08 December 2001 ~ You have seen some unbelievable things (for Rachel)...

My dear Rachel...

I sent you an email today, telling you I didn't want to leave town without seeing you. But I'm kind of scared of seeing you again. So much I'm terrified to tell you... What would you think of me?

I emailed you this morning upon waking, and spent the rest of the day going through a photocopy of your old diary, typing up your barely-legible entries. Did you know I had that? I guess I told you I'd seen the diary; I don't remember if you knew I'd photocopied it. Certainly, you couldn't know I've spent two days now, poring over it, squinting at it, transcribing it... Would you hate me? Would you wonder at my sanity?

WHY are you doing this, Helena? you might ask... And that, I think I can answer, though you might not think the answer justifies anything.

Rachel, I'm 21 years old, and I'm nowhere near being a "grown-up." I'm still very afraid of monsters under the bed, so to speak. I'm still just a scared, confused teenager in so very many ways. In some ways, it's a very nice state of being. I don't WANT to grow up, exactly. But I DO want to have that option, though I cannot foresee myself really using it. And there are things I need to put behind me. There are things kind of shackling me to this sort of childish bewilderment. In the past few years, I've spent a great deal of energy trying to pretend none of IT ever happened, that IT was all crap, that I never had any emotional attachment to IT. But let's face it; there's no way we could have gone through what we went through and felt nothing.

I don't know where you are in dealing with Everything. Maybe you've gotten through IT in your own way. Moved past IT, let IT slide off you ("like shit off a duck's back!"). Or maybe you're just pretending IT never meant anything to you. Maybe you're STILL thinking about IT, maybe IT just never really went away at all for you. I really don't know. It's so difficult to discuss things like that... I guess it's like, in a way, a rape. Like we were both raped. Like, I'm not sure if you're really over it, or how willing or able you are to discuss it.

I've seen the others around... I've spoken briefly with them. I've sort of hinted around, trying to see what they make of IT, where their lives have gone since everything happened... For the most part, they're careful of what they say; there's a sort of mutual mistrust and fear. I suspect we're all still just scared teenagers inside. We, with spouses now, and children; we, out of high school, out of our parents' homes, out in the real world with college and employments to think about... We: no longer 15, 16, 17, 18, 19... We, who endured so FUCKING MUCH; how can it POSSIBLY be that we are collectively OVER IT? I suspect we're being these nice 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24-year-olds, pretending we're oh-so-well-adjusted, and inside, IT's all kind of still there. It will never really end. It never will.

My journal entries are so nonchalant. Yours are so desperate. And I REMEMBER, Rachel, I remember the bliss of it all... I remember the desperation and the terror. I remember what it was like to just wake up one morning with a brand new family, and feel so, so blessed. Now, in hindsight, I guess I wouldn't change much of anything. The events of that summer/fall/winter damn near wrecked me, but as the dumb cliché goes, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I went through something nobody else in this world has gone through. You, Rachel, have probably the most similar experience. I worry about you sometimes, still. I loved you so very much; we were, in our way, sisters, though you went through the ritual of it all, and I didn't, exactly. I don't suppose I needed to. I was one of you anyway.

No, I wouldn't change anything. I can't anyway, so what's the use in wishing I could turn back time and undo stuff?

Nonetheless, there are two options I cannot take: I cannot just let shit continue to bother me. I cannot just sit in my nice little apartment wondering about all the "what if's." I can't POSSIBLY move to another city and let it all follow me out there. Yet, neither can I simply tell IT all to fuck off and expect that it won't matter, that it won't have happened. "Honor your experience" is what all the self-help rape books tell you to do, and while I'll never say my -- OUR -- experience was traumatizing or paralyzing in the same way as a rape, I feel it's a damned good suggestion. Honor my experience.

I have to do this, Rachel... There's just really no other way for me. I'm going to spend as long as it takes, reliving IT and analyzing IT, and recording IT, and understanding IT, and myself. The only concern I have is for you and the others. Will you hate me if I drag it all back up? Will it devastate you, or will it help you? Will we sit and giggle over it? Will you cry when you read it? With joy and forgiveness, or with the anguish of being in IT all over again?

This is what's best for me, you know. I don't know if you'll understand that; maybe you're of the persuasion that it's best to let sleeping dogs lie. But I was in IT too deeply to do that; I AM in IT too deeply to do that...

And that's the other thing... I saw HIM, you know... All those rumors, those intuitions, those feelings, that he was "around"? Well, they were incorrect, but you know about the Curse: once here, you'll be back, even if only for a little while. And, as they say, "so it came to pass..." And I was the one he met down by the river... I can't even fathom saying that to your face, can't even imagine saying it through email or a letter. You once loved him; you once hated him; and I don't know where you are as far as that all goes. Regardless, I cannot imagine you'd be happy to know that you weren't the one with the opportunity to either kill or kiss him. Personally, I chose the latter, though, by the end of my project, I may wish I'd chosen the former.

Reading your diary today, I could FEEL you in certain words, in certain phrases. I could feel HIM, too. And I cannot even begin to tell you how much I wanted both of you with me today. How I wanted to tell you everything: Rachel, sweet girl, this is how the past four years have gone for me... How I wanted to hear everything; not just "so, what're you up to these days?" but "so, WHO ARE YOU these days?"

I think of you often. I doubt you're anything like the girl I used to know, and I doubt I'm much like the girl YOU used to know, but regardless of what a few years has done to us, we were once terribly close. I shared so fucking much with you. We talked about things I could NEVER tell anybody else. You know EXACTLY what that's like, I KNOW you do: what it feels like to have secrets so deep and frightening and WEIRD that nobody else will listen, that everybody else LAUGHS at you or threatens to have you committed. And hell, you're STILL the only girl I've ever made out with (unless you count that stupid "Rocky Horror" incident, which I don't...). Heh! Of course, regardless of what else you may think of me, or everything else that was going on at the time, I KNOW you must remember that...

Reading your journal, I felt so much for you... I always kind of knew, generally, what your life was like, who your friends were, what you were feeling... After all, I spent a hell of a lot of time with you. But I couldn't quite gauge the intensity of some of it. Now, looking back, remembering singing "On My Own" with you from David's balcony, I feel even more like I was singing with a sister, rather than just a friend. You had your love triangle, and I had mine, and gahd knows, they were both pretty fucking ugly. I didn't realize, at the time, just how much you knew about what that sort of thing feels like. The giddiness, the unbearable teen-angsty crap, the secrecy, the anger. And gahd, Rachel, wasn't it wonderful? Even just for a few minutes? Wasn't it just the most wonderful thing? It'll never quite be like that again; first love happens just once, of course. I'm glad you were there to wipe my tears and talk me down from any number of high places, and sing "On My Own" with me on that one very, very special high place... I'm glad it was you. I wish I could have done the same for you; if only I'd known, really known...

I'm leaving town in a few weeks. I won't be really ready. But I guess I never really will be, and now's a pretty damned good time to just go for it.

I'll be pretty near HIM. I don't know what that will mean, exactly. Maybe it'll lead to some sort of disaster. Maybe it won't. Maybe things will remain as they are, as they have been, with his eerily fascinating shadow lying over me. Or maybe, MAYBE, I -- and he -- will have moved beyond the casualties of 1997, and can strike up some ordinary friendship of sorts. Who can tell? I don't even want to speculate. I suspect you're even less pleased about any speculation either of us could come up with. I know you know this, Rachel, deep down someplace, although you may never think about it, and you may never admit it: he did love you. He loved both of us, in fact, in his way. I'll never understand what the hell kind of way that was, and gahd help me if I ever REALLY understand it, because at that point, I'll have to admit I ought to be committed. But you never were "inadequate," and you never were uncared-for. And though he made a mess of your emotions -- and hell, mine as well; though you often wondered about the validity of the "family" you'd found, you were loved, and we WERE a "family." In whatever way you choose to believe that, DO believe it.

I've been sitting here ALL damned day, typing with a candle next to the computer and playing Tori Amos CD's and Angelo Badalamenti songs. I'm going to sign off very shortly and go outside, maybe take a walk around town in the cold. But I had to type this to you: as a sort of confession, as a sort of plea for understanding and forgiveness. And to tell you that, no matter what you've done with your life, no matter who you are now, and who you were then, you were once a sister to me, and you will remain a sister to me; it doesn't matter where I am or what I'm doing: your place remains yours, and I imagine it always will.

And you, dear Rachel, will have one of the very first copies of my book. I'll sign it: "for Rachel, my sister." Then, go right ahead and hate me if you must. But know that through everything I'm doing, while it may be somewhat selfishly motivated, I still have the utmost respect for you. I love you, dear Amara.

Infinitely...
~Helena*

"Oh how time flies, with crystal clear eyes and cold as coal, when you're ending with diamond eyes... Oh, come child, come and rescue me; 'cause you have seen some unbelievable things..." --Cat Power, "Cross-Bone Style"

"...we'll see how brave you are... We'll see..." --Tori Amos, "Yes, Anastasia."