Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

January 24th 2007 

Dear Friend,

I am writing to you because I was told you listen, and that you don’t judge people based on the little things. My sister told me about this program, write to a stranger, and get things off of your chest in the hopes of feeling free. I just want to say I think that’s bullshit. I mean for all I know you could be putting my letter into the trash, and I wouldn’t blame you, I don’t even know you. 

I guess the only reason I agreed to this was to give my sister some peace of mind, I think she’s worried about me. 

I don’t think she fully understands why she’s worried about me, maybe it’s just part of who she is now. I don’t want her to worry about me, I’d like her to be free from me in that sense. Maybe if she was somewhere else she wouldn’t worry as much about me.

I’d like to make it known now that I don’t want you to worry about me or what I write.

I am happy, I think a person can be both happy and sad at the same time and still live a normal life. Maybe you know what I mean or maybe you don’t, and that’s okay I don’t think I expect you to understand half of the things I write in my letters.

I want you to know that for my entire life, I have been looking for someone to listen to, my parents would say that I don’t really have anything to complain about, and I mean I guess they’re right. I have a roof over my head and food on the table, I have nothing to complain about, my parents have always been good people. But do good people have to pretend to like their own child? I’m not sure. Perhaps that’s why I agreed to write to you, to let myself talk nonsense in the hopes of someone listening.

See ever since I was little my sister has always been the one to be at my side. She practically raised me, and trust me I was not an easy kid to raise, I know that now. I never really knew how to act around my parents, again, they’re good people, I just don’t think they knew how to handle me. I’ve always been the kid that gets hurt doing something stupid so I guess it makes sense that they don’t know what to do with me. I guess sometimes I wish they would at least try, or even pretend like they can handle me. 

Sometimes I think that maybe the reason I am so reckless is because I just want them to notice me, to pay attention to me. But that would be silly and I guess if I ever confirmed that I’d be sent straight to a real therapist somewhere far away. 

It’s not that they don’t love me, I know that they love me. It just sometimes feels like I’m a stranger to them in their home.

I’m sorry, that got wayyy too personal way too quickly. You probably didn’t sign up for that, I mean I guess you kind of did sign up for the letters, but I bet when you did you didn’t figure you’d be getting any from a troubled kid. I think that you’re a good person, I don’t even know who you are, but I’m sure you’re a good person. I think listeners are good people, and I guess that automatically includes you. 

I hope that maybe one day someone will think I’m a good person. I would like to think that I’m a good listener, but I know in this world most people would say that they are when in reality they spend their time shutting out the world around them and well, where’s the beauty in that? I know I’m guilty of trying to shut the world out, sometimes everything just gets too loud, y’know? Maybe you know what I mean, my parents think it’s silly to describe the world as loud, they think it’s just obvious because everyone’s living in one place at the same time. But that isn’t really what I mean when I say the world can get too loud.

I don’t really have much more to say, I think I have already over-explained too much about me and I don’t want you to figure out who I am. This is why I haven’t attached a return address to this letter, I don’t want you to write back to me. I don’t want you to think that you have to even continue reading my letters. I just want to know someone out there can actually listen.

I guess that means this is it,

Until next time.

Love Always,

Evan.

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February 4th 2007

Dear Stranger,

Hello, It’s me again. I don’t think I ever actually introduced myself, I guess I kind of like it that way. 

I started a new school this week, I was kicked out of my last one. There is a story to it, but I think I’ll leave that part out so you don’t think any less of me, though you probably already do think badly of me. I mentioned in my last letter how I was a troubled kid, and I suppose I do live up to the stereotypes surrounding that. Not that I wear the title proudly, but if I could change anything about myself I think I would change that. I would rewire my brain into being normal, to stop it thinking that the only way I can make friends is by doing something stupid so they think I’m cool. 

I don’t like my new school. I don’t know anybody, I guess I didn’t really know anybody in my last school either. I had friends, but I wouldn’t really say I knew them well. I spent most of my time doing stupid things to impress them, I’m not even sure if they knew my name. 

I guess that means you already know me better than they did.

That doesn’t sound as big of an achievement as it should be, aren’t friends supposed to know things about each other? I guess my only real friend has been my sister, that sounds pretty lame, but even if I did have a lot of friends who knew everything about me, I would still always pick my sister. 

My first day at school wasn’t too bad, my sister dropped me off in her new car. I had history first period, I really like history. I think it’s interesting that even after all these years humans haven’t really changed as much as people think they have. That after all these years humans still strive to achieve one thing in life and it’s that one thing that determines whether or not they’ll be happy or not. It’s crazy, right? Even after so many years of hurt and destruction, we still seek out the same goal as our ancestors. 

The second period of the day was English. I’m not the most academic person, I never understood the point of the books we were assigned to read. Like I know most books are supposed to carry some sort of message, but I think that part of the story is cool and I should pay more attention to it. It’s just getting to that point that I find hard, there are so many words and trying to put together a message from something so long is just too much for me. OH!! I forgot the best part of the class, so, there was this girl in my class; I’m not sure what her name was, she seemed really nice. Like she knew how to be a good friend and I haven’t even spoken to her yet, maybe I’m good at finding good people just not at being one? Anyway. She seemed really smart, she always had an answer to any question the professor asked us. I think maybe I want to be her friend? I guess that’s a bold statement since I don’t even know her name, but maybe next time I have English class I’ll introduce myself? 

Maybe she will want to be my friend too, I think maybe that this school might be better for me. I know I started this letter negatively, and the truth is I still really don’t like the school. But I think, maybe, just maybe, I could use this fresh start. Maybe I can try to be the good person I want to be if I surround myself with the good people I find.

I guess the only way to find out is to try, right?

Anyway, I’m still at school right now. It’s supposed to be lunch, but I don’t think I’m hungry, I think if I eat anything I’ll risk puking in my next class and I don’t know about you stranger but that doesn't exactly scream ‘good impression’ to me. 

A lot of the people at school act really weird, I think it has something to do with the time of year. Valentine's Day makes people crazy apparently, I’ve never really understood the fuss people make about it all. Why force all your love onto someone one day a year? Why not spend every day loving someone to show them how important they are to you, instead of only doing it for a single day? Surely that sounds more romantic, but, who am I to talk? I’ve seen so many couples acting all lovey in the corridors and it all feels kind of like a performance. As if they’re all competing to be the cutest couple in the school. I think it’s kind of silly. There's this one guy, who’s the year above me, he and his girlfriend seem to always be making out in the corridors. He doesn’t seem to be into it most of the time, but I’m not going to judge him for it, I guess I kind of understand the pressure of having to put on a performance constantly to the people around you. Maybe he just isn’t a fan of public affection, can’t fault the guy for that, plus, his girlfriend seems happy enough.

I told my sister about you, well, not you exactly, more the fact that I actually started writing to you. I think she’s proud of me? Which is nice, all I want to do is make her proud, I’ve only ever wanted to do that. I think this is helping, I think writing to someone, a stranger, is making kinda cool. I mean I tried to write in a diary once, but I guess with a diary there’s always the risk of somebody finding it and reading everything. This way, nobody but you can read my jumbled mess of thoughts. I never actually plan on what to write, I think that’s part of the freedom thing my sister was talking about, but I’m not sure. I don’t even really know if my letters make sense, I kind of just write a bunch of word puke and then fold it away and send it off to you. I am sorry about that, if it doesn’t actually make sense I mean, otherwise I’m not sure what to be sorry about but I still am.

I guess I should start heading to my next lesson since lunch is nearly over. Thank you for getting this far if you even read this.

Love Always,

Evan

Chapter Text

February 18th 2007 

Dear Stranger, 

Did you know that there is an octopus named after Dumbo the elephant? They named it the Dumbo Octopus because it’s fins look a lot like Dumbo’s ears! Pretty cool right? I read an article about them one night because I was bored, did you know they also don’t have an ink sack? They live so deep in the ocean that they barely come across any kind of predator so they do not need a defence system! They’re the only known species of octopi that humans have discovered living so deep in the ocean, that’s literally makes them like one in a million! There’s so much ocean life that humans haven’t discovered because there’s just so much area to cover, it’s pretty crazy to think that there’s life out there that we’re unaware of.

I like the ocean, do you? I guess you can’t really answer that, but that’s okay. I think I’ve created a version of whoever I’m sending these letters to in my head, kind of like putting a face to the name except I don’t know your name either. 

I think the reason I like the ocean so much is because of the mystery it holds, it’s like this big secret that everyone knows about but nobody’s trying to find out what exactly the secret is about. I also just really like how it has a mind of it’s own, nobody is telling it which way to move or when the tide can or can’t come in and out. That sounds poetic, in my head it sounded less poetic and more childish, but I don’t mind. I think most people have some kind of child-like enjoyment for something in their lives.

Sometimes at school, I feel like I’m fighting the tide, trying not to drown in the waves. Instead of the tide or the waves, it’s just a bunch of teenagers trying to fight their way through high school hoping to come out at the end with a new perspective on life than how they originally pictured it to be. Maybe that’s what they intended when they decided to make school hallways so fucking small. I can picture that, they’d say it’s an underlying message of some sort, but I call bullshit again.

My English professor would say something like that, no doubt he’d be talking about Moby Dick or something along those lines. Speaking of my English class, I finally gathered enough courage to speak to the girl I told you about in my last letter. I found out her name is Henrietta, but everyone calls her Hen. She invited me to sit with her at lunch with her friends, something about how they haven’t had a new student in a while so it’s nice to see a different face. She also said she’d help me with our English assignment since she seemed to know what she was talking about. Turns out she is way better at explaining things than our professor is, and she doesn’t try to water everything down either. A lot of my old professors talked to me as if I was a little kid, they’d make a point to stop and explain things to me in the same way people would a toddler. Apparently, that was their way of trying to humiliate me, that’s what Hen said anyway. Hen also said that it’s not my fault that I don’t understand the way our professors explain things, she said some people just learn things differently and the school just isn’t accustomed to that. I guess in that sense she called me out on being different, but it didn’t feel mean. It was like she was just stating the obvious, that It was a problem with the school and not a problem with my brain. That might be the first time someone has let me know that It’s not me that’s the problem, even if she didn’t say those words specifically I could tell that’s what she meant. 

I think I’m starting to like this new school. 

Hen’s friends are also really nice, I sat with them for lunch for the first time and nobody seemed to question why I was even there. They all smiled and introduced themselves, conversation seemed to be so easy with them. I know I talk a lot anyway, but they seemed to talk just as much. I felt like I wasn’t invisible for the first time in a while like I fit into a group for the first time without having to do something stupid. Is this what friends are supposed to be like? 

I found out that one of Hen’s friends, her name is Karen, she’s like super smart. She wants to be a rocket scientist! She wants to work with actual rockets and test new theories on how exactly they work.

Hen’s other friend, Chimney (He refuses to tell me why everyone calls him that, apparently even Karen doesn’t know why) He’s pretty cool too, he’s really funny. He always has a joke to tell and they’re always really funny, they never make anyone seem like an idiot in a way that is intended to embarrass or upset someone.

I think I like Hen’s friends.

I told them all my facts about the octopus and they all seemed actually interested when I explained it. Usually when I start talking about random things I’ve learned people pretend to not hear me or they tell me to be quiet because my rambling is just annoying. But this time Hen and her friends kept asking questions, I didn’t even know the answers to some of the questions!! They let me talk as much as I wanted to, they even added their own facts about other sea animals they knew about. I’m going to do some more research to find out the answers to the questions they asked, I hope they don’t mind, they did ask after all. Karen said she wished she knew more about the ocean and the life we haven’t discovered, I think maybe one day I want to work on discovering more of the life out there. I don’t think I want to do it because of the fear of not knowing, I think I just want to be able to educate people who want to learn about that kind of thing. I don’t even know if that’s a career possibility. My parents want me to be a doctor I think, my sister is in nursing school. Her boyfriend is also a doctor. I don’t know if I’d be able to handle the thought of only helping people until they don’t need me anymore, what if something happens when they leave and nobody’s there to help? It doesn’t seem like something I could live with not knowing about. Maybe my parents will understand that much, I mean they don’t like hospitals. So if I tell them that I don’t like them either maybe they’ll understand and let me do something else. I’ll update you when I have that conversation with them.

Love Always,

Evan

Chapter Text

February 28th 2007

Dear Stranger,

Maddie left. She left me. She promised me we would always be in this together and she left. I don’t know what hurts more, the fact she left or the fact she lied to me, she’s never lied to me before. 

What am I supposed to do now? 

How am I supposed to move on like normal? Maddie has always been around, she’s always been just there.

The house has been really quiet since she left, and my parents don’t like the fact she left. They don’t really like her boyfriend, that might be the only thing I actually agree with them about. He doesn’t like me either so the feeling is mutual. 

Now it’s just me and my parents, they haven’t even tried to hide their disappointment in me, it’s like they’re blaming me for Maddie leaving. Not that they’ve said those words exactly, but they don’t need to really say it for me to understand that’s what they mean. 

What I don’t understand is my parents never really bothered when Maddie was home, but now since she’s gone it’s like they’re trying even harder to pretend she doesn’t exist by refusing to talk about her, it’s that ‘I’m not angry just disappointed’ look, except they never cared enough to be disappointed in the first place. 

My parents are trying to act as if Maddie was never here, like she was never a part of their home, to begin with. They’re trying so hard to pretend everything is normal, I think they just want to keep this public idea that we’re all this perfect happy family. 

Maybe this should be a good thing, maybe I should be happy that she got away from everything here. There’s nothing really going for anyone here anyway. I mean maybe this is her chance to be free and live her life the way she wants, I know as soon as I can I’ll be out of here. I just kind of wish I could have gone with her. 

I walk to school now. I don’t mind, it’s just different. I think I got used to Maddie tagging along with me, that shouldn’t really bother me I know, I’m old enough to continue by myself. I know.

I’m sorry, I’ve done so much complaining. You probably don’t want to hear me complain about small things like this, it’s kind of pathetic. 

I do have nicer things to talk about I guess, I’ve been spending a lot of time at school with Hen and her friends. I guess you could call them my friends now too. They don’t know about Maddie leaving, but they’ve helped a lot. When I’m with them I kind of push away a lot of what’s happening outside of school into a corner of my brain so I don’t think about it. They take up that empty space, it’s nice, I wouldn’t say it’s a distraction because I don’t think that’s a fair way to talk about your new friends. But it’s similar in that way, I’d rather spend my time with my friends than listen to what's going on inside my own head. I made it depressing again I’m sorry.

I promise I’m not a sad person, I'd like to say I’m relatively happy with my life. I don’t want people to think I’m a sad person, not that there’s anything wrong with being sad. I just know there are people out there who have it a lot worse than I do, so I don’t think it’s fair for me to pity myself when I’m relatively well off. 

Do you have any friends? I mean I guess it’s a silly thing to ask since you can’t even write back. Sometimes I do think about what exactly you’d have to say about me if you wrote back, but then I remember that I don’t think I want to know that either. I’d like to think that you don’t see me as some messed up kid who needs help. 

I don’t need help. By the way.

Anyway, I should go to sleep, thank you for listening to me.

Love Always,

Evan

P.S., Maddie is my sister.

P.S.S., Please don’t worry about me.

Chapter Text

March 14th 2007

Dear Stranger,

I don’t have a lot of time to write this letter because Hen wants me to go to try outs with her and I agreed. I’m not really an athletic person, I wouldn’t consider myself one anyway. I used to be on the football team at my old school, but I don’t want to do that here, last time I did it for the wrong reasons and I’m trying to do better. Hen thinks I could be a good runner, she says I have the form for it, whatever that means. I guess she thinks I have a shot at being good at something and who am I to not try? Running is nothing like football anyway, there’s not as much fuss about the running team, I think that makes me feel better about trying out. At least then I know I won’t fall into the same habits, and I know my friends aren’t going to let that happen either. 

The coach is kind of scary, she has this certain tone that she uses to yell at kids who are misbehaving. I don’t want to be the one on the receiving end of that, that’s for sure. She seems like she knows what she’s doing though, like she knows how to say the right things to the kids who need to hear something. 

Tryouts are during lunch today, which is ironically at the same time as football tryouts, but I’m not bothered. I’m doing this because Hen says she thinks I can, that might not seem like a good reason to do something, but it’s better than doing something stupid in the hopes of making people like me, right? 

Anyway, I might not even make the team yet, who knows?

I’m writing this letter to update you on things since my last letter was more on the miserable side of things. I thought I’d write again just to let you know that I am doing okay, I just had some things to adjust to. But I’m adjusting. And I think running will help, maybe. Hopefully.

Love Always, 

Evan

March 14th 2007

Dear Stranger,

I know I have already written to you once today, but I had to follow up on my letter.

I MADE THE RUNNING TEAM!!!!

I was the fastest at tryouts, that isn’t me bragging, everyone there was great!!

This is the first time I’ve ever been good at something, so good that they picked me for the team!!

Hen might have been more excited than I was, which is hard to believe because I was pretty fucking excited. She was waiting for me when I finished my race, and when I finished she gave me the biggest hug ever. I don’t think anyone other than Maddie has hugged me like that. I could have cried. 

I think for the first time I’m actually proud of myself for something, and not something stupid. Because I did that, I did that. I made it, somehow and I don’t know how, But I did.

I have my first practice on Wednesday, Hen will be there. So I’m not going to be completely on my own, even though she’s the expert long runner and apparently, I’m better at sprinting. Which is what the coach said, she told me herself that she thinks I have real potential. Her words, not mine. 

Love Always,

Evan