Dear Sister,
You probably opened this letter because of what happened. Before I get into the whole sappy bullshit, I just want to make sure you didn’t open this on a random day, but because I’m actually not there with you. If it’s the first option, please put it down and keep this for a later date.
Anyway… So, I’m dead. I’m not going to try and romanticize it, nor am I going to try and make it seem less than it is. There’s no point to beat around the bush. Either I finally did it, or I somehow managed to make it until I was honestly sick or died of old age. I don’t know. For some reason, I don’t think it’s the latter. I do hope you understand, though. I did do it for a reason, but that reason doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you’re alive to be able to read everything I wrote for you.
If I ever decide to change my mind, I’ll probably break into your house and remove this letter so you won’t have to read it. I’ll make sure to replace it with another one, because I don’t want to leave you empty-handed. But you wouldn’t be reading this if I had. I’m already getting some doubts now that I’m writing this, but as you lay there in your bed, I don’t know what to do anymore.
I keep hoping for you to get better and survive, but it’s so terrifying. Every time I think about the day you’ll possibly die, I don’t want to be here myself anymore. You don’t need me there to make sure your life stays on track. Back when we were kids, you were always the one to keep the bullies away from me, you were the one who beat up that kid who ruined my drawing in elementary school, you were the one trying to get me to stop being such a lazy ass and go do something with my life. I might have always been the one to tease you about being those few minutes younger, but let’s be honest here. You were the most mature and bad-ass one. I can’t imagine a life without you.
So, here’s some advice: don’t stay hung up on me for long. I did this for the better. You are the stronger one out of us two. I’m probably just a coward for not wanting to be the last one to be alive without the other, but, hey, I know you’ll do much better at this mourning thing than I would. Trust me, if you were the one to go first, it would have still come to this. Please don’t let this stop you.
No matter where I am right now, no matter how you feel, I will always be there. Don't be afraid. Don’t be like me.
Cam
I kept reading it over and over. My hands were shaking, tears slowly running down my face. I didn’t know what to make of his letter. It wasn’t clear to me. He was trying to make it sound like he had done this to himself, but there was no way he had managed to flip over his car in the way it had on purpose. If it had been a simple accident, such as hitting a tree, it would have made sense. But, now, it was vaguer than what the police told us.

My eyes kept shooting between the words on the paper and the suitcase that was standing a couple of feet away from me. I didn’t know what to do. On one hand, I wanted to be alone, on the other I was too afraid to be so. There was a war going on inside my head and I just wished there was a simple solution to it.

But for now, all I could do was what most people were good at.

I folded the letter in the same way Cameron had originally done to make it fit in the envelope, and stood up. Pulling the suitcase behind me, I started to go down the stairs clumsily, sneaking through the otherwise completely quiet house. I didn’t want to leave without Jack knowing, but it wasn’t my fault that he wasn’t at home. My things had been packed for quite a while, and I had been waiting on him for hours, but if I didn’t leave now, I was going to arrive in the dark. Maybe I could leave him a note so he would know what I was doing.

However, just as I was looking for a piece of paper in the living room, I heard my name being said in a questioning tone. I turned towards the sound and found Alex observing me from the front door. I couldn’t do anything but stare right back at him. It was like he caught me stealing the last cookie out of the cookie jar.

But then Jack joined him, looking at me with a worried expression. “Isle? What are you doing?” He asked, his eyes flickered between me and the suitcase.

I still wasn’t sure what to say. If it had been just Jack, I would have explained it all, but with Alex here I froze up. This was something personal I wasn’t ready to share with anybody but Jack. However, if that meant Alex had to hear it too, I wasn’t going to do it.

“I have to go somewhere.” Was all I managed to stutter out and I tried to push past them so I could leave without saying another word.

But Jack had something else in mind. He grabbed my forearm to keep me in place and looked down at me, while I refused to look back at him. “Where? And why with a suitcase?”

I made the mistake of making eye contact with him. As soon as I saw the confusion and concern in his features, I wanted to cry there and then. I wasn’t going to do anything stupid, but telling him there would mean somebody else would know too. Don’t ask me why I was so against it not just being between Jack and I, because I wouldn’t be able to give an explanation. I just had this feeling.

All I could utter next was some important information he needed to know, “there’s no cellphone reception or Internet. I promise I’ll come back.”

He didn’t even have to ask me what I was talking about. Well, I didn’t give him the chance to ask me. After carefully taking my arm out of his grasp, making sure to show that I wasn’t mad, I grabbed my jacket and the keys to Jack’s car. Neither of them tried to stop me, or at least I didn’t notice.

I just hoped that he wasn’t going to miss his car.

After clumsily throwing the suitcase on the backseat, I got in myself and drove away as quickly as possible so that I wouldn’t have to see Jack staring at me while I was leaving to god knows where. Of course, I also knew where, but literally nobody else knew, and there was nothing that could hint you towards the right place.

I wasn’t even two streets away when Jack started calling me, my phone notifying me through the Bluetooth of the car. While I didn’t want to answer, I also couldn’t stand listening to that annoying ringing sound the car made whenever somebody was calling. So, I did something I normally would never do. I hit the decline button on the steering wheel and continued my journey.

Four hours or so later, I arrived at my destination. The sun was starting to set, creating an orange glow around the tree tops. The gravel on the path was crunching underneath the tires of the car as I drove slowly on the non-paved road that had no street lights. This was exactly why I didn’t want to leave too late. I hadn’t driven here in very long, and I wasn’t going to risk getting in a car crash as well.

But before the darkness could settle in completely, the house beside the lake came in sight. Slowing the car down even further, I parked close to the front door and finally took the keys out of the ignition. I stared out in front of me for a while. The water was calm, reflecting the light of any visible stars without any disruption.

I understood why Cam loved this place.

Finally, I opened the car door and got out. After driving non-stop for so long, my legs felt wobbly and stiff, yet I still heaved my suitcase out of the back and carried it to the boat house with ease. I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to climb into bed and sleep for two days straight.

Luckily, I had brought the key with me. I probably would have broken down in tears if I had stood in front of the door and realized I left them at home. Coming home without having done what I was leaving for in the first place wasn’t going to be pleasant. Maybe Jack would have been happy, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stand it. I would only get worse knowing that there was something I had to do here.

Although I badly wanted to go to bed, I left my suitcase at the stairs and turned on all the lights before wandering around. I didn’t go to the living room; I didn’t go to the kitchen; I didn’t go to the dining room; I didn’t go to the TV room. There was only one place I came here for specifically.

The office.

As soon as I turned on the lights in there, I wasn’t sure how to feel. There were three guitars plus a bass leaning against one of the walls, and paper was still strewn over the table as if somebody had been here just a couple of hours ago. It didn’t seem like this place had been abandoned for a while.

I could still imagine Cam sitting on the desk chair, hanging over the table, a guitar uncomfortably in his lap, as he tried to write another new song. This was the place he always went to whenever he wanted to write without anybody interrupting. We used to spend summers here as kids, but that rarely happened anymore. It really was only being used by Cam these days.

But now he was gone too.

Hesitantly, I stepped into the room and walked towards the desk to see what he had been doing last. I expected there to be a half-written song or just some simple notes for ideas he had, but I was met with something confounding. It was a half-written letter.

Dear Sister,
So, this letter isn’t an actual one. I’m just not sure what to write for one of the other ones, so I decided to pour my writer’s block in here. It isn’t my intention to do anything with this, I’m just planning on writing a couple of sentences whenever I’m not sure what to write. I’m hoping that it will help, or else I’m just making my hand cramps even worse… I’ll just try it this time and see how it goes. Either I will throw this paper away or I will use it for a very long time.
Ok, so it worked last time, now let’s see if it works now as well. I have this stupid TV jingle in my head that’s distracting me, but I just can’t seem to figure out what it’s from. I can’t remember the words and there’s nobody to hum it to. It’s starting to drive me insane.
I suddenly had an epiphany while writing the letter I’m currently working on. I thought of this great new combination of condiments to try on a sandwich, but I found out that I didn’t have all the ingredients here. So, I had to drive back to the village, however they didn’t have all the things I wanted there. So, I went to the nearest large supermarket… two hours away. I am now beating myself up about it because I wasted my time, I want to get these letters done in time.
I should start a list of what letters I want to write… right now I’m just going at random… great idea…
Why can three colors create infinite other colors when mixed together?
Ok, I just reached the halfway point. Well, I think. I keep adding more things I want to write about, making my list longer and longer.
M p n is run i g o t of in
Got a new pen! Woo! Just bought a shit load at the post office! Fuck yeah! There are so awesome! I thought of getting different colors, but I’m going to try to keep this consistent.

There were pages and pages of these small notes, but all I could think about was that he was writing letters for some random purpose. I got chills from him starting off the letter the same way the one from our box started. There was something going on. Maybe the list he was talking about would help me figure it out.

I scavenged through the paper and finally found one with single phrases scribbled on, crossed out, and marked with a check mark. If it had just been laying there, I would have shrugged it off as some weird lyrics he was trying to write. There were so many arrows and edits.

Death day (check)
First birthday without me (check)
Wedding (check)
Getting a new pet (crossed out)
Pregnancy (check)
Making a difficult life decision (check) x 3 20s, later, even later
Second birthday (crossed out)
....
18th Birthday 1st Child (check)
18th Birthday 2nd Child (check)
18th Birthday 3rd Child (check)
Death of somebody important (check)
Following your dreams (check)
….
Unsure (no symbol)
Moving (check)

It continued like that, creating a list of many important life events. For some strange reason, my heart started being faster and faster the further I skimmed through the list. These were all the events in my life that Cam would miss.

I threw the paper on the table as my breathing became shallow.

My eyes focused on a large moving box filled with letters the same size as the one I had read over and over that day.

What had he done.

Notes

Oh, shizzle-whizzle! It's starting to sound a bit like a mystery (which isn't exactly my intention... or is it??) So much to come, so much to fit in! I barely have any space for fillers, it's going to be a lot of time skips and important events. I won't bore you guys with an overly long story due to fillers.

Btw. 18 days till I see All Time Low live for the first time!!!