Lisa,
I know I shouldn't be writting you, but I thought it's the least destructive thing I could do. If you don't want to read my letters you won't. And if you do, then I have a little hope. And I need that right now. I've never been this isolated. I blame you for that. You always seemed to know what I was thinking and you always said it so I didn't have to. So I'm writting these letters because there are some things I have to say and I need to think that maybe you'll hear me and you'll forgive me and we still have a chance. It's selfish, but there it is.
Today's a hard day. I'm inbetween cases and it's morning. Too much time to think. I love mornings and I hate them. The first thing I do every morning is roll to my left side, your side of the bed. And I miss you. I miss how you always would move with me, half-awake. How you would take my arm and wrap it around you and clasp my hand where I could feel you breathe and smell the clean in your hair. Strawberry. I love the way your hair smells.
But those thoughts don't last thats how mornings are the best and the worst. I get up. Look at the shadow of my brother, researching, he's always researching. Single minded son of a...saint. He smiles at me, says something not important because whatever reassuring thing he says it doesn't reach his eyes. And today is a hard day because I notice it more.
We caught the changling. There were two of them. One was the alpha. The other its guardian. We worked the case for two months as orderlies in the nursing home they were holed up in. Twelve people died before it was all done. But that wasn't the fucked up part. That's not what's messing me up today.
I had coffee with this girl, Beth. Her grandmother was a patient, an Alzheimer's victim. I felt bad for the kid, but that's not why I had coffee with her. The alpha had already killed the grandmother and taken over the body. I needed information, I needed to be the distraction while Sam did his thing.
Beth asked me if I knew what it was like to watch someone you love slip away. To have them right there in front of you, but it might as well be another person. How bad it hurt when her grandmother didn't know her name, when she looked right through her. Knowing the spirit was practically gone but still watching the body slip away, the brain deteriorating, the shell hollowing out...
I said 'no'. Safer to lie.
But I asked her why visit then (Beth visited every day, like clockwork), why so often, if it hurt so much.
Because it was the last thing she could do for her grandmother. She could honor her memory, by taking care of the body. That's exactly what she said. But that's not the fucked up part yet.
This is. Beth said, "Plus, every once in a while, I get that glimmer. The great woman I once knew comes back. Just for a minute or two, but she's back."
And I was jealous.
Lisa I need you to understand. When I put my shirt on in the morning, my scar stares me in the face. The handprint from Cass when he pulled me out of the pit-It burns. It always has.
You said my brother's back and that's why we can't be together. It's not true. Sam's not here. That's the point. I can't pretend he's in a better place. I know exactly where he is and what he's going through.
And it's right that you broke it off between us. I'm glad you did because I didn't have the guts to.
Don't write me back. Don't call me. Knowing you and Ben are safe and happy, it's almost enough. And I know I shouldn't write this letter or send it out. But I'm going to because it's not enough, and I need you both, and that glimmer, that minute or two to think that it's all going to work out.
Love you,
Dean.