Author's note:
I'm not sure if I will make another chapter. I left it open just in case, and I'm not going to lie, my brain is resisting the temptation...because I feel like my story has more power if I don't.
Part of me feels as though uploading a second chapter would be cheating the story- many family members who have gone to war come back, and many don't. There's a political undertone when I write these- many people ignore those that really need our help.
This story is showing my thoughts on war- horrible, brutal to the family (Felix's loneliness, Jamie not seeing his mother for a boy so young, the family barely scraping by financially, having to have Ralph and Vanellope move in, Felix considering cheating, because, let's be honest, he loves her, he really does, but missing her and the loneliness is killing him), killing the soldiers mentally (Tamora's PTSD, seriously considering suicide, struggling with an unshakable depression), obviously killing them physically, and overall nearly inexcusable. It's too easy to ignore all of this when it's not you (not readers, you, but you as in the general population) that's been affected. While I have never had to deal with a military parent, I have had plenty of military personnel in my family, and it's, I dare to say, helped shape it.
I'm against war, always have been, always will be, and I'm scared that attaching an ending to this will cheapen the message. If I attach a proper ending, it may just a) turn into a happy "everything is okay in the end" story, or b) angsty story, and those endings don't always stick with people- they may be more focused on Tamora than how the family is affected. And it ignores the fact that many soldiers do, indeed, return home. But they return home with unspeakable horrors. What do you think?