had gotten the bus to Clare once in a while you wouldn’t have taken that tablet. And the next. And the next. That you wouldn’t have gone missing, into that forest where nobody knew. That if I had been a superior friend, you wouldn’t have been found dead under a tree in a deserted forest, ten days after your fourteenth birthday, that I wouldn’t have got that phone call at 6 am on the Tuesday morning. I somehow find myself in this pit of self-doubt that I’ve been mulling over for the last three years. You were missing for two days, and I can’t help but have nightmares that you could have come to me, let me hold you tight to me and tell you to cop on. I got the phone call on the Sunday, telling me you’d gone. Thinking you’d be here. And you weren’t, which kind of made my blood run cold. Not as icy as the following days, but pretty cold.
Two days went by, two days of news reports from your house, your mother crying, pictures of you and me, as kids, splayed over the newspapers. They couldn’t find one of you on your own, not above age three anyway. The one of your last days in your old house, my arm slung around your shoulder, that’s the one they used most. I have a copy at home, on my desk, some days face down. The days that I can’t bear it anymore. I hated my face being put around with this, especially when you were found, and that’s the one they used at the funeral. Too many memories. I’ve made sure never to be in the paper since.
I don’t know why I’m writing now, after three years. You told me to write, as the car pulled away from your driveway, behind a loaded moving van. I promised I would, and here it is. Just a little too late.
I miss you, and love you, and its just a little pointless asking you to write back, so I won’t.
Love you forever,
Sprinkles.

lilmissprincess

Please review..

djeddy

hi is the story fact of ficton?

lilmissprincess

Fiction.

NoDayBut2Day

Well... it's not written bad, but it didn't particularly catch my interest.

djeddy

lilmissprincess wrote:

Please review..

hi, personally i prefer storys with a happy ending, that said i think your

story is good, very deep and touching story,

a lot of food for taught in your story,

all the best, eddy

MsFifers

Very moving, and I like the directness of your style.
Just a couple of times I think you might have hammered a point home a little to hard - they only know what I'm like on the outside - kind of thing. You were getting the point across very well without having to state it so explicitly. But thats just a minor thing.
I'd for one would like to see it developed further!

shiv

I enjoyed reading this...
At first I thought it was going to be something similar along the lines of 'Unsent,' but it went another way.
Very moving it parts, your prose is good

lilmissprincess

Thanks for all your comments!!!

trilo

I read through this and really enjoyed it.
Tears in my eyes now. It's like reading a chick flick novel, IMO.
I felt i could relate and not relate to it at the same time.
But i'm an emotional girl so i would appreciate it.

You did a great job in bringing and feeling connectedness with the girl.

Excellant job.:)

djeddy

lilmissprincess wrote:

Thanks for all your comments!!!

you are welcome

dr.bollocko

U know whats cool about that letter? Its the colloquialism. If you have ever read the Catcher in the Rye, How Holden Caulfield speaks, so small-time, big concepts with common words. Its an engaging way of writing something.
I would say that when I was reading it the only thing that disappointed me was when you explicitly told us that you were writing to a dead friend. Your audience is intelligent and doesnt need this spelled out to them. Try and mystify that a tiny bit. You can definitely hint at it without outright stating it and the piece would stand alone better then.

DublinEvents

To be honest, I have a hard time feeling compassion for someone who committed suicide. I mean, don't die unless your time comes. Just hang on. Whatever happens, it will be for the best. Just remember God and pray to Him a lot. He will alleviate all your pains. But to get so depressed that you decide to take your own life, it just means you had no faith in God. So I'm not really comfortable with the theme of your letter. That being said, that was a damn good piece of writing

dublinario

F*ck God, he has nothing to do with it. So you'd be staunchly against euthanasia, for example, on religious grounds? You've obviously not been witness to a lot of suffering in your life DublinEvents, and your naivety is beaming. This puritanical condemnation of a person who was in more pain than they could endure really irks me, particularly if it spawns from the drone-ish, cultist adherence to a religious dogma as meandering and waffley as the Christian bible (not that any other religious dogma is better).

I don't condone suicide, but I am sympathetic to its victims, and I would vote for legislation that introduced euthanasia for cases of violently painful terminal illness. Apologies for the topic hijacking, but, well, I didn't really start it, and couldn't resist replying. On topic, I thought it was a great read, well written.

lilmissprincess

I wrote this a while back when things were just going wrong for me, and I needed to put all the sad depressy thought somewhere. However in the last month, I had to do guard of honour for a funeral of a guy I did a film class with. he was 19 years old and had committed suicide. He was always such a happy guy, around everyone and never seemed to be down, but something must have flicked a switch. I don't condone suicide, becasue I've seen what it has done to his family, and his friends, and it's even made me look at life differently, but thast nothing got to do with God or religion. Praying only works if you don't need answers.
And yes, total topic hijack, but there ya go.

Blush_01

I think you hit the nail on the head there pet.

I also think that you did a very good job with the piece. Well done.

Insect Overlord

I like it. There's parts of it I can relate to (i.e. losing friends over time). I can't really describe how I felt after the twist near the end. Tis powerful.

Shellie13

Its really touching, nicly written. *but* i find that theres ALOT of that teenage angst/suicide stuff around- sometimes it gets a little tired- not a personal critisim btw its everywhere!

MojoMaker

Beautiful...

Well done lilmissp