26

Dean,

Let me start with what you care about the most: I'm fine.

I'm back at the law firm, if that's what you want to know. But when I think back on my life these past few days, all I can remember was returning to my apartment on the morning after you left in a half-fainting state and receiving a birthday cake. That's what I prepared for you, an Impala-shaped cake, I thought you'll like it. You've never had a decent birthday cake before. I also learned how to bake pies with Amelia, and when I took some of my less-of-a-failure prototypes to my colleagues everyone likes it. Me and Amelia broke up, she fled as soon as I revealed a little bit about who I actually am. You'll probably say: not everyone can stand me. But we're still friends. So these are what happened in these past few days. You left, that is the thought that has been occupying my brain.

But there's no need for you to worry, I'm fine right now. I knew you're always worrying about me, so I have to remind you of this constantly.

Now, let's talk about Stanford. This is the reason why I'm writing this letter: I can't say all these to your face, it would look too much like I'm defending myself. When facing you, I can't do this, I don't want to make rebuttals calmly like a lawyer, but apart from that tough side of me, instinct drives me to bow my head before you, I listen to your wounds mutely. So if there's anything that's different about me than the year I went to Stanford, is that now I can see through your disguise. You're not as tough as you pretend to be, and I'm not as unattached and carefree as I thought I was. I cannot help feeling guilty, all your most fragile wounds you've shown me, and I'm rubbing salt into them?

So, let me hide shamelessly behind notepaper and say something that might make you feel better. I don't deny that those were the behaviors of an asshole, and I don't deny that if time rewinds, 19-year-old Sam would probably still do that again. But about what he was thinking, I can still remember clearly: before we part ways, how much did you think he cared about you, how much he did care about you.

When I stood alone in that cemetery, when you left me with your own gravestone, I finally saw that our feelings are entirely different when it comes to the thing about Stanford. There's contradiction inside you: you're unwilling to let me go to Stanford, but at the same time you're also guilty about taking me away from it.

For you, that was my clean escape and it represents my choice under less urgent circumstances: a normal life, and in your word, "leaving". And in the many years after this you carry with you this panic, even you won't admit it yourself but deep down here's what you think, that I will leave one day eventually, that leaving is my important-but-not-urgent agenda.

What's interesting is, it was a completely different move from the way I see it. In my mind, I never left. Don't be surprised, it's also the first time for me to consider this question seriously, but then I found out that I don't even need to look for the answers, they're just right there. The reason why I went to Palo Alto was that me at that time thought I had all the leverages on my side: I would never thought that I had a chance to lose you. I thought that if there's something in life that's eternal and unwavering, it's you. I had left home a million times during my teenage years in a naughty attempt to spent the vacation in cabins in the woods, only because I just knew I'll always come back to you. Because you will be just there. Sorry, but I'm just a jerk like that, a jerk that always takes you for granted. You are the foundational theme in my life. Yes, I accept this charge: I'm always running away from you. But it's exactly the countless escapes I've made that have shown me you and I are inseparable, in those years the further I was from you, the more I trusted you and was attached to you, that wasn't something geographic distance could weaken. I thought our bond was deep enough for me so be so far away from you yet still be intimately connected with you.

Our reunion after years of separation, for you there's twice: the first one is when you took me away from Stanford back into hunting, the second one is when I got you out of the police station. But for me, there's only once.

A few days ago I could just stand by and do nothing as I watched you being taken away in a police car. You were right in front of my eyes, but you rejected me. This time it's you who left first. This time it's you who want to leave. I only realized by then that I have no idea how to hold on to you. There was a time when no matter where I go, you would seize me and bring me home, and now when I'm going back, I find that there's no road leading home anymore.

You asked me: "Do you love me?" I didn't answer at once. I couldn't believe that it was actually a real question for you. I was reflecting what I did that turned this into a question. But your eyes looked as though you actually believed my silence, how could you take that as a no? The answer to that question will never be no.

You asked me if I love you in the same way I love Amelia, in the same way I love a normal life, in the same way you love me. The answers to all these three question are also no. But not exactly the same. I shouldn't have let you carry a thought so sad with you. I care about Amelia, because she's Sam Wesson's girlfriend, because she's a good girl, because she's just like each and every innocent person we risk our lives to save. But that's just another person who isn't you. She's not you, Dean. Everyone is not you, everyone makes no difference. I can only try to tell the good guys and the bad guys apart, and I try to love a good guy. That 19-year-old me pursued a normal life because I knew I had a home to come back to. I don't want to become a normal person, Dean, I had given up that thought a long time ago, and I was long past being one too, no one could go back to a normal life like nothing happened if they've been through what we've been through. I tried to do, I tried to play my part, but actually I don't care about all those at all. Neither work nor family is what I want, what I truly want is only you.

I love you. Yeah, I love you. I regret saying love too often and to too many people in the past that now I don't have a more appropriate word to express my thoughts for you. The love I give to all others combined is not even one millionth of the love I have for you. But you never ask for anything, you don't even care about this little love I have for you. What I can give you is nothing compared to what you have given me. I'm a greedy and always-unsatisfied taker, how baser I am, I feel ashamed of myself.

I once asked you this, so let me asked you one more time: what do you want, Dean? What can I give you? I'm always asking myself this. If you hunt, then I want to be a hunter; if you decide to be a mechanic, then I'll stop and work too and try to be a little brother you can be proud of. I only want to do the things you ask me to do. I worship you, I imitate you, all of me comes from you. You still forgive me and accept me after I've failed you for a million times. All my life I've been drawing love from you, but I was never able to give you anything. I cannot stand to put you in pain or force you to pander to me again out of my own desires.

I respect all your choices.

Yours ever, Sammy.

And that's the end of chapter 8 in the original work.

Also you guys, another section than I've tried my best but still can't bring to you its beauty in Chinese [cry]