That was the list she rattled off. She’s smart and knows way more than she should, but seems like the body that’s buried in the Santa Monica Mountains is still buried. Murder—accessory to murder, I should say who am I kidding I know the truth of what I—has stayed off my rap sheet. Though now that I’ve written it down within the halls of the AM, maybe it won’t stay a secret. I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t be writing so many letters to you while high on morphine.

I never told you any of that. About Isaiah and the Unusuals and what we did. What I did. I’m trying to

I think you would have liked Neon.

I like Neon. I loved Neon. Indah too. Marley, in his own way, but I never really saw him like that. Like something I wanted to get closer to, to touch. But Neon and Indah … enough distance from that time and a whole lot of what your therapist sister would call “self-reflection” has made me accept the stark truth, that I have, in fact, been in love before. And I so thoroughly ruined it. I keep ruining things. And I’ll just keep I’m hard to understand, hard to love, hard to forgive. Everything in my life has been so fucking hard.

I think you’d roll your eyes at that. I know that Neon would have. She’d roll her eyes and call me an emo white boy before lighting a cigarette. I’ve been thinking about her so much the past few months. I understand her better now, understand why she was so upset when I used her power to do what I did. I sure as shit didn’t relish you using my power and I like you. I’m not sure Neon ever liked me. Not really. Not honestly. Not without me making her.

But I’ve been thinking about her, and how she’d hate this place. How she’d want to burn the whole thing down.

I still don’t know if Isaiah was Atypical. Whatever he was, he was dangerous. I’m glad he’s in the ground. And, somehow, despite absolutely everything, I really don’t want to join him.

JANUARY 7TH, 2017

I feel like I want to crawl out of my own skin.