The letter was worn and the words were starting to fade. I should have, in all probability, thrown the letter away years ago, but I couldn't seem to get rid of it. I had read it over and over again in the ten years since it was written, hoping to find an answer, but for the past ten years, the answer eluded me.
I know you'll hate me. I know you'll all hate me. But I can't go on like this.
Not anymore. The pain, the torture. It's more than I can hope to bear.
I know that you will want to save me, but you can't, Tariq. YOU CAN'T!
You've done all you could to help. You're the best friend I ever had.
Don't ever think that you're to blame. I just can't do it anymore.
If everyone in the world had a friend like you, there wouldn't be these problems.
I see you now, Tariq, reading this, wondering what you could've done.
The answer is NOTHING.
There is nothing anyone could have done. I just can't bear with what I've done.
Not anymore.
I have to do this. Tariq, you're my best friend and I'll always love you, dude.
Just don't hate me for too long too much, kay, bud?
Jeremy
I know I could have done something. I know what happened and I wanted to believe I could have made it all go away, but I couldn't. The war waged on in his mind. He couldn't seem to separate himself from it. It haunted him. The loneliness. The pain. The images he couldn't share with us.
Shit. The war was with me too and it was with a lot of us. What made Jeremy think he couldn't handle it? We could have talked and sorted it all out, right? After all, I had to kill people. I had to live with the memories of seeing my friends shot and killed. I had to live with the memories of being hit by an IED. Even live with the memory of being shot point blank.
Why couldn't he cope?
I had to live with the memories of watching an embedded reporter get decapitated while we stood, reluctant to shoot.
I've lived with the memories; the loneliness; the agony. Why, if I was the best friend he claimed I was, didn't Jeremy come talk to me? Why did he choose to bottle it all up, closing it with a .22 pistol shot to the head?
The rain falls outside and I think about the war, seemingly so long ago and yet so recent.
I look over the letter again. This time, I throw it away.