A Way Back Home | Adopted by Gerard Way (Book Two)

Wishing You Well (43)

A/N: it's March 22nd lol so instead of crying at that this year you can cry at this instead :)
(don't be scared about the tw, just mentioning it to be safe)

*trigger warning: brief mention of suicide at the beginning*

Gerard's POV

Through my tears, it doesn't take long to notice that something in Eve's room is out of place. Envelopes have been placed on top of her bed in plain sight.

She knew I'd come up here and find them.

There are six letters in total, each one bearing a name written clearly on the front in Eve's handwriting. Gerard, Lindsey, Frank, Mikey, Ray, Emerald.

I don't know what to expect when I scan the letters on the bed, my tears having ceased, the heartbreak and devastation I was feeling paused and replaced with fear at what I might find within the envelope with my name on it. To put it bluntly, I don't want to open this letter and take in the words only to realize that it's my daughter's suicide note.

Struck with how plausible that is after everything that has happened, I waste no more time before snatching the envelope off the bed and tearing it open.

• • •

Dad,

The court date is getting really close and my sleeping pattern is more fucked up than ever, so here I am, writing this at about three in the morning. If you're reading this, that means we lost and I didn't get to tear up these letters and use them as confetti.

I guess I should just start before you adopted me. My foster siblings, Rosa and Micah, were my only friends. "Friend" is even questionable, cause Micah didn't really like me, and I was a moody teenager so with Rosa I'd do as much as help her after her nightmares and read to her, but most of the time I wanted her out of my room.

I was always alone and reserved because I couldn't trust anyone, but I opened up to you surprisingly quick. It was especially surprising when I hugged you and told you that I'd never get over you adopting me. I'd never been so open with someone before then. That was only a few days after I moved in, and I wasn't lying. I'm still not over it, cause my hope at ever getting adopted was running out and when it finally happened it was better than I could've ever imagined. See, until then, I was so quiet and anxious and sad all the time, I don't think I even knew how sad I was cause I was just used to it. Then you found me and you showed me that I could be happy.

I know what you're doing right now. You're blaming yourself for me being gone. Stop it. It's not your fault. Stop looking back at all the bad times, all the mistakes, all the disasters. I was bound to get into trouble whether you were there to stop it from happening or not.

I know you don't want to hear it (or read it, I guess), but I am sorry about all that. I won't apologize anymore for all the things I couldn't control, like my panic attacks and my eating disorder, but I'm sorry I bottled it all up. I now know that I could've talked to you about it, but I didn't know how. I didn't want to disappoint you. I didn't want to get abandoned ever again like I had been so many times before. But you never did abandon me. Even when you found out I'd been skipping school and getting drunk in the woods with a bunch of people you'd never even heard of.

I really am sorry about that. The only way to describe what that was is stupid and we can't pretend otherwise. It. Was. Stupid. And. I'm. Sorry.

Besides being sorry, I'm eternally grateful. You accepted me the way I am, you cared, you listened to me, you protected me even though I know you think you failed at that. You didn't fail. For three years I was in better hands than I had ever been before. I got to know what it's like to be a part of a family, be happy, and what it feels like to belong somewhere, and you call that failing?