Dear Marissa,
I recently heard the news of your passing. I am writing you this letter to send you my condolences.
No. Why should I write so formal, like all I was to you was a casual acquaintance, someone you came across a few times in a past life.
That's never what we were Marissa, we were never just friends.
It was impossible for us to be only be friends.
We may have started off that way, but our relationship was never purely platonic. We may have once tried to fool ourselves into a false sense of friendship.
But the intense atmosphere and charge surrounding our every moment together, alone or not, was enough for me to realise even back then, that first night when we fell asleep together on my couch, there would be something much deeper than friendship between us.
I never would of asked anything of you Marissa, and I certainly would never have expected anything of you. All I ever wanted was you, whatever part of your soul that you offered me, I would of accepted it.
It would have been enough.
There were so many things against us from the start. But I always felt that we could over come them, like love could be a victory march for us, a way prove to everyone around us that what we felt was real. To boast that they were all wrong.
I'm sorry, I've been listening to Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley over and over since I heard the news. Cynical I know, but it seems to fit.
Because I guess that's what this letter is for me, it's a broken hallelujah.
Don't I sound poetic, I just mean, that all the time I knew you, there were so many things that you felt were against you. And I just guess that now, I've forced myself to believe that you are on this higher plane, this better place, looking down and watching over everyone you care about.
That you're happy at last.
That you've finally escaped all the pain you felt here.
But I have to wonder Marissa, are you watching over me? Because god knows I need you to be.
I've completely lost track of this letter, I want to shred it, or screw it up and start anew, but I can't bring myself to do it.
I feel as if every single word I write to you is important, that whatever I say, it could never be enough.
But it has to be.
I have to finally say all the things that I should have when I had the chance.
When you came to the club that night, and you took my hand, I felt such a wave of different emotions. I was ecstatic for one, overjoyed that you had mustered the courage to make the first move and show me that what I felt was unrequited, was actually reciprocated.
But the fear that tore through my body at that moment, engulfed me into a state of paralysis where I all I could was look up and stare into your beautiful eyes.
You had the most amazing eyes Marissa, I could stare into them the whole day through and feel as if I'd lived a thousand lifetimes with each passing second.
Every bought of laughter, every tear, every sparkle brought forward a new piece of your soul to be revealed to me.
But there was always something holding you back from showing yourself to me completely. I wish I knew what it was.
Maybe it was your fear of being consumed completely by the awe inspiring love that I'm sure I could of given you.
I think that must have been the only thing that I was sure of when we were together.
My love.
Everyone was thrusting these doubts into your mind about me, and don't get me wrong, I was subjected to them too. And I guess that I let them possess me, allowed them to sink into my already apprehensive mind and take over me.
Clouding my judgement and my trust in you.
But I never hesitated when it came to how I felt about you.
Everyone was trying to make me believe that I could never be good enough for you, that I would never be able to give you what you wanted and needed in life.
But they were wrong, because I could provide you with the one thing that you had been crying out for, what you were craving for and they could never give to you.
Love.
Because you were never really like the rest of them, sure you enjoyed shopping, and hanging out with your friends. But deep down, material possessions didn't mean all that much to you. You weren't interested in being the prestigious socialite that your mother had brought you up to portray.
You were far more interested in the finer things that this life has to offer. The rarer moments that not everybody had the luck, or will to find and explore. Let alone to hold on to and cherish.
The touch of another, or the hitching of your breath when your lover brushes against you with the slightest of caresses. These meant more to you than any pair of over priced shoes ever could.
And a simple I love you, I believed that for so long you had yearned for someone to simply express their affection towards you. Show you that for once, what you had done was enough, that you were accepted for who you were.
I always accepted you Marissa, I saw through the superior aura you had surrounded yourself with, and beyond that I saw a broken heart.
It was always my ulterior motive to mend you, to put you back together, piece by imperfect piece until what was once hollow, was renewed with the endless emotion and passion that I knew you wanted to express.
I wanted to fill the empty voids of your very essence and make all right in your world.
I wanted to make everything ok.
I remember when you came back to the Bait Shop after the dinner with your mother, words can't express how shocked I felt to see you standing there.
And when you opened your mouth and quietly uttered what had been on your mind since we'd met, I was filled with a sense of pride. Knowing that my quest to repair your defenceless heart was well on it's way to completion.
For what I saw sitting before me that night in the empty club, was no longer a vulnerable girl, it was an empowered young woman.
Taking your hand, I had lead you to the completely vacant beach, where I had nervously fed you some cheesy line in attempts to convey what I wanted to happen between us.
But ever since I first spoke out the words, I have found myself sitting on the beach every night, just after dusk to watch the tide turn.
I'm awaiting the change right now actually as I write this letter, in fact, I came back for the first time tonight, sitting in the exact place of our first kiss.
But something changed after that night on the beach, the infamous first date on Valentine's day that I promised myself that I would never go on.
All was perfect for a few days, it seemed as if you really had grown into this strong woman that you were showing me.
But then something surrendered to the pressure of others.
I knew what your past held, well, I knew what you had told me. And that wasn't actually much considering I feel that there were always things holding you back from being honest with me completely.
And what you did confess, you never wanted to go into great detail about.
I know that you had a very illicit relationship with alcohol.
Using the state of delusion that the poison could provide you with as an escape from reality.
I knew that you did this quite regularly, but I had noticed that when you started spending time with me, the amount of alcohol you consumed lessened immensely.
It was almost as if you had found something else to grant you that uncaring high.
I would like to think that it was me, but I won't allow myself to believe that. I don't deserve to think that because I failed you.
That's right Marissa, I abandoned you when you needed me the most. All because I was feeling jealousy over something that you assured me I needn't have.
I heard once that jealousy is nothing more than a fear of abandonment.
I can relate to that, for my greatest fears were of you leaving me after I had given you everything.
Leaving me for him.
I was never one to participate in a steady relationship, call it having commitment issues, call it whatever you want. But what I do know, is that the one relationship I did give myself fully in, completely ripped me to shreds and left me not knowing which way was up from down.
Plus there were all the things people were saying to me, your mother pounding into my head that I was just an experiment to you, a game to the pass the time.
Until you were reunited with him.
See, it all comes back down to him Marissa!
It always fucking comes down to him!
I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't be angry. But still, after all this time, just hearing his name or picturing his stony face makes my skin crawl.
He never deserved you. Ever.
Why was I the only one to see that Ryan never cared for you as much as he apparently did?
Was he there to hold you after his own brother tried to rape you?
No, he accused you of cheating on him with the son of a bitch!
How about when you were forced to shoot Trey to save his life?
Was Ryan there for you completely then? Did he hold you through your tears, whispering that he would do anything to take it back? Did he talk to you at 2am in the morning, when you'd woken up sobbing from a graphic dream playing it all back to you?
No.
He NEVER deserved you Marissa, he was never worthy of your love. And sadly I was the only one to see that.
So excuse me if I was a little afraid.
Did Seth ever tell you that I told him I loved you? I bet he didn't, I soon learnt that he was a selfish man that was obsessed with keeping his little group intact.
In L.A they call that a hallucination.
Anyways, none of that matters now.
What matters is that I fucked up.
I left you that night on the bonfire because I felt that you wanted me to go. I thought that as much as I loved you, my initial reason for staying had concluded.
You were strong.
Strong enough to choose who and what you wanted, and even though it hurts me to admit this.
It wasn't me.
So I left that night, expecting all to be well for you from then on. After all, I had shown you that you were worth so much, even if other's didn't make you feel that way.
For so long I was oblivious to you, I suffocated myself in work.
I didn't go back to school like I lead you to believe I would, I didn't attempt to fix things with my parents, hell, I never even left Newport!
I just found another apartment, another job at a different club and made sure that I stayed far away from wherever I knew you could ever possibly be.
I tried to leave town, I really did, but I soon realised that I had built my home in Newport, and without you, I had nothing.
I know, I no longer had you. But I could always feel our connection, even when we were far apart. I just didn't know if that connection could stretch miles, and I didn't want to lose it completely.
So I never tested it, I stayed in Newport where I knew I could at least be close to you.
It was like the roles were suddenly reversed, it was me that suddenly slipped into this state of depression. I stopped surfing, I barely ate, I hardly left the house except for going to work, and even then, it was just a shell of my former self walking around.
I fell back into a routine of drinking and drugs, I never told you that I was a recovering cocaine addict, simply because I needed to appear strong to guide you in your healing.
I really did give you my all. Everything I had.
Maybe I should have entitled this letter with;
Dear Marissa Cooper, you stole away my everything and left me with nothing.
No, I'm not angry at you Marissa. You showed me, even though it was for a few short days, what true love is capable of. The fury that it encases, the joy it can bring and the damage it can cause.
I live in a state of romantic devastation.
But I have no problem with that because I, at least got to see the real you, and that's something that no-one else has ever achieved.
I really thought by leaving you alone that everything would finally work out for you.
I hid from you so perfectly that I never once heard about any of the terrible things that had happened to you after I left.
I should never have ran away, I should have stayed and protected you.
Maybe then you would still be here.
Summer tracked me down, she explained everything that had happened and for the first time in my life, I broke down into uncontrollable sobs that imprisoned my body for hours.
What angers me now, is she found me so easy, and yet she never wanted or tried to find me before. I could have stopped all this.
She said you started drinking again, got back with Ryan but your relationship was even more dramatic than ever.
She told me how that bastard tried to rape you, how you'd shot him to protect Ryan, how you'd slept around with random men to make yourself feel beautiful.
How you would mumble my name in your sleep on many nights.
She said you cried out for me to help you.
And yet not one of them came and got me!
She told me that you began an intense affair with a guy called Volchok, she said he had dragged you down further. The drinking deepened and you started doing cocaine.
You were sinking, with no-one to reach in and rescue you.
Apparently when you finally felt strong enough to leave this guy, you planned on moving with your father to work on his boat.
But Volchok wouldn't take being brushed off lightly, so he chased you down a narrowing road as Ryan was driving you to the airport.
Well I guess you know how that ended.
You were so close to the fresh start you deserved. Instead you found freedom.
I have to stop writing, my arm is losing strength.
This is my last goodbye to you, my plea for forgiveness for leaving you in your greatest time of need.
For being selfish and not recognising your pain before my own.
I love you Marissa, at least let me get that out before I'm finished. You deserved to hear those words from me back then, but I never had the courage to summon them for you. Even though I meant and felt them with all of my own fragile heart.
You made me a better person.
But now, sitting here mumbling "I love you" and "I'm sorry" over and over, to the unforgiving ocean isn't going to convey the sorrow I feel pulsing throughout my veins.
Neither is choking back my sobs whilst picturing your face, smiling down on me from the high heavens above the star filled sky.
It's all worthless.
For as I sit here and write this, I realise the sheer pointlessness of it all. This letter is nothing but a declaration of my guilt, my regret and above all, my love that you will always hold.
But my affirmation will never reach your ears because I've already lost you, you've already escaped this cruel world that once imprisoned your heart and still remains clutched to mine.
The only way I can ever reassure you of my love, and take away all your pain, is to be with you once again.
So there is nothing left for me to do here.
Except to finish this letter.
Marissa Cooper, you were always an angel to me. And I guess now you truly are just that.
I'll always cherish the memory of what we shared for it was the most real thing I have ever experienced.
You were taken from this world far too early, your time had yet to come and it was unfair of you to be snatched away and your potential stolen.
But hey, you graduated so you've got one up on me.
Sad attempt at a joke there.
I'll always love you, for now and forever.
Your heart will be untarnished in my eyes for evermore.
I'm feeling drowsy now, it feels as if I've been pondering over this letter and writing it for hours.
Long hours that I wish I could of spent simply embracing you in my arms.
And with that last thought, I'll bring this to an end.
I guess we finally received our closure, not how I ever wanted it to play out.
Goodbye my friend.
Loving you eternally,
Alex
And Marissa, please excuse all the blood.
