Page 75 of A Ballad of Phantoms and Hope
Lanston,
Hey, you. This is the last letter I’ll give you. Well, maybe not the last, but you’ve shown me that we can talk about the things that happened to us. And I want to share those things with you as easily as you do with me. I want to watch you continue to draw, letting the beauty of your mind infect the pages. But I’ll leave you with this until then.
The last part of my tragic story.
My depression grew after high school. The people in my life weren’t kind of my illness. They urged it on even. Do you want to know how I died? I’ll tell you.
It was me.
My murderer was my illness; it took me young, naive. I jumped from the bridge and fell to the depths of the world. Where the darkness finally came for me.
I hope you don’t hate me… I know what I did was wrong, but what if I told you I fought it really fucking hard and for a long time? What if I told you that I searched for the light but couldn’t find it? Would I still be painted as a bad person? The one who only wanted attention?
I’ll tell you another secret. I didn’t want attention. I just wanted to be gone. I wanted to be away from all the cruel things that made me hate myself. The words that made me hate myself.
The bridge we met on, the bench I stood on and pulled roses from, was the memorial bench the local church placed for me. They didn’t put my name on the plaque. My family didn’t want their last name muddied with my sin, so roses it was.
Ophelia roses.
I’m stuck on earth because I was taught people who die by suicide are damned to go to hell, for it is the ultimate sin. I run from the darkness in death more than I did in life. I’m not even sure if it’s true. I hope it isn’t—because, well—it’s not fair, is it?
But I still fear it with all my heart.
Do you want to know what they say? Who they are?
It’s the voices of my parents and extended family. Each time they utter my name, it’s followed by “She killed herself, you know.” “That wicked girl.” “She’s going to hell.”
That’s what the whispers are, and I’m terrified that they’ll catch me one day.
Well? Are you looking at me weirdly now? I hope not. I hope you’ll just kiss me and make me laugh like you always do. Like I’m sure you are right now.
I wish I found the cure to my illness.
I wish I had a light like you.
I love you, Lanston. Until the stars die.
Ophelia
The letter falls to my lap as tears crash on the pages. Why didn’t I see it before? Her trace—the wet hair.
Footsteps trail up the path leading to the graveyard I’m lingering in. Morbid, I know, but I wanted to be somewhere depressing to sulk.
“There he is,” a whisper, followed by another hushed voice and the footsteps get closer.
I needn’t turn. I know it’s Jericho and Yelina. The text I sent them two weeks ago when we were supposed to meet in Paris was probably enough to make them worried sick about me.
Jericho wraps around my front and kneels slowly in front of me. I keep my head hung low, unwilling to carry the weight of the world any longer.
The emotions that swell inside me when I think of Ophelia are unbearable. She was a part of me that I will never find in another. My very marrow churns in grief for her.
Jericho sets his hand on my knee and Yelina crouches beside him.
“You look like shit,” he murmurs in that consoling way of his.
I don’t respond. I only stare at the ground and the gravestones before me. All the forgotten people who lie here, sleeping and no longer traversing the world.
Why does everyone leave me behind?
