Darling Kate
The launch party for HeatRises was last night. I walked into that room, and the cameras exploded in my face. Surely the pictures will be devoid of my presence. Surely everything I was has seeped away to leave nothing that could be captured in a photograph. Surely my skin is so translucent that anyone who cares to look can see the blood reluctantly pumping through my veins.
The press knew not to speak to me. Paula released a statement, telling them to leave me be. Telling them they could have pictures as I entered, but that's it. Telling them that if anyone so much as mentioned your name they would be outside facing the bitter night before they could correct themselves. Like I would even be able to hear someone else utter your name over the incessant calling of it in my head.
The book is selling better than any I've written before. It makes me sick to my stomach. Your loss has caused my greatest financial gain. I don't want it. Not a penny. I'll give it to charity. Your mother's charity. We never got to hold the charity auction for that. I won't now. It would be too painful, imagining you and how you would outshine everyone else in the room.
This is the last book. I'd already finished it by the time of Montgomery's funeral. I only had the dedication left to do. I thought perhaps the dedication would be difficult for me to write, thought perhaps I would struggle with how to summarise my feelings. But it came to me the second I sat down to write it. ForKB,always. I hope you like it. I do. I like that to anyone else it seems almost ordinary, but to you and I, always means something far more than that. It meansI'llbeheretocatchyou. It means I'msorry. It means I'mnotleaving. It means Iloveyou.
The boys understand, as does everyone else at the precinct. They understand that I am beyond grateful, but that this dedication had to be yours alone. Much like my heart. They also understand why I am not coming back. Karpowski told me that she was sure it'd be okay if I shadowed Ryan and Esposito to get inspiration. She didn't realise that it stopped being about the books around the time you shot Dick Coonan. I don't need to do any more research. I didn't get out of the loft and come to the precinct every day for inspiration, I did it for you. I did it so I would have an excuse to see you.
It doesn't matter anyway, whether or not I could return to the precinct. Nikki Heat is done. I didn't kill her. I'm sure I don't need to explain why. I just wrapped up HeatRisesin a way that feels different to the other books. It feels final. It doesn't even carry the same finality as the last Derrick Storm novel does. This book isn't just the end of Nikki Heat; it's the end of Richard Castle the author.
I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know. I don't need to get rich. I don't need to get famous. I don't need some menial, unimportant job to occupy my time. Maybe someday I'll be able to go back to work. I'll be able to find the incentive to get up in the morning and do something with my day. Maybe.
I will admit it Kate. I'm doing better than I was. I've started to adjust to the pain. That doesn't mean to say it's decreased, but rather my capability to suppress it for extended periods of time has increased. It's not so sharp anymore. The pain. It was sharp and blinding, white hot agony. Then I went completely numb. Now it's a slow ache that burns deep inside me. It's not the kind of wound that heals, not fully.
I love you Kate. I resent that I'm starting the healing process. I know it's insane, but the pain is like a physical manifestation of my emotional adoration for you. And I feel like as the pain lessens, my body is betraying me. My love for you won't lessen, I don't doubt that. How could it? I'm not a mixture. I'm a compound, an irreversible reaction. I can't go back. And I don't want to.
I don't know when I will next write to you. I don't know whether the letters help. I think they do, but everyone around me disapproves. This isn't it though Kate. This is the only thing I have now, the only shred of you left to cling to. So although the letters may become more infrequent, they will not stop.
So farewell, but not forever. I love you.
Rick