For once in my life, let me get what I want.

I was expecting this Christmas to feel joyous, at least compared to the ones that came before. Last year, Jacob’s snowboarding accident at the lodge was a major stinker. Then the year before, when Mom got really sick while Dad totaled the car against a telephone pole. Bad years, both of them. But bad things, they’ve always followed us, haven’t they? Like the night you finally got that invitation to basketball camp, only to find the car’s tires slashed the same evening. Or when we spent five whole days plotting out your homecoming proposal to Gracie, and she still turned you down. It’s funny how those moments stack up, isn’t it? But even all that doesn’t measure up to when the house burned down on Durran Avenue.

I've told all these stories to Maya a few times. She says she enjoys hearing about my life, especially since hers wasn’t all that eventful, or so she claims. Yet, she always circles back to the same question: "Is that why, when something bad happens, you just shrug and say, 'I expected that'?"

Maybe it is. I don't know. I would like to think so, I don't find myself getting caught off guard much, mostly just disappointed. What I do know is that this year had to be better. It had to. For once, I thought, we deserved a Christmas without catastrophe. Just one.

So far, it’s been fine, fingers crossed. But it’s hard not to feel the weight of your absence, especially for what could have been the one good Christmas—the first truly joyful one in years. You just left, without warning, and I’m still grappling with it. You died on me, G. And I won’t lie to you—I wasn't expecting that.

I’ve put up this wall since you passed. Maybe it’s self-preservation, maybe it’s something else, but I keep circling back to one feeling: betrayal. Is that even fair? I don’t know. It’s like the words are right there on the tip of my tongue, but they slip away when I reach for them. How do you explain being angry at someone who isn’t even here anymore?

Trusting people has never been easy since you left. Take Maya, for instance. She’s proven over and over that she’s not going anywhere. She’s patient, she listens, and even when I retreat into myself, she finds ways to show me she’s here for me. And I know, deep down, she’s not going to leave—not like you did. But that doesn’t make it easier. Every time I try to open up, the words catch in my throat, too heavy and thick to get out. She deserves better, I know that. But talking about this? It’s like walking barefoot through broken glass, dumb and painful. 

So I stay silent. I smile, I nod, I play the part of someone who’s fine. But I’m not fine, and she knows it. That silence weighs on me, gnawing at the edges of everything we have. I hate that she has to carry it, but breaking it feels impossible. Still, she stays. And maybe one day, I’ll find the strength to speak. For now, I just hope she knows how much that means to me.

I tried therapy earlier this year. Maya thought maybe it’d help me figure all this out. Ms. Jessica, that was her name. I remember walking into her office, thinking maybe I’d spill my guts and walk out feeling lighter. Instead, I clammed up. Didn’t say a word. Session after session, she’d sit there, waiting, while I just stared at the floor. After a while, she started putting on episodes of Spongebob Squarepants, our favorite. Said it was better than silence. I’d sit there, half-watching. She stayed stone-faced, probably wondering what kind of grown man treats therapy like a Saturday morning cartoon marathon.

I’ll admit, I kind of liked it. Not the therapy part, that was a total bust, but the SpongeBob. She didn’t, though. Could see it in her eyes. After a few sessions, I figured I was just wasting her time and everyone else’s, so I stopped going. Walked out and didn’t look back. Guess I’m still stuck with these walls and this silence. 

After that inevitable failure, I turned to what felt like the next best solution: drinking. Honestly, I don’t know how everyone else does it. The stuff tastes foul, like it’s actively trying to punish you for drinking it. Cigarettes? Tried those too. But the stench of burnt paper clinging to my clothes wasn’t something I could stomach for long, so that idea went up in smoke pretty quick. Then there was Randy—you know, the drunk rich guy who practically lives outside the 7/11. He told me I should try hard drugs. Don’t worry, G, I’ve still got my morals, even if they’re hanging on by a thread. 

So I chose to write. Strange, isn’t it? Everyone else seemed to think so too. I was an athlete, a competitor, and, truth be told, practically illiterate when you left. But somehow, I first discovered a love for reading. It started with A Game of Thrones, the book series. Honestly, it’s even better than the show, and the show was already amazing. Naturally, after devouring those books, I picked up a pen and paper and started writing.

Oh, it was difficult. Harder than anything I’d ever done. But I expected that. Still, it’s funny how something so challenging can also be so fulfilling. Now, I read and write so much that I’m more literate than most people I come across. Some even call me a natural, though they’ve no idea just how much effort went into it.

But here’s the truth: I don’t know if any of this is actually helping. Maya told me after diner one day, "The best writers in the world all carry a lingering depression." Maybe she’s right. Because now, instead of being depressed with nothing to do, I’m just depressed, burdened with a writing talent that feels like both a gift and a curse.

It’s not as though I haven’t made the effort. I’ve thrown myself into this, crafting stories that stretch the imagination, building worlds and characters so vivid they feel like pieces of myself—like you were. I’ve captured moments of joy and sorrow that seemed real enough to touch. But the failures are there too, staring back at me through rejection letters and the half-finished drafts that litter my desk. Writing, at least, has stopped my depression from worsening; I’ll grant it that. But it hasn’t lifted the weight either. It just lingers, unchanged.

Perhaps it’s because I write fantasy. Of worlds that don’t exist. Of Lives that don’t belong to me. It’s easier to escape into the unreal than to confront what’s real. But this? This is the first time I’ve ever written about myself. I can’t say whether it’s helping or not. If anything, it feels more like digging a hole than climbing out of one. Still, it’s something. And perhaps, for now, something is enough. 

I guess what I’ve been trying to say is that I don’t know how to keep up in a world that moves so unbearably fast without you in it. Everything feels like it’s rushing forward, but I’m stuck, drifting in place, untethered and out of sync. The certainty I once clung to, the rhythm that carried me through, is gone, leaving behind only noise—loud, empty, and endless.

Each day slips by in a blur, and yet I’m frozen, reaching for something I know I’ll never catch. You were my anchor in all this chaos, the one thing that kept me steady when everything else spun out of control. Without you, it feels like I’m not just adrift but sinking, pulled deeper into something I can’t escape.

I don’t know if I’m making progress or if I’m just piecing myself together to keep from falling apart. The world doesn’t stop; it doesn’t even pause. It moves forward, indifferent to the absence that tears through me every second of every day. It’s as if you were never here. But to me, you were everything. And without you, it’s hard not to feel like I’ve already been left behind, lost in the wake of a world that won’t even notice I’m gone.

Now that I've actually let it out. I do feel relieved, a hell of alot. Damn, I wasn't expecting that.