Prologue. A Depressed Man With A Gun Wears His Heart On His Sleeve.

Dear Sarah,
If I’m lucky, you’re reading this, and I’m dead. That being said, allow me to use the vernacular freedom that comes with the grave. It’s a curious thing about being dead: I won’t have to worry about hurting your feelings. So, allow me to be completely honest in saying:
You have no idea how much I miss you. I miss you so much, it hurts. I’ll be the first to admit that our last phone call was- well… considering it lasted about two and a half sentences, I’m not even sure why I’m bringing it up. I don’t think you realize how frustrating it is to face my demons, accept responsibility, and sum up the courage to work out our animosities, only to have you strike down every opportunity to rehabilitate our relationship with a curt dismissal of my very existence. I haven’t slept a peaceful night since the last time I knew I was safe in your arms.
If you think I’m being melodramatic, you may be right, but I also know that all attempts to bring some closure to what happened a year ago have involved me coming to you, and never vice versa. Why? Do you enjoy this self-medicated prescription of guilt to callus your drama queen existence? Or is it that you’ve forgotten me this quickly?
If you have moved on, I’m glad. Well, actually I’m not. I wish you were miserable. I wish that every time you’re in a relationship that takes a serious turn, you think of me and quickly back-peddle to the sanctity of a chick flick and a bowl of whatever-the-heck-you-like ice cream. I hope that every wedding you attend, you think of what could have been between us, and desperately try to avoid making a scene as you wipe the tears itching and irritating as they trickle one at a time down your still beautiful face (don’t worry about the tears, dear, it’s a wedding, and at best, no one will notice; at worst, you will be labeled “sensitive”). I hope a thorn turns in your gut every time you hear a sappy love song, or even a good love song, or any song of which we listened. Ever. I wish that every time you hear “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” you make a motion to switch the song, but don’t, because you’re a sadist and you love feeling miserable in happy situations (why does that infernal song remind me of you? I haven’t even seen that movie, let alone with you. It’s just another one of our songs, I guess). I hope that every time you lay on your mattress, your thoughts drift to us, and you have to resort to Vikodin and alcohol to find the comfort of turning your thoughts off, though something as simple as rest is always too much to ask for.

I hope you never love again.

It would only be fair, to look in the mirror and have my reflection stare back at you. My horrors.

But you are and probably always will be much stronger than I. Who am I kidding? Your misery only makes mine worse, because I will always believe that I am the source.
You know, my other letters were a lot more civil than this one. Positive, too. My other letters contained uplifting messages of hope, and love, and bringing Jesus to other members of my squad. No kidding, I passed out Bibles to those in need; it wasn’t a feeble attempt to try and impress you at all. No, that would be pathetic. It was simple desire and compassion for fellow man.
In the civil letters I confessed that I pray for you still.
You would know this if you had actually read my letters. Of course, there is no guarantee that you will read this one. In accordance with my dramatic nature, I marked it as “deliver on event of my death,” as it really was a last ditch effort to establish some base of communication with you. Unfortunately 1) it is a one-sided and final communication and 2) it may take some time for you to receive. I can tell you in complete honesty that I don’t wish to come back from all of this, so that you will receive my letter and maybe in some miracle you will read it as well. Let’s be honest, suicide is a coward’s way out, but the US Army effectively masks my cowardice with honor, a patch, and a uniform. Why die lonely and miserable in a bathroom stall with a pistol in your right hand and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in your left when you can die lonely and miserable in a desert, get a hero’s burial, and $400,000 in insurance to go to my sisters so they can forgive what a bastard I’ve become? I mean, God bless the US Army, but they should not have let guys like me into their sacred institution.
Side Note: I’m probably only bringing this up because I am cruel, but I did consider leaving you some of that $400,000, even if it was just enough to get you to read the note that came along with it. Unfortunately , though they don’t need it in the least, the money is exclusive to next of kin.
Well, enough said. May we meet again, in this life or the next,

Private First Class Evan Drake
82nd Airborne Division

P.S. I apologize in advance if we happen to meet in the next life, despite my above closure. I hate to think that I’m staining your perfect Heaven with my ugly Self. If I could do anything about it I would, but they don’t exactly just erase your name from the Book of Life. Or maybe they do, in which case I may be in trouble.

P.P.S. I shouldn’t have to say this, but I will anyway. I still love you. Though jaded a concept as that may seem now, in my death remember how pure the words were when I said them the first time. It’s never changed. It never will.