My Life in Darkness by Harrison Drake

OCTOBER 24, 1995
     
     
    Dear Lena,
     
    It’s nice to know your name, but it sucks too. Now I know you don’t even speak English. There goes that, and I was ready to talk to you today. I mean, I almost got there. I was close enough to hear your name, to see your beautiful green eyes. But then I heard you speaking, well I don’t know what it was, and I got nervous again.
    Why am I like this? I get nervous if I have to talk to anyone, especially girls, but I get nervous too in public places. Like malls and movie theatres. And school. So I spend most of my time at home, on the computer. The internet is amazing, I’m sure they have it where you’re from. It’s so much better than modems and BBS networks. I’ve started learning how to write code for computers too, C++ mainly. I want to be able to make my own games one day.
    Everyone at school has boyfriends or girlfriends and it makes me sad. I know I’ll probably never find a girlfriend. And I don’t even care about all the things they supposedly do together (they’re probably just saying they’re doing it to sound cool). I just want someone to talk to, someone to like me for who I am. Of course, I wouldn’t say no if you wanted to hold hands during the eclipse or something.
    Can you drive now in your country? I could get my licence but, again, I’m too nervous. And I don’t have anywhere I want to go. Maybe I’ll get it one day.
    I hope things have been good for you. You look good and your cast is gone. That’s good! I actually broke my wrist last year and had a cast as well. Of course, my story isn’t very good. I fell down the stairs. Yep, that’s it. Brutal, huh? Someone found out at school and of course they made fun of me even more. Then this one kid, he’s an asshole—sorry!—pushed me down the stairs, thinking it was funny. I landed on my cast and had to get more X-rays and a new cast.
    I wanted to kill myself. I almost did. I have some pills, for my anxiety and depression, and I was going to take them all. But then I thought of you, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, you would wonder where I was when the next eclipse came.
    I wish I could bring the darkness home with me. Then I could hide in it and no one would see me, no one would be able to find me. Maybe my dad wouldn’t hit me anymore, either. It’s not much, and I know he’s trying to help. He just gets frustrated that I’m always on the computer, says it’s unhealthy. And if I put on any more weight he gets really mad. I know he seems like a great guy, and he is, he just wants the best for me, but he gets angry. He works really hard, has his own construction company and he makes a lot of money.
    If it wasn’t for him and his money I wouldn’t be able to see you. He likes coming to the eclipses but he does it for my mom more than anything. It’s really important to her, well, I guess for the same reason it’s important to me.
    The next one is too remote for us to go to, maybe you’ll go, I don’t know. I don’t think anyone has it planned.
    Only a minute and forty-nine seconds this time. I hope it will hold me.

FEBRUARY 26, 1998
     
     
    Dear Lena,
     
    Today is the day. Today is the day I will talk to you. And there are a lot of reasons for that. First of all, I’m nineteen now. Today’s my birthday, which is really cool but kind of weird too. (I’ll get to that in a minute.) I know I should be out drinking with my friends—I can buy alcohol now, only have to be nineteen in Canada—but there’s two problems with that. I don’t have any friends and I don’t want to buy alcohol. I’m scared of it. Scared it will make me feel like someone else, scared that I’ll like it too much. I hate being me.
    Du er vakker. Jeg ser du smiler og det gjør meg lykkelig. Om natten, jeg ser din gylne hår og dine smaragd øynene når jeg sover. Jeg tenker på deg hele tiden.
    I hope I got that right. It was supposed to be:
    You are beautiful. I see you smile and it makes me happy. At