Special: I love you, world--my heart hurts--Kate's original letter (happy endings...)

Well, my secret-keeper warms my heart. I did it. For once in my life, someone besides Finley knows me. Someone else knows how much I hurt. That's terrible of me to be happy for, I think? She already goes through so much, but I might be... might be helping. Just a little. That's all I want, is for people to understand me. It seems to be a very dangerous and risky being, that is, being exactly who we want to be.

Trusted her with news about the wolf. Not sure how I feel about that. And since she trusts me... which is happy, which makes that pain she shields against herself just the slightest bit shallower, I do not pry. I listen. I think. I comment. I am respect.

You know what I felt like, when I came to fort? I felt like I was Crazy. You know who embodies that belief about myself?

Apparently, Kate. She actually notices enough to post, but not post the truth. She hurts and I can't fix over it. I actually gave tears over that, and I'm a little ashamed I did it in front of someone who's already in emotional turmoil. Nice job, Payton. Sheesh. She [Kate] thinks I'm hiding in a fantasy world, and I wonder when she'll realize her world is more fantasy than mine is. I see her. I see her walk and the smile she doesn't mean but wants to mean. I see her spiky hair and how she wishes it would hide the droop in her shoulders.

I want to love her. I do, obviously. But this... this is wrong. She didn't even know I'd be there and she hurt me with it. I can't say different; clearly, I've said some not-so-nice things here. But... at least I always try and get the truth before I even get close to judging anyone for anything, ever. Kate didn't. Kate just assumes that because I tried to touch her hurting heart, I must be delusional. I don't think she knows me.

Almost nobody knows them. When I write "I feel alone", it's not because I don't recognize that there aren't people around me. It's because I'm not ever myself until I can feel safe doing so, and that's only with Finley and Katie. Pick a name out of a hat. Either or, those two both know how exactly I live and breathe to love. I love before I even think. It's my nature. It's why I'm alone, because in that sense, who else really knows?

And who would care? I can't see people who laugh at me for trying to do well in school joining hands and suddenly holding me like I deserve and saying, "I love you, Payton. Of course I'll let you help, here's what I need" because they don't do that. Not even with themselves. At least, I know Kate doesn't. It's funny that an unintentional word choice my Katie agreed with can hurt when I don't want it to. I want to take it as truth, because Kate wrote it as truth. But I wish she knew that when I used to walk up and talk to her and she'd look at me like she were worried I'd pull a lighter, it was because I saw her and my heart hurt for her, because she hurts--and I know it.

She doesn't know that. Would she think I were crazier if she did? I wonder what people would do if they knew exactly how much I do love them. Like in The Last Unicorn, you know? "Anyway, I love you. That's all I have to tell you... that's all I have to say."

I won't break the secret-keeper's trust, but this hurts. I wish Kate knew. I wish Kate would somehow mysteriously derive what I've tried to do for her and Katie and go, "'Oh, Payton," and fall in, and let me fix things--because I honestly believe I could do something.

And that's what she needs.

Met Jessica Huckabee today. She needed a willy-nally pole girl who didn't know jack, and I gave it to her. I think Katie was confused, and when I saw that, I realized she wouldn't want me to hide myself, so I blended them together, only giving the bare minimum of what could help Jessica with... whatever she needed help with. I didn't know at the time, and I don't know more now.

I'm worried what the combination will do, but I love Katie, and this was Katie's friend. When Jessica left, Katie was honest. Katie talked a long time and I listened without restriction or fear, just like yesterday. Well, almost today now...

I think things are a little better than before for her. Just a little, and that's all I ask.  Katie and I cuddled for awhile today. Like Elizabeth and I used to cuddle before... before she took what I feared and used it to hurt me. Elizabeth hurt me. I have to get used to saying that, because it's true, and it's not okay. I don't deserve that. Never did. Anyway, Katie and I cuddled, because even when I tried to say that what I'd glimpsed briefly didn't matter, tears ran down. I'm lonely. It really consumes me, honestly, really, it does, this horrible horrible thing, like I'm gulping down some endless night. A moonless night that tastes like melancholy. "If you love me, set me free, let me touch the light!"

I listened to Katie's heart when she held me. I think she understands what I need, a friend. I really need a friend. Just one person I can trust and discard skins in front of. And I can with her. I think she's starting to grasp that, and I appreciate it. It makes me happy knowing she's happy; I feel it a little more today.

You know what I wish I could do? I wish I could write Kate a letter.

Dear Kate,
I'm not normal. I love people more than I love anything else in the whole world. I cry for strangers who are in trouble, and I cry for you. I know what you need. You need to stop growing up. Rather, you need to grow down. You accept a truth, one not yours, as your own, and from that skin you morph it into a horrible thing that isn't really horrible at all, but wonderful; something that can set you free and make this go away, and rather than use it, you ignore it for what you think you should be, but can't be, and won't be. Kate, I watch you every day, just like I do everyone--and I think it's killing you. 

You're not enough of yourself to be angry anymore. Just hurt. I feel what you feel in the step of your toes and your pretend, polite conversation. If you make jokes, after all, people will laugh; what fool would associate a happy, clever Kate with a forest-made-Kate whose house is on fire and filled with hungry orphans? Only a crazy person, I'm sure. Crazy like me. But you see, Kate, I'm not crazy. I love too much to be crazy. Rather, I give people what I think they need. Bruno mars sings that he'd take a grenade for "ya". What you don't know is that I'd take one for ANYONE. I love so much that I cry when I see your heart hurting. It makes my heart hurt, too. It's why I'm angry all love stories have happy endings, but for you, I'm writing one right now that will. Even though you wouldn't read it if I told you or give a flying fuck in the buttock of an elephant, I'm writing one, because you said it would make you happy, and I want that. Desperately.


It's funny because none of this matters. Your heart still hurts and you know it and now I'm a freak who lies to you, right? You don't even care. You just want me to to stop talking to you. Maybe you want me to turn out to be some normal, masturbation-addicted freak with like six french movie collections and leukemia so you can hug me and go, "Poor Payton!" while thinking, "God, why am I here, again?"


My heart hurts for you. I want you to know that. Even though you won't, even though you think I'm a horrible person and I've cried for you tonight, you hurt someone I love, and I need to deal with that. Almost as much as you do. I'll do anything you ask to help you, but you won't let me. You're too strong to be on your own. This is a test of self and I think you will fail, and I'm sorry, but that's true. I don't want it to be. Please let me help. Please know I've helped Katie, am helping Katie, and that I can do a lot more than the girl who transferred out of your science class rather than face your annoyed glares. 


I'm more than you think I am. Stop judging me and love me like I love you, because you're breaking too many hearts--and I won't let you have mine. 

P.S.--please don't call me a liar who lives in a fantasy world. I created a world for people to be safe in and to need certainty in themselves, and one of them--a handsome boy a helluva lot smarter than you, or me--faked his own death in order to hurt me and he did--AND YOU DON'T CARE. You don't know me at all, and you don't want to... 

I wish you did.


I love you.
Payton


I won't send it, and she wouldn't read it if I did. It hurts me a lot, God.

Why does this have to hurt more than anything else from someone I trusted and spent time with?

Katie said she'll be spending a lot more time with me soon. I wonder if that means I'm growing on her?

I... I have a friend. I have...  a friend. Somebody who held me while I cried and listened. I needed that, and sometimes, it can't be Finley I get it from. Sometimes I really need a friend, a different perspective.. and he doesn't need all this...

I'm sorry, world. I can't help all of you. But I want to. Always, I want to. You see, I love you. Even if you're mean to me. Even if you committed fraud. Even if you started a food fight. Regardless of how many ''good tasks'' you've done. Regardless of how much play time you've put in.

I love you.