A/N: This letter is written in a (possible) alternate universe, one where Clary has been dead for several years and Simon is trying to find a way to move on.
Dear Clary,
Do you remember the playground we used to go to when we were kids? It was the one with the equipment painted light blue and green, the colors I always imagined heaven to be.
I guess I'll never know if I was right.
You'd climb so high on the monkey bars that my heart would clench. I remember it vividly, the constriction. It felt like my throat was in my chest, my soul in my breath, and all I knew was that I couldn't let you fall. No matter what, you couldn't get hurt. I would try to get underneath you, to catch you should the worst happen. But you'd just roll your eyes and motion for me to climb up next to you instead, and I did, because where you went, I followed.
Always.
I don't regret any of it, Clary. I don't regret joining your world, your world of angels and devils and the constant push and pull of good and evil vying for our souls –although I suppose my soul has already been claimed. I don't regret the things I did to save you, the means I went to so you'd stay safe. And I don't regret loving you. How could I? It's all I've ever known, all I'll ever know. It's what anchors me to my humanity even now – your laugh, your smile, the smell of your hair in the darkness.
I don't regret it because I was with you. When we were younger, if I saw you disappear around a corner, I would jump up from wherever I was to trail behind you. There is no place I'd rather be than beside you, knowing that you wanted me there. I think that's what it was all about, in the end. Being wanted.
But you're gone now and I'm still here. I'm alone, Clary. No one wants me anymore. Maybe they never did. I've mourned you for years and I'll mourn you for the rest of my existence – and what a meager existence it will be. No one to care about, no one who gives a damn what happens to me.
It's almost like we never left the monkey bars – you simply climbed higher and higher and eventually you fell off. And now I'm stuck at the top.
It makes me wonder why anyone would ever bother to climb at all.
I don't know why I'm writing this. You'll never read it. I think maybe it's more for me than it is for you. Magnus has told me that I need to start making real decisions. He says it's important to think about my own future now that my life no longer revolves around you. Magnus means well, but he doesn't understand.
My life never revolved around you. You were my life. You were my other half, Clary. It's selfish for me to say that – but maybe now that you're gone I'm allowed to be selfish.
It's been said that vampires don't have souls, that we can't feel the way other beings can. They've said that our souls are claimed by a greater power now. I don't believe in that. I can't believe in that.
My soul rests with you, wherever you may be. Take care of it for me, please. I need to know that we're still joined in some way. If I can't have that, I don't know how I can go on.
I know you never loved me, not the way I'd grown up hoping you would. But I'll always love you.
Eternally yours,
Simon Lewis