EPILOGUE
CAIDEN
THREE MONTHS LATER
From:returnfire@
Date: Friday, March 28th, 1997. 10:33
Subject: I’m Sorry
—Ari,
I don’t know if this will reach you. Honestly, I don’t know if you’ll even read it if it does. You might see my name and delete it straight off, and I wouldn’t blame you. I’m writing anyway because I don’t know what else to do.
I know what you said to me in that hospital, and I know you meant every word.
I haven’t forgotten any of it. I hear it at stupid times, when I’m half asleep, when Vladimir wakes up crying, and I’m moving before I’m properly awake.
Sometimes I hear your voice so clearly it feels like I’m back there again, with you looking at me as if I were someone you could kill and sleep just fine after.
I want you to know that Vladimir's with me for now.
I'm trying to make it permanent, but apparently that involves more paperwork than joining the army.
Every week there's another form to fill in or another person deciding whether I'm old enough, responsible enough, or sensible enough to raise him.
I don't particularly care what they think. I'm not sending him anywhere else.
I’m not pretending this fixes anything, and I’m not asking for forgiveness. I know I’m not owed that. I know I’m not owed your time, anger, or even your hatred. I know I lost the right to ask you for anything the second Niko trusted me, and I sent him out on the mission.
But I am sorry.
And I know. Sorry is a useless little word for something this big. I know it doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t bring him back. It doesn’t give Vladimir his dad back. It doesn’t give you your brother back.
It definitely doesn’t make it easier to live with.
Still.
I’m sorry I said yes before the mission.
I thought being useful might help him, and might give him something to hold onto that wasn’t grief, and I was wrong.
I know that. I trusted the intel. I trusted the timing.
I’m sorry that I thought I could sit in that room with a headset on and somehow keep the worst of it from happening.
I’m sorry my voice was the one he trusted.
I replay it all the time and it’s killing me.
I know you hate me, and you should. I’d hate me too. In some ways, I do. But I don’t know how to live with you disappearing, and I know that’s selfish. I know there’s a decent argument to be made that your disappearance is exactly what I deserve, but I’m saying it anyway.
I’m saying it because I love you, and apparently, that part of me didn’t get the message that it was meant to stop. And yes, I know you love me too.
I’m scared, Ari.
I’m scared I'll never see you again, and that the last thing you ever said to me will be what you said in that hospital. Please don’t do this alone. I know you’ll think I’ve no right to ask that, and maybe I haven’t. But there it is anyway.
You don’t have to forgive me. I’m asking for less than that and more than I probably deserve.
If you ever see this message, write to me. Please. Just one line. One word even. Tell me to go to hell if you like. I’ll take that. I’ll take anything that tells me you’re alive long enough to hate me properly.
This isn’t over for me.
I’ll wait for as long as it takes.
I love you.
I’m sorry.
—Caiden