It was not your fault.

I know you blamed yourself. I saw you crying; I saw you in your grief, your pain. But it wasn't your fault. I don't blame you.

Well, maybe I once did. But not anymore. Because now I see what I did, how wrong I was. And I'm almost glad I took that jump, because maybe it's better for everyone this way.

There was nothing you could do.

Maybe you could have forgiven me, but it wouldn't have been enough. Forgiveness can't erase the past, and it wouldn't have erased the guilt.

It was my fault. I was the one who jumped, not you. I helped them try to kill you, I wanted you dead. You had every right not to forgive me. I didn't- wouldn't- forgive myself either. What I did was sick, and wrong, and I never should have done it. I wanted you to be weak; to feel as weak as I felt. I thought that since you were the smallest one, you should have been the weakest. I wanted you to be powerless; to feel as powerless as I felt. I had no control; I was terrified. But that's no excuse, because I could have controlled myself if I tried, if I had truly wanted to. It was my own fault.

Maybe you could have loved me, but that would have slowly killed you. And it wouldn't have been real.

I loved you for all the wrong reasons. I thought of you as the fragile, weak, timid little girl. I fell in love with the ideas I thought you represented, but they were never you at all. And looking at you with him now, I know I would have only gotten in the way.

He loves you for the right reasons, the opposites of why I did. He loves you because he sees that while you are small, you are in no way weak, something I refused to grasp. Your strength makes him strong, while it only made me weak. And so I never really loved you, because I refused to see who you truly were.

I couldn't expect you to love me, nor could I expect you to forgive me. Maybe things may have gone differently, but only if it were my choices which changed. All I know is that it was not your fault, and that you need to stop dwelling on it, stop dwelling on me. Put me in the past, where I belong. Use your fire to light the way ahead, instead of illuminating the past.

Of this I am certain: your fire burns the brightest of all, and while I do not know if it will last, I do know that it will always be remembered.

Shine brightly.