A/N: S'up. I'll be honest with you: I'm writing this on a whim, so I don't expect it to be all that great. Excellent. I'm glad I got that off my chest.
Summary: A letter from a 17-year-old Jess Aarons to the parents of the late Leslie Burke.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bridge To Terabithia.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Burke
By CyrusWings (as if you couldn't figure that out.)
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Burke,
I can't tell you how awkward it is for me to finally make contact after all these years. You probably don't want to hear me talk about her and I understand that. Frankly, if I were you, I'd have already ripped up this letter and cursed my name for bringing back these horrible memories. But I have to write this. I don't know why, but I need to get it out. I need to get it written down. And I need to tell you a few things.
I graduated recently. And I have decided something. I'm going to become a writer. This seems out-of-the-blue to everyone. I've always thought I would become an artist. My parents had their own dreams for me. But it was your daughter that convinced me to do this. You see, we had our own imaginary land, a sanctuary where we could escape the cruelties of the real world. We called this place Terabithia, after the island that was briefly mentioned in Voyage Of The Dawn Treader. This is what I write about. The thing horrifies me is that Terabithia is the reason she died. You see, we imagined that you could only get there by swinging across on a rope. This was the rope that broke.
This is the final paragraph of this letter. I would first like to say that I am sorry for digging up the awful events of five years ago. Finally I would like to state a revelation: I loved Leslie, strange as it seems. I have loved her from when she was alive to this day, and when I say I loved her, I mean in more than just as friends. But at the same time, I loved her in a way even deeper than that. I suppose what I'm saying doesn't make any sense to you. It doesn't make much sense to me, either. All I know is that my writing has one inspiration: Leslie.
Jess Aarons
