Dear Betsy,

I'm gone now, but not forever. Couldn't leave without giving you the scoop, though, so listen up.

First, although you will, don't blame yourself. Even as I'm writing this I get that it's a waste of time, but I'm jumping in and trying anyway. Again: don't blame yourself, dumbass.

I wanted to do this. Frankly, I have inclinations like this all the time. It even runs in my family (along with alcoholism and the ability to make hospital corners). Shit, remember the night we met? I was about to do a swan dive off the hospital roof and you wouldn't let me. You saved me . . . for a while.

Now I'm saving you.

It's only fair.

It's also only fair to tell you that you shouldn't blame the others, either. In hindsight, letting me spend time alone talking with the dead me seems careless and risky, right? Sure . . . in hindsight.

But it's not their fault. I only told them the stuff they'd find most helpful, the bare minimum. The stuff that would make them feel okay about me going back into that room. And back. And back. They're as invested in saving you as I am. And they don't know a fifth of what I know.

Listening to yourself tell yourself about the awful things you'll do someday is an experience, I won't deny it. But before you break off a chair leg or something and march into the basement to kill the other me like John Wayne with fangs, please believe that the other Marc DID NOT MOJO ME

INTO DOING THIS.

He just told me what would happen to me if I didn't. Believe me, it was not a difficult choice. At all. And hey, I'm a man comfortable with opiates. When I went, honey, I went wrecked.

So I've saved myself. And I've saved you. And I was glad of the chance. Do you know why?

Because I love you, dumbass. From the moment we met. You've been like the little sister I never wanted. (That's a joke. Not a very good one, I agree.) And right now you're thinking dark thoughts about how you can't protect your friends and being the vamp queen has ruined your life and no job in the world is worth this and how could you not see what I was going to do, blah-blah-blah, why me, I want shoes, this is hard, I hate everything, more shoes, blah-blah-blah.

But here's the thing, and it's the stone truth: knowing you has only ever made me feel one way. Not scared, not horny, not crazed, not pissed, not despairing, not thwarted. Lucky.

Knowing you has made me feel lucky. Even now, prepping this little opiate cocktail, I feel lucky. I'm controlling how I leave this world, something that poor bastard down in the basement couldn't do. And look at the price he paid!

By doing this to myself, I'm undoing some seriously bad shit.

But don't take my word for it.

Go to the basement, and ask me. Ask me for yourself. You won't like what I say, but you'll see the truth behind his awful smile.

I love you.

I will see you again. Believe it.

Your friend,

Marc