The Tiff Singularity (A Collection of Lake Wonder Fiction)

To Betty, From Tiff (August 2022)

Dear Betty,

It has been six months since you left. Half a year later, and it hasn't gotten easier. Missing you is... harder than it should be.

I have been trying to write this letter for months. In all honesty, I feel like I've been trying to write this letter since November, even though you only left in March. November was when we stopped talking; November was when I felt like I lost you for good.

It has been a hard year. I won't bore you with every detail and every slain wizard. Three in one year is too many (but I could have made it four if I skipped town with Janitor Denny and went to that murder trial but actually skipped out on it to kill Old Sparky, the racist wizard who lives in Gatlinburg). I'll just say that it's August, I graduated, and I've been in a slump since April 2nd. (You probably know that. I feel like it's obvious from the way I'm writing. I'm currently on house arrest, but I think it's going to get lifted soon. I'm not sure if the fog will go with it.)

Speaking of house arrest.

So, you know how, when we talked before you left, we were both being super paranoid? I know one of us mentioned the government-- Well, we were right. They're here. They're here, they're in town--

So, we were trying to save the world again. It was me, Eddy, Darius, Mr. Mathew (you remember Percy's dad?), and Aiden, the bouncer from the strip club, and then Ant Brower showed up at the end (they're the one who liked to smoke on the roof with Eliza and Drake? They're Coach Brower's kid). It turned out that Chip Winger was evil the whole time, which made me feel like a real idiot because I trusted him, even when everyone else said he couldn't and shouldn't be trusted. He tried to kill us, and then he killed himself, and he brought forth an extradimensional shadow being we had to fight-- I'm sure that's standard fare over there in the fae world, so I won't bore you more. Long story short, while we were collapsing to the ground, actively dying, the government showed up and arrested us. They put the town under some weird quarantine and now...

Well, everything has gone to shit. I didn't think I would be the kind of person who did my first year of real college in a state where I had to utilize the lab over at the technical school because the government has been monitoring and cucking (gross, I shouldn't say that) the rest of my life, but here we are!

God, I hope house arrest lifts soon. I have listened to way too much Counting Crows since it started. (Indicative of the slump, I suppose.)

I was terrified that I was going to get everyone else in trouble so, as soon as I got home after all the interrogation and the having to convince them that I really don't have powers, I promise, I had to do something a little drastic. Forgive me for this: before I even washed off all the blood and pus or took a moment to realize Kepler was really gone, I took all my notes, maps, and samples and lit them on fire. The only thing I kept was those journal pages I showed you from when I was sixteen. Those have been with me through all of it. They're not going anywhere; they're currently in the pocket of some old shorts I don't like to think about. But-- well, I didn't want to get you or your brothers or your mom or Denny or Kepler or you or Drake or Eddy or Darius or you in a lot of trouble, so I got rid of everything. I hope that's okay? I hope you're not disappointed? I know I promised to share all my new notes with you when you got back. I just didn't think this would happen.

Is it weird, to be so desperate to talk to you and let you in on every little thing that has happened? You were one of the first friends I had when I came here, and you're one of the only people who consistently wanted to be around me. And it killed me to not be able to see you when you were in the hospital after the bus crash last year and it killed me more when you stopped talking to me after you got out of the hospital back in November, and it's killing me now that I can't even TRY to talk to you or I'll risk messing everything up for all of us. Like-- I care about you. You made me feel wanted, like I wasn't a burden for once. And I tried, I really tried, I really tried-- even if I wasn't good enough, I was glad for the journey.