"More than a stunning debut. It is the announcement of a bold new literary voice"
—Stephen Chbosky, author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower

six+ years now. nothing about it feels real. i’m starting therapy because of it. i just i go through waves of missing you i guess. i’ve gotten a lot stronger now though. lennon is so so so amazing. i just can’t believe he looks so much like you. you would be so proud of us. i’m thinking about pursuing forensic science after high school. i’m so mad at the world for not letting you be here for my 16th birthday, or my first homecoming, or letting you meet my first real boyfriend (who ended up being a dick anyways). i’ve been missing you a lot recently and it just doesn’t seem right sitting in my room talking to myself, but this helps. i love you a lot, dad.

You’re not dead, I know, but this is a love letter so I figured I’d share. You’re not my first boyfriend, but you are my first healthy one. You’re constantly telling me “I’m not like them.” and I know you’re not, they just still hurt me. I can’t talk about what they did, no one would give a damn and my already insane mother would never let me out of her sight ever again. I think that’s why I’m still haunted by them. I’m the type of person who needs to tell people what is wrong, but most people see me as a complainer. I’m trying so hard to let them go but part of them is still buried somewhere in me. Thank you for being patient with me. Thank you for taking it one step at a time with me. Ever since we’ve been dating I’ve had a new outlook on life. People used to tell me that the world will slowly gain it’s color again, and they’re right. There’s not danger at every turn anymore. It’s liberating to see life everywhere. You really do bring out the best in me. You make me so happy it’s almost alarming. It ... Read more

I remember the first time that I had watched The Dark Knight. I fell In love with it. It was my favorite movie at the time and not just because I love the DC universe. Itś because you were in It. I had never heard of you before I watched The Dark Knight and this might sound a little weird but I was kind of obsessed with you. I looked you up after watching the movie and saw that you had died, made my heart sink. Everytime The Dark Knight is on I always try to watch it. The Joker Is my favorite male supervillain and you made him ten times better. I watched a interview that had Aaron Eckhart In it and he said that one of the first times meeting you and not on camera, you were just walking around the hospital bed making noises and little moments. You didn’t talk to him at all it was more like you were just preparing yourself for acting everything out in the next scene. I don´t know if that really makes sense but hopefully it does. People said that while shooting the movie you sort of went a ... Read more

I never really new you but I have been told stories about you that makes me feel like I knew you like you were my best friend. It was so sad when I heard that you died but I know that you are In a better place. We all miss you. Your brother misses you a lot too. I have only been to the cabins once when you were there and I never really talked to you so much and I think that was the first time that I had met you to where I remember. This year for deer hunting we got 6 deers in total. You probably already know that but It still is cool to say. I don´t think that I have ever had so much fun up at the cabins as I did this year. Everyone was always laughing especially when we talked about you. I was told that you were hilarious and that you were always talking. My dad told me that you were pretty much always drunk but not the bad kind where you were drunk because you were depressed. And he told me that If you weren’t talking and really quite you were ... Read more

I know you are not dead and the point of this is to right letters to dead people but I´m my heart you feel dead. I feel like you are really dead inside and that it´s hard to live in this world. I hope that Charlotte brings a new light into your life that gives you reason to live again and that you can be a better mother for her than you were for Aidan and I. I just want to let you know that I love you more than you could ever know and that I just want to see you again and hug you and never let go. When I was three I saw you as my hero but when I was four and you and dad got a divorce I didn’t anymore. Now here I am at 13 and I hardly ever see you and my sister. There are so many questions I have for you that are for only you. I can ask anyone else because no one would ever understand. I think that Is one of the many reasons why I am depressed and suicidal because of everything Aidan and I were put through at ... Read more

You’re a champion. Legend.

You aren’t really dead, but you are dead to me. You couldn’t just accept that your oldest daughter is a lesbian, and who goes against all of your rules because you ruined my childhood. You instead, dragged my mom through a divorce (not because I was gay, you didn’t even know then, no you had a divorce because you CHEATED ON HER), you blamed my sisters, my mom, and even me before you even thought of blaming yourself, and you won’t hesitate to talk shit about my mom in front of my YOUNGER sisters. You’re a piece of crap and I hate that I’m related to you, and share some characteristics with you, I wish you were never in my life. Because of you, I didn’t have a childhood, and I grew up hating myself because you raised me to try to reach the highest things, even when you knew I couldn’t. You talked about me behind my back when I was busy with school work, which you PUSHED ME TO, and you talked to my sisters? How fucked up do you have to be to say bad things about someone’s older sister when she isn’t even there to ... Read more

I hate you. Not YOU exactly, but I hate the things you did. You couldn’t stay away from it all, could you? You had to drag my dad into stuff, didn’t you? You had to ignore everyone begging you to stop. You had to keep going until you died. I hate you so much for that. You died, and left everyone (my dad, mostly) a wreck. My Dad went crazy when you died. I think I did, too. I have so much more to say, and not the right words to express it with. Are you happy?

Todo dia eu penso como seria se meu irmão não estivesse mais aqui, a vida é um estragos de dedos, um sopro, uma piscada de olhos, eu penso se um dia as pessoas que já morreram pudessem voltar pra terra, pra dizer pelo menos um olá, as pessoas não se despedem quando vão morrer, a nossa última palavra sempre pode ser algo inesperado ou inútil, eu realmente espero que um dia as pessoas possam voltar pra podermos trocar as últimas palavras, ou que criem um meio de comunicação com os mortos (como cartas) para podermos nos expressar e dizer um olá pela última vez.

I honestly don’t know if you’re dead or not. So I suppose I shouldn’t be writing this letter as if you were. But I know that everyone writing these is feeling something, and sharing it with a small part of the world, and I know I need to be okay with feeling too, so here we are. I only saw you once, for a few hours, at a Sabrina Carpenter concert of all things. I hardly remember now—it was two years ago, after all, and at the time you didn’t seem important. You were nice, and I liked you, but it wasn’t until a good time after the concert that I realized how… connected we were, I guess. I thought about you a lot, and still do; to this day I don’t know what it is that brought me to think of you so much, and everything happened so long ago that even if I could go back to that night, I’m not sure I’d recognize what pulled me towards you afterwards. Am I doing this wrong? Everyone else seems to be writing to dead people they actually knew, and know for sure that they’re dead, ... Read more