In Flames // 9-1-1 Fox (seasons 1-4)

a letter to the readers and to Mariana

My precious, amazing, dedicated readers,

I love you all more than I can put into words. I grew up reading fanfiction.net and Wattpad under the covers of my bed to hide it from my mom. I read Wattpad at the peak of One Direction and werewolf romances. I read any chance I could get and I never wanted to put my phone down.

I also grew up writing. My stories were the worst stories on the planet and I apologize to my roommate to this day for making her read everything. She edited all of my sixth grade drafts of shoddily written fanfictions and never stopped encouraging me. A huge thanks to her for putting up with my failed drafts and also the dishes that are currently on the counter.

Draft after draft, fandom after fandom, character after character. I've written countless stories and promptly thrown them in the trash. For nine years I've been writing and never once have I felt proud of a work.

And then I hit rock bottom and I had to fight to crawl back out of that darkness. In the midst of the worst mental health crisis I ever had, Mariana came to mind. I loved the show 911 but as I was watching...her story just jumped out of my mind. I knew I had to write it.

You see, I love Wattpad. I love that this platform is (mostly) free and accessible for everyone. I love how it enables writers to write and readers to read and for us all to come together for original stories and fanfictions. But I also struggle a lot with Wattpad. I grew up on these stories and I actively notice how they have harmed teens and young adults.

Love is not easy, but love doesn't need to hurt. Many stories I look back on and I realize that what I thought was love written in these stories was veiled abuse. Possessive men demanding things of their partners while physically grabbing them, things like that now make me sick. We have confused love with abuse and I wanted to fix that. I wanted to write something, even if it got no attention, that showed what real love looked like between two complex, broken people.

Mariana,

In the most dramatic of ways, you have saved me. When I first started writing you in March of 2020, I never would have imagined my life to be like this now. You gave me hope and strength to get out of bed and write another day. Every word on every page meant so much to me.

Seeing your growth and your strength gave me enough strength to get through the day. You hurt like I hurt and yet you never let that stop you. You get back up and you keep going. Your heart is guarded yet so kind and your love is so pure and so strong.

This was all your story and I was simply the person lucky enough to write it down. You sprang into my head and wouldn't leave until I put your story on paper and I'm so lucky to have you as my first completed story.

My goal one day is to be a published author. I have no idea if or when that will come true, but I will always look at Mariana and the 118 and all of you, reader, as my inspiration and my friends. From the deepest depths of my heart,

Thank you.

"And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love." - 1 Corinthians 13:13