to adeline,

you're scary. i see why the bullies don't screw around with you; they'd end up hurt, wouldn't they? not that they don't deserve it. 

so i saw you at school today, with eleanor. that's her name, right? she seems nice, but a lot of new kids hide themselves before coming out of their shells. moved here from texas or something? sucks for her, unless she loves rain and snow in, like, the spring. 

okay i feel awkward and i'm not even actually talking to you. 

what if i don't send you this one? 

cool. i guess i'll just keep this one. 

okay. adeline, i've had a crush on you since the third grade, when you practically saved my ass from conner and ryan. it's been six years since then and we're fourteen now. you're still nice and you're (somehow) even more beautiful than you were before, although sometimes i think you are simply too perfect for this world to handle. maybe that's why the world is breaking, because it can't actually take such perfection? and when we had french class together that one time, when you actually corrected the teacher. 

i've never had the courage to tell you, which is why you'll probably never get this letter. 

love,

ᴋᴀɪ ᴅᴀʟʟᴀʀᴏꜱᴀ

to adeline, 

kai dallarosa here, bothering you yet again. it's saturday. beautiful out, and here i am, holed up in my room avoiding my dad and the stench of sex, drugs, and alcohol downstairs. it's worse when he's sober, you know, cuz then he's aware of what he's doing. i miss my mom. even if i never knew her. do you think she would have stopped him, or let it happen? or maybe he would have hurt her too? sometimes i think my dad loved her. at least, he says that's why he hurts me. because of me. 

oh god i can't remember if i said this already or not but please, please don't go to the police. i am begging you, adeline cantrelle, if you have any inch of the sympathy left inside of you from six years ago, keep this a secret between the two of us. i don't want anyone finding out. i can live as i am (and i'd die even better) but it's just so much if my dad gets arrested. he'd talk his way out of it and then come home and i would not only be in pain, i would be dead. 

have you ever written a suicide note? 

i have. actually, there's a stack of them i keep in my closet. it's stupid and it's weird, but every time i resolve to do it, and every time i write it, i don't actually have the nerve to go through with killing myself, even when i realize i don't really have anyone to address the letter to except my dad, and i don't particularly consider him a person. 

this is going to sound so horrible, but adeline, if i do kill myself, can i ask you permission to write the note to you? please? i want to be your friend, i really do, but i don't know if i can if i end up dying. good friends don't leave their others behind, and it's selfish of me to take advantage of your desire to help me, so we can be pen pal buddies, not friends, and i can address the note to you, if i do commit suicide. 

i'm not planning on it at the moment, though, not until i get a reply back for this letter. 

your pen pal,

ᴋᴀɪ ᴅᴀʟʟᴀʀᴏꜱᴀ

to adeline,

do fourteen-year-olds have wills? should i write one for when i die? 

sorry,

ᴋᴀɪ ᴅᴀʟʟᴀʀᴏꜱᴀ

to adeline, 

thank you, for trying, and for conner and ryan back in third grade. and you're forgiven for the remark about my dad. 

your something,

ᴋᴀɪ ᴅᴀʟʟᴀʀᴏꜱᴀ

p.s. i finally wrote a good letter. 
although this isn't really a letter.
but whatever. i've been trying for hours now.