The pots just showed up at my doorstep – the peony with its dramatic flowers in full bloom, the muted camellia with its last blossoms of the year. And of course, the oleanders.

Those dreaded flowers. From Rafel, to Ferran and finally to me. They were like heirlooms to a heavy cloak of death and a sorrow that had no end in sight. I had brought the peonies and the camellias inside to grace my bare balcony, but it was only when Momo nudged me did I bring the oleanders in as well. The flowers stood beside the dwarf lemon tree that we always had, the one that Momo had brought with him when he first came here.

Momo had shown me nothing but concern in the wake of Ferran's death. He was the one who prepared my meals, helped me to arrange for leave from my job and helped me with things around the house. Even in the midst of all that, at least I still had him.

I was on my balcony one evening, watching the sunset. Cigarette on my lips, I breathed in the smoke as I listlessly paced back and forth. The deep, piercing sorrow had begun to give way to a lightheaded emptiness. The numbing, omnipresent emptiness. The toxic smoke in my lungs was the only thing making me feel like I had any semblance of life within me.

It was a senseless loss. He was too young. Far too young. He had a future all ahead of him, everyone could see that. Everyone but him.

I couldn't bear going to his funeral. I couldn't bear seeing the sight of his parents burying another son into the ground. I couldn't bear seeing the pretty lashes on his shut eyes and the cherubic blush applied on his cold, dead cheeks.

I couldn't help but think of his last few moments on this earth. They keep me up as I try to sleep, but the scene keeps playing in my head, again and again. I could see him stumbling from the sofa as he got up, disoriented, his body cramping, his head spinning as the panic started to set in. Knocking over the bottle of wine that he had used to wash down the poison that he had swallowed. As the reality sets in that he truly was going to die.

I couldn't help but think of his last, lonely moments. Gasping for air, clawing away at his neck as his nerves began to fail and his stomach turned itself inside out. Clutching at his crucifix, his calls to me remain unanswered, his empty eyes staring directly to the heavens. As the angel of death reached down to reap his soul from his weathered lips, I wondered what were the final thoughts running through that curious, beautiful mind of his. As the toxins in the oleander finally stopped the muscles in his frail, broken heart, seizing him in one fell swoop into the clutches of death.

It was such a painful way to die.

Ferran had always been obsessed with the beautiful and the dead. In a sense, he embodied it. And ever since his brother died, it seemed to be all that he's ever known.

He truly believed that death was beautiful. And I suppose it was. But death was also candid. In its own grotesque way it captured how he had always been. In his garden of oleanders, he never seemed truly alive.

I wondered if in his last moments, had he any regrets? I could only imagine the hopelessness as he inched further and further to his own demise. Even if he had changed his mind at the last moment, it was far too late.

"I've already forgiven him, you know?"

I turned around, looking at Momo as he stood in the open doorway. His hands were in his pockets, his expression solemn as his gaze graced the ground. I didn't know how to exactly feel about that it was Momo's prerogative. I could only smile sadly, but I would be lying if I said it didn't mean anything. At least it took some of my guilt away, knowing that at least Momo doesn't hold a grudge against him.

"He really was something else wasn't he?" Momo said with a sigh, walking up next to me, as his fingers traced the petals of the peonies.

"He was."

There was a long silence between us, with only the cries of the crows circling above us and the hum of traffic from below to be heard.

"I also just wanted to tell you how sorry I am about what I said," Momo finally muttered. "I said such a terrible thing and I can't help but feel like it's my fault."

I turned to look at him. The poor boy could barely look me in the eye.

"You know," he continued. "When I said I couldn't care less if he was dead or alive, the very morning you found him. You know I never meant to – "

"You couldn't have known," I cut him off curtly. "There's nothing to apologise for."

I could feel Momo's fingers brushing against the skin of my hand. I guess he could tell it all just from the tone of my voice.

"You're still mad at him."

I just let out a deep sigh.

"Frankly," I confessed. "I don't know how to feel about all this. I'm angry. I'm sad. I feel guilty. I don't know if I'm mad at him, or if I'm mad at myself. I'm a mess, alright?"

Momo only planted a kiss on my cheek, before leaving me alone with my thoughts. A part of me wished that Ferran would come back, even for just a moment – so I could ask him why. Just to have the closure that I wanted.

A few days letter a package arrived at our doorstep. There was no return address.

As I slowly tore the plain packaging paper, I felt my hand graze against the soft leather cover of a black journal. Flipping through the blank pages, a letter slipped out of it, falling onto the floor.

I was never a good person, and I was never good with words. I have always wanted to pen this down, to tell you the truth. But I never got to it, until I was very sure that I would never get the chance ever again. I know you probably never want to hear from me again, but I promise you this will be the last you will ever hear from me. From now until the very end of time.

I brought the letter over to my sofa as I sat down. It was written with fine ink, with a penmanship so pretty and immaculate it would put most men to shame. The way the letters flowed ever so gracefully – even they felt ethereal.

When you are reading this, I am probably no longer with you in this world. I have decided to do something that I should have done a long time ago. Something that I intended to do the day we met at your house in Thuir.

Frankly, you saved me back then, all those years ago. I had intended that evening to go up to the mountains, and hang myself from the very tree where we found him. But it just so happened, by the will of God, that I ended up on the wrong bus and ended up in your village instead.

It was Rafel who had told me you lived there – just something he had mentioned in passing, something that would've seemed so inconsequential, but not to me. Perhaps he truly was watching me that day, guiding me directly me to you. As you held me in your arms I decided that I would try to hold on for a bit longer. I saw my big brother in your kind eyes and in your black hair.

I loved him. I truly did. But I loved you too.

Because to me, you were him, and he was you.

But someone like me can never be saved. All it did was to drag out my inevitable death. I was always on borrowed time. But I guess I'm glad that I spent whatever little time I had left with you.

I guess a part of me have always known that my feelings for Rafel were sick, twisted and sinful. A brother can love a brother, but not in the way that I did. No one could accept it, not even Rafel. Especially not Rafel.

I knew I said I blamed you for his death, not because of anything to do with you or Amélie. But because you were him, and he was you. But also because I knew that it was because of me, and that day at the station when you confronted me about it. I couldn't face the truth.

I have always been a coward. Always have been, and always will be.

Rafel felt guilty that I turned out this way. He felt like he had failed. How could his brother – the little brother that he knew as sweet, innocent and helpless, could harbour something so sinister? Something so twisted beyond repair. Something that would put the devil in the pits of hell to shame.

But my love for him was the only true feeling I had ever known.

I remembered telling you that I didn't want to be saved. But being with you all this time made me feel otherwise. A part of me hoped that being with you I could finally break out of this lonely cage. But hoping is different from knowing. Deep inside, I knew the truth.

There was no hope for saving me. There never has been.

Please don't feel guilty.

I was never fair to you. I was never fair to Mohamed. I can only hope that the two of you can forgive me for all the things I have done. It is up to you – whatever it is, I will pay for my sins sooner or later. I'm sorry I put you through all that.

I suppose I knew that one day you would finally realise the truth. And that day finally came. I didn't want to tell you, but you found out in the end. And you couldn't accept it. Of course you couldn't.

It took me to see you destroying all I ever held dear to finally understand that despite no matter how hard I tried, you were you, and he was him. That I was truly, truly alone in this world.

And I was deathly afraid of that. To have no one in this world. But my brother is dead – truly dead. And you no longer want anything to do with me. In fact, neither of you do. You just left in different ways, with him through a coffin and you through a door.

I immediately regretted sending Mohamed's brother that picture of the both of you. But I knew it was too late. I hope that he is okay. If he is, then I am thankful. If he isn't, then I can only hope that you find comfort in the fact that I will be dead by the time you get this.

In all honesty, to see the both of you so in love with one another made me feel lonelier than ever. To know that my love for you was based on a lie I tell myself. That made it all a lie.

And what you had with Mohamed – to me, that was all I ever wanted for myself.

There can be no one to blame for my brother's death, but him and me. I disappointed him, and he was disappointed in me.

But what is life in this temporal world but a series of disappointments.

I loved you, just like I loved my brother.

Because to me, you were him, and he was you.

But there's no point pondering over such things now. Rafel is dead, and soon I too will join him. I can finally see my poor brother again. To look into his eyes and tell him how much I've missed him. And when I meet him I'll tell him about how good you were to me. How you showed me such great kindness that I never deserved.

It's tragic to think that I am sitting here, writing my last letter to you, cherishing all the memories of you, of the times that we've had, knowing that I will soon be leaving. But there will always be one memory that I will hold on dearly. A memory I hope I will still be able to cling on to, even as my consciousness fades and my bones turn to dust.

Do you remember what you told me when we found him? You told me that I was going to be alright. I had always hoped that those words will come true, through all my sleepless nights and my tears. But I understand now. I will be fine. I will be alright.

Finally, I will be alright. After all my years of suffering. After all my years of loneliness. After all my years of wishing I were dead.

In the end, I'll be alright.

I've sent you my flowers – but not to remember me by. It is in my hope that you leave them be. As they slowly wither away and die, hopefully your memories and feelings for me do so too.

I know that summer I had asked you for a favour – a huge favour. I had asked you to never leave me. I'm afraid I'll have to trouble you again with my tiresome requests once again, one final time.

Please forget about me.

I don't want to be remembered.