Rest In Pieces
A heartfelt letter to Richard, who was once so well ignored in Kory's mind. Not anymore. Now, the wall that hides him is breaking, and the confessions and regrets are spilling out onto the paper.
XX
Dear Richard,
It's been a while.
Not long enough, I'd say. It's hard to cope with the image of you anymore. It was just beginning to vanish from my mind…until I started writing. It was impossibly hard to take my pen off of the paper, so I figured I was too far into this to get out. You know, you're not reading the beginning of my letter. No, you're reading one of many, many pages. All of which were thrown away in a desperate attempt to say it all right. Say what, you might ask? Well don't. Because I don't know.
My life is hopelessly chaotic, as you might imagine. It has been ever since you left. Not to say it hasn't gotten any better since that time, but it has not resolved. I believe (very strongly) that it will never, ever be better. At least, not completely. Not without you. Because I loved you dearly, and that, I assume, would be the only confession I will make. Unless my hand slips, and the permanent ink on this entirely white sheet bleeds through to my desk, where it will remain forever…. So, I'm going to try to hold steady.
But it's hard, you know? You were a part of me, and most definitely one of the bigger parts, and then you left. It was like being torn in half, and for days I tried to convince myself that it was all a sick joke. Days came and days went, I sat in my small corner puddle, trying in vain to hold myself together. But the string I had wound around myself wasn't strong enough, and I began to break apart. Pieces of me, pieces that I never bothered to pick up again, are still there in that corner puddle. But I never go pick them up because, for one, they're too hard to look at, and two, because there is a brick wall hiding that corner now. Metaphorically speaking, there is a brick wall hiding everything about you.
But damn, that stupid brick wall just isn't strong enough. It broke (maybe just a little) and now my confessions and regrets are pouring onto this paper. Who knows if I'll ever send this to you? Maybe, if you're lucky, more of that brick wall will just happen to crack, and my hand will slip into the mail… If that part of the wall cracks, we can assume that another part (a smaller part) will crack as well, causing me to confess everything I'm holding back. Let's just hope it doesn't.
I wonder often what you've done with your life. I never brick-walled that part of you, just because, you know, it's completely innocent to wonder what an old friend has gone on to do. Right? But, nonetheless, I still couldn't get myself to read the Gotham Post. I knew, you being the 'big shot guy' and whatnot, you would be on the front page. Every. Single. Day.
Don't ask how I knew that. It was just strong instinct. You know all about that, don't you, Dick? Me and my strong emotions were what drove you away, right? Well, I don't exactly blame you. I mean, I can hardly stand them myself, let alone expect you to. But, I suppose that's what I did always expect in you. I wanted you to be the person I never could, the strong man that could handle anything. You could fight hand-to-hand combat with the world's greatest martial arts instructors, go through the scariest movies I've ever seen while keeping your eyes wide open, live up to your father's reputation all while still having time to get drunk, but you couldn't handle the random assumptions and ludicrous thoughts of your girlfriend. Because that was me, right? I was your girlfriend?
That might have been another thing I was always proud (or jealous) of you for. You could go on, day after day, and do whatever the hell you wanted, without having me know a thing. For all I knew, you could have eaten donkey shit every night of your life, but I never found out. Or, maybe I just never showed that I knew. And maybe, just maybe, I knew about every single girl you fucked, every single man you killed, and every single law you broke, and just didn't care. I was too involved in my own life to care about that. I might know everything, but that's another thing I won't allow myself to tell you. All of that's behind a brick wall now. So, it makes you wonder, what exactly do I know? I know that you know everything about me.
Well, let's talk about me for a minute. I'm a junior reporter, working for the Los Angeles times, even though I don't live relatively near there. I didn't want to discover anything about where I lived, because I knew some of the sick stuff might just drive me out of Jump City, away from Gotham. Away from you.
Damn hand. There goes another piece of my brick wall. You see what you're doing to me, Richard? Imagine if I saw you in person. Shit, who knows what I would be reduced to.
Anywho, as I was saying, I'm a reporter. And so far, it's going pretty damn well. The job pays nicely, and you don't have to do a lot more than take notes on the things people say. Half the time I get paid for just making up stuff, but no one else has discovered that yet. It's a pretty free-for-all job. Man killed by werewolf? Me. Luckily, people got over that one pretty fast.
You're pretty damn lucky that you're not in every single headline. It was close to being like that a couple of times, but then I got those brick walls installed…and those suckers are shut pretty tight. They're getting old with time, though. I suppose the old age is what drove me to this ridiculously white paper and these ridiculously dark words.
How many years has it been, now? 7? 10? I think it's much less, but it feels like a lot for me. I go through the days without watching the calendar or clock. Surprisingly enough (or not, whichever way you think of it), I remember the exact date you left me. February 16th, 2004, 2:14 PM. I was telling you what a beautiful day it was for late winter, and that it would definitely be getting better later…. Then you left. There were words in between, but I have willed myself to forget those.
And more of the wall crumbles.
So, just to make you miserable, I'm going to replay the entire scene on this paper. But don't fret, my darling, I will suffer much, much, much more than you ever will.
"Where have you been?" you said to me.
"Out," I had said. You stared at me skeptically, trying to find the lie hidden in my face.
"Where to?" you asked.
"Shopping."
"What'd you get?"
"Nothing looked interesting…." I was telling the truth, Richard. For once, I was not lying to you. I had not been out drinking or stripping. I had been out shopping, and it was supposed to be a beautiful, truth-filled day for both of us.
"Where have you been, Kory?"
But you didn't believe me, did you? I had lied before, and now you never wanted to believe me again. But I was telling the truth, Richard. I wasn't lying to you today.
"Richard, I'm telling the truth," I said. I smiled at you, a very honest smile. But you didn't buy it.
This is the part where I forget the words. Screaming. Lot's of screaming. Something about my damn emotions, how they took me everywhere without consulting my conscious. That I wasn't supposed to be lying to you (even though, that day, I was not) and I was supposed to be sitting where you were. Innocently waiting for you to come home, knowing absolutely nothing beyond the door. It was my stupid emotions that had made me look past that door.
"Well, Dick, my damn emotions are what made me fall in love with you!" I had yelled at you. "I guess you are right, then! MY FUCKING EMOTIONS MADE THE WORST CHOICE OF MY LIFE!!"
I was the only person that you could never make sense of, you had once said to me. I was different and unique, and you had no idea what you had been getting into when you fell in love with me. I had been the best choice of your life. But that day, that one stupid day, you had called me your favorite mistake. Your only mistake.
That had touched me deeply. In that moment, it had felt like someone was stabbing at me with a knife. But now…after so many years, I finally appreciate the words you had said to me in those last moments. I was your favorite mistake. And that was all I could ask for. To be somewhere in your head, somewhere in her own column, at the very tipy-top. You will never forget me, will you?
"Leave," I said to you. "I never want to see your face fucking another person, killing another man, or breaking another law. Not when I'm in it with you."
Your face was twisted in these emotions…god, I can't even name them all. You were in so much pain. I almost ran to you right then. I almost forgave everything you had ever done. I almost forgot that you had been the one to accuse me in the first place. Almost. "I'll leave," you said. "Because I never want you to do the same."
Is that was killed us, Richard? My damn irrational mind? The way I had suspected you of so many arbitrary things, and the way I had been completely right? Or was it because you had caught me doing what you were always afraid of? You had caught me becoming you.
But do not worry, Richard. My emotions did not drive me to you; they did not make the wrong choice. For once in my life, something had made sense to me. I was in love with Richard Grayson, mind, body, and soul. I had made that choice, and my emotions had just followed along. And I regret nothing.
I don't regret falling in love with you, I don't regret doing what you did every night, and I don't regret becoming you. Falling in love with someone so wonderful meant there would be consequences. We were in love, and that was one hundred percent positive.
When we became a part of each other…when we were combined and welded together inside our little bubble was when we went wrong. You had known your entire life what you were doing, where you were going. It was like you could see into the future. So, you were perfectly safe going out and being stupid. But when we fell in love…you could not read my mind, could you? But you didn't mind, because you loved me. So, welded together, you continued your life of being stupid. I, with my stupid emotions, followed right along into the path of destruction. I followed you, my second half.
But you didn't want that, did you, Richard? You wanted me to be home every night, and you wanted to come back to the sunshine in your life. But I wasn't there. Because I was out following you.
And so, this letter ends with the wall still intact. It has broken, yes, but it has not fallen. It is still standing, hiding the corner puddle where I cried for weeks after I made you leave.
I would just like you to know that you are still a part of me. I still follow you (or what is left of you) into the dark. You might have changed for the better, but I have not. Who knows, maybe when the wall breaks you will fall along with it. Then I could go again into that corner of my former life, where tears had fallen for the mourning of everything I had lost, and I could pick up the pieces of me that I had ignored for so long. I could be the sunshine you always wanted. I could be the girl you fell in love with.
Sincerely, your second half,
Kory Anders
XX
This world is filled with depressing thoughts. I'm just one of the few who make art out of it all. SO, no nagging about my depressing stories. I tried my best to make this story humorous.
Let me know what you think, because who knows what I'll do if I don't get my reviews. All flames, please consult my manager.
-Alien