Letter To A 'Dead' Man

A letter in which one heartbroken character rights to her love who has seemed to disappear from existence. When writing what she would tell him, she realizes who she has let herself become.

Hello my love. It is me again, writing yet another late night letter to you.

I’ll start with the basics. My family is good, except for the fact that my grandmother passed away a few weeks ago. You know, the one you came and visited one time when we thought she was getting better. It was hard on all of us but she is now no longer suffering from the struggle of cancer. I miss her in almost the same way that I miss you. My other family members are all doing well. They ask me how you are doing sometimes and I am never able to give them an answer. Not because it is hard for me to talk about you, but because you haven’t contacted me since that night. Yes, I know, it is hard to believe they still care about you after what you have done. But at one point we all considered you family. Once you have a family, you are always in their hearts.

Hmm….what else should I tell you about my life? Oh yes, I now have a new job. Well, two actually. I know that enjoyed working at “Yes!” magazine and that I could have gone far with it. But after we parted, I couldn’t work for days and once I returned, there were just too many memories of us there that hurt me. Before quitting, I asked around to see if anyone you were friends with at “Yes!” had heard from you. No one knew where you had gone. I worried about you, more than I worried about myself. Sometimes, I still think that I do….

After quitting my job, I realized that I still need to make a living somehow. I got a job at the Java Bean that is near my house. It was one of the few safe places; I know you always hated coffee. After working there for a short amount of time I realized that I had more of a potential. I am a literary person, and even though it helped me pay my bills, making iced cappuccinos just isn’t my calling. I then went to volunteer at my local library, the one you wouldn’t go to because the air conditioner was always broken.  Strangely enough, my first assignment was to find someone who could fix the air conditioner for a cheap price. I thought of that as a good coincidence and applied for a part time job.  Now I work early mornings or late evenings at Java Bean and work at the library during most days. I make a fair amount of money and I enjoy it, as long as I forget about my past life at “Yes!” and my past life with you.

Re-reading this letter has helped me realize something that I was oblivious to until now. I have been living my life for you, yet you aren’t even in my life. In fact, are you still alive? Not to me, not to anyone I know, but to yourself, are you alive? I wonder this sometimes, I wonder what happened to you. Among my list of things that could have happened to you, death never seemed to be one until now. I have just realized that I am still letting you control my life! I haven’t heard from you for 8 months. Now I realize that no matter what happened to you, you are dead to me. Not in an aggressive way, not even in a hateful way. You have just simply vanished from my life, you are just…dead. It took me until now to realize this. I hate my current lifestyle. I loved my old job. You didn’t just break my heart, you broke me. You broke everything inside of me. You made me forget everything I lived for and everything I believed in. I’ve screwed my life up because of you! And I am only now realizing this.

Goodbye my love, for this is the very last letter. I will put this under my bed on top of the various other letters I have written to you. Goodbye my non-lover, for you are not my love. You never were.

Author's Note

The grammar and wording is not the best, but I did that on purpose so that it seemed more like a casual letter.

Do you find the realization comes too suddenly or are the small hints in the first three paragraphs enough of a build up?

After finishing this letter, do you care to know more about the backstory? Who the 'dead' man was and what he did to break her heart?