I stared at the white envelope lying in front of me. Typical girly-handwriting, I thought, only the little hearts over the 'I's were missing. Miley Stewart. Sounded nice. I took a deep breath and ripped of the envelope to see a folded letter inside, someone had drawn a… weird looking building on it's back page. I just shrugged. Maybe it was modern art or something. Or maybe all Americans are just crazy.

I folded the letter out and started reading.. and my jaw dropped. Wow. I definitely wasn't expecting something like..that. She was… honest. Painfully honest, though she didn't even knew me.

I had waited for something like:'Hello to you, I'm Miley and my hobbies are cheerleading and hanging at the mall.' Or at least that's what I think American girls are doing all the time.

Whatever the other girls do, Miley didn't seem to be one of those kind. The way she wrote about her family, about her sister cutting herself or her parents fighting every night, gave me goose bumps.

And at the next moment I was kind of… relieved. I could even smile after I finished reading. That was amazing. Maybe THIS was my chance to talk to someone. I was pretty sure SHE wouldn't laugh at me, maybe she would even understand.

I stared at the paper for a few more minutes and then I took my pen and started writing.

"Hey Miley.

Well… I don't really know how to start this off. I'm Nicholas but I go by Nick. I'm 17 and, as you probably should have figured, I live in Germany. To be exact I live in Frankfurt, I don't know if you know the city, it's not really nice. It's just big and stinky; I don't live in downtown though.

I live in a big house with my mom and my dad and my two siblings, Mandy (she's 19) and Frankie (he's 11). I guess you could say we're kind of… wealthy. That's not always a good thing.

My dad was a soldier in the army and when he was sent to Germany in the 80s he fell in love with my mom (she's German) and stayed. This is why I have an American last name and am not that bad at speaking/writing in English, I grew up speaking English and German. (It was kind of confusing sometimes :P) Though I'm far from perfect, German is still my better language to talk in.

Your letter…. Was pretty surprising to me. Don't get this wrong, I really appreciate your honesty. I'm so sorry for you and your family; I know how hard it is to lose someone you loved. "

I paused. I couldn't write it. I just couldn't. Maybe this girl felt comfortable with telling her most inner thoughts to some stranger but.. I just couldn't talk about Julia like this.

I took a deep breath and continued writing.

"… let's just say I know how it is. "

Then I sighed again.

"OK, whatever, I'm just going to tell you, I mean, you don't even know me! And we'll probably never meet or something, so I'll just tell you. Julia, my girlfriend of one year, committed suicide half year ago. Until today, I don't really know why she did it. I knew she wasn't comfortable with her body and stuff, and I'd seen the scars on her wrist. But I'd never thought she'd go this far. Well, I was wrong.

One Monday before school my phone rang and her mom was on the other line and told me she found her… lifeless on her bed. She took sleeping pills. And she had written a letter to me and her family. I'm not gonna tell you now what she wrote to me, cause it's something really personal. Maybe I'll tell you one day but at the moment I just don't feel comfortable with it, I hope that's ok.

Gosh, this letter is so boring and depressing, I'm sorry. To make it short, I'm not really the same I was when she was alive I guess. Playing soccer, going out and all that stuff just seems…ridiculous to me right now. "

I sighed and put another sentence under those.

"Sometimes I feel like I could never be happy again. Or smile with all of my heart."

And suddenly I felt like I wasn't able to write any more sentence. I just scribbled a rushed

"So long, waiting for your reply.

Nick."

And rammed the letter in the envelope. What the hell was I doing here? I was telling a TOTAL FOREIGN girl I NEVER TALKED to or heard off the story of my life? That was ridiculous. I threw the closed envelope on the teacher's desk and left the room. I needed some air.

When I came home this afternoon my mom stood in the kitchen and stirred in a huge pot.

"Nick, Liebling," she called and blew a kiss in the air. "You're early!"

"I know Mama," I answered and lowered myself on one of the handmade designer chairs in our kitchen. What a wastage by the way. Who needs handmade designer chairs in a kitchen when you've got a separate dining room and all you do on those chairs is drop cooking utensils? This family was so random. 'Let's buy some total useless but good-looking chairs for the ugly kitchen," I shook my head and crossed my arms.

"How was school," she asked absent-mindedly and balanced a few pieces of meat into the pot.

"Okay." That was answer enough for her. She wasn't interested in what I have to say anyway, she was just asking to be polite.

"Dinner's ready in 5," she let me know and gave me a little smile.

I swallowed hard. "Yeah… I'll be there."

Oh yeah, I probably forgot to tell foreign-American-girl that I basically quit eating since
Julia's death. My sister is 100% sure that I'm anorexic and she tells me whenever she's got the chance to, but that's BS. I'm not anorexic. I just don't eat anymore. It is disgusting. How am I supposed to chew and swallow that disgusting… stuff? It's not that I think I'm fat or something, and I'm a boy and definitely not gay, but I just don't like eating anymore. What's the big deal with that? She should just let me do my thing.

"Hey, Mom?"

She turned her head in my direction and looked at me questioningly. "I just remembered that I … got to do.. homework. Lots of. So.. Is it OK if I cancel dinner and grab something to eat while I'm studying?"

"Sure… there is lasagna in the fridge, just get some if you're hungry," she smiled and devoted her attention back to her dinner on the stove.

I nodded and made my way upstairs to my room. In there, I let myself fall down on the bed and closed my eyes. Sometimes, I felt like I couldn't breathe in this house. Everything was just…huge and cold. I grabbed the photo that was standing on my bedside table and a sad smile broke across my face. Me and Julia. She was smiling widely, her blonde hair messed up from the wind and I held her in my arms tightly. Man, I felt like I couldn't even remember how happy we were back then. It was crazy.

A crazy rush of love. We were both 14 when we got to know each other and fell in love at the moment we looked each other in the eyes for the first time. I could remember clearly on everything. The first time we kissed each other. The first time we fought. The night when we slept together. One week before…

I swallowed hard and buried my head into the pillow and groaned. My stomach pounded angry yelling at me for food. But it was a good feeling. At least I had the control over one thing in my pathetic life.

A/N: Hello my beloved readers, this is Anna (xCaliforniaSunshineInMyEyes) and this is the 2nd chapter for this story-collab with the amazing Ashley (NieyFanForever)

I hope you guys like it. As you guys propably have figured, I'm German, so I threw some german words in there, in case you didn't understand anything, feel free to ask and you can also ask me on twitter /Anna_Fresh .

In case you want to know: Liebling is German and means darling, so is Mama, it's mom but you probably know that ;)