This chapter doesn't end with a cliffhanger! Or at least I think so...
CHAPTER 24Reina,
I just write this because I want to explain…“Reina…” Risa whispers, distracting me from read the letter. “Do you think… do you think that Eri chose the right way? I mean, when she decided to left…”
“The right way of what?” I ask looking at the floor, as I listen to her from the other side of the door.
“The right way to face this…” She says in a sad voice.
“…” What kind of question is this? Of course not! She should have told this to me…
“I assume that your silence means “no”.” She states.
“Yeah…” I say softly. “I’ll never understand why she didn’t tell me this…”
I feel how my tears start to fall again… I just can’t stop crying…
I look at the letter briefly… It’s strange how she kept all this as a secret… And now she left a letter which will explain everything? I don’t know… She had to say this in person…
Why didn’t she let me take care of her? Why didn’t she let me say goodbye to her? And moreover, why did she have to go?
This doesn’t make sense at all…
“Are you still there…?”
“…” I start to sob loud enough… and she hears me…
“You have to stop crying Reina…” She says. “She has gone… yes… But I have already told you… You have to continue with your life… even if she isn’t a part of it… You have to forget her…”
“Risa!” I cut her off. “How can you say something so horrible…? I can’t forget her…! She will be always a part of my li…”
“Don’t say that…” She cuts me off this time.
How can she be so selfish? I can’t believe she’s making me that kind of petition again… I can’t believe it… And she even dares to say to me I shouldn’t say that Eri will be always remembered for me…?
“Risa! Don’t you understand this?!” I yell angrily. “Can’t you see how much I love Eri?! I can’t continue without her…”
“Yes, Reina, you can…”
“No! I refuse to forget her!” I scream. “Can’t you see it?! I won’t forget her! You can't say that to me!”
Now I’m truly angry… I just can’t understand in what is Risa thinking…
“Sorry…” She excuses herself. “It’s for your own good…”
“Risa you have already told me that… Like a thousand times…” I yell with my eyes full of tears. “We’ve had this conversation before…”
“I know that… but I know that Eri wanted you to forget her…” She says in a low voice.
“Yes! I know what she wanted!” I say. “And I know you don’t understand how I feel… Tell me one thing Risa…” I say taking a long pause.
“What is it?” She asks.
“…” How should I make her realise that this is really hard for me… so painfully hard…
“Reina…?”
“Tell me… Tell me how would you feel if you were in my situation…” I say.
“Eh?”
“I mean how would you feel if you were… if you were me and Ai was Eri…” I take a long pause again… “How’d you feel if you lost the love of your life?”
“…” She doesn’t respond.
Can she get it now? Can she see how much I’m suffering because of this? Can she understand this?
I hear her crying… I guess she has understood it now…
I peek at the letter again… But before I even read it, my eyes look at the last phrases of it…
I hope you understand this now… I had to protect you of myself… and I didn’t know how to do that…
I know this can’t be fixed with a simple letter, and, in fact, I’m not trying to fix it… What I want to say with this letter is that I love you and that I’ll be always with you…
Don’t forget that, never…I smile to myself, trying to content my tears… but I just can’t.
I don’t need to read the whole letter to know what Eri means… So I just read that last words, the ones that I need to know, and I tear the letter away...