Dearest Derek,
I hope you are reading this when I am dead. I hope I have, in this one thing at least, succeeded and done the job properly. It would be ironic if I failed at this as I have failed at everything else in my life.
This is not a cry for help. There is nothing you can do, or anybody could have done to stop the unbearable ache I carry around with me day and night. Understand, it’s not that I want to die; I just have to stop feeling like this.
I hate myself. Nothing can change that. No stay in a fancy rehab joint is going to change that fact. And Derek, you will be better off without me.
Eli glanced up from the page and saw Red Cap’s already red eyes swelling with tears. ‘This isn’t your fault, Derek, she was ill.’
‘Read it,’ Red Cap said. ‘I need you to read it.’
I saw you c
