[Private] Journal Entry: Pietro Maximoff 6/1/13

[om_quicksilver]

I don't like being this guy. It's not helping. It's just a clusterfuck of regret--I think Inara knocked that loose in me or something. Randomly angelic Inara.

Okay, all my justifications are bullshit. Okay, I am a fucking coward. I get it.

Okay okay okay this is not bringing them home. All it's doing is worrying Wanda like I said I never would again. And Lorna. And my friends. And and and. This is not about me.

I need to:
-Sleep. By myself. For more than two hours at a time.
-Check on my friends and promise them The Pietro Show has been cancelled.
-Dress, act, and look as normal as possible.
-Stop re-doing shit I already did 12 times. Not helping, either.
-Just do what I'm told when I'm told. Be vigilant, be alert. (Would also erase the impulse to do everything over if I could trust myself to do it right the first time?)
-Be human.

I feel like that first thing could make all the other things work. But nightmares. Wonder if Felix can help? Or would that be weird? Too tired to tell how bad my own ideas are RN. I'll ask Wanda.

Two weeks is a long time. A really. Long. Time. Fuck me.

Email to River

[om_touchstone]

To: [Tam, River]
From: [Tam, Simon]
Subject: On Your Birthday

River,

I've spent the past hour writing and rewriting this. You're fourteen today. You deserve to be celebrating that fact. You deserve to have had Jean-Paul cook for you, and to open presents from all of your classmates. And me, of course.

I wrote mom and dad today from your email account. They were calling your phone and I knew they just needed to hear from you. I don't think they would know whether it was me or you writing anyway. I hate lying to them, but they wouldn't understand, and. And I'm going to bring you home.

I'm going to bring you home, mei-mei.

I know you're going to read this and you're going to make a face at how morose and dramatic it is. I know you're going to hug me and make some kind of patronizing statement about my hair or the bags under my eyes.

I don't care. I just need to write this. And, I suppose, when I bring you home, you'll need to read it.

I miss you. I miss you so much. I never quite understood when people talked about loss. Trying to explain it away with metaphors like holes in the heart and missing limbs doesn't even begin to touch on the pain I'm feeling. Every day, I wake up, and if I'm not awoken by nightmares, there's that one brief moment where I think the world is okay. Then I realize that you're not there and the pain returns so violently that I feel like I need to be sick.

Jean-Paul and I celebrated for you today. I guess we felt like something had to be done, even if you weren't here. We had homemade Chinese food and vodka. It didn't get me nearly as drunk as I wanted to be.

I haven't told anyone else. I don't want them to pity me or...I don't know. But I will tell them, when I bring you home, and you'll have the birthday that you deserve.

I'm going to bring you home. No matter what it takes.

Love,
Simon