Don't ask me what drove me to write this, because I have no answer for you. Don't question why I'll write the things I write, because I cannot give you a logical reason. Don't wonder what's going on in my head, because if I knew, I wouldn't be here, sitting at my computer desk, at two o' clock in the morning, questioning my own sanity and what these stupid digital words mean to me…and how they mean exactly that to you: just digital words. But if you know the answer to any of these questions, please tell me, so my cramped, tired fingers can just lay down and rest…and so can my mind, my heart, and my soul, because they have no clue what's wrong with me either.

I wish I could send this to you right now. I wish that we could actually have a conversation, instead of sending stupid messages back and forth. I wish you didn't come to the final conclusion that you did, because if you hadn't, I wouldn't be here typing this ridiculous letter, and you wouldn't – probably days or weeks from now – be reading it, rolling your eyes and scoffing at the juvenile thoughts that I have. But that's us. I will always be writing these notes to a Maria for the rest of my life, and when they cremate me, some distant friend I hadn't talked to in years will be there to throw all of these letters to you in with me, thanking God that it will be the last the world will see of me and my stupid notes. And you will always be you. Always…searching, I guess I would describe it as, but never finding it. I'm sure you're either thinking I'm just being the typical, stupid me, or, hopefully, wondering what "it" is, but I can't tell you, because I don't know, neither do you, and we never will, no one will. Because you'll never find it, just like I'll never find peace between us, no matter how many bridges I burn and notes I write. We'll never be "us" again, because the few memories I had of that you and me are so faded and war-torn that I don't even know if they're real anymore. There are only pieces and broken fragments of that seemingly distant past – at least to me, there is – that can't be put back together, no matter how much we fit them together, because they've been eroded and changed by the sands of time until there's nothing left of them to find.

I don't really know why I'm here, as I said. Maybe I think I'll find closure and finally be able to stop all this madness and move on like you did. I moved on, from things I've felt in the past, but that doesn't mean their scars still don't hurt. I've forgotten what it felt like to see you in a room and feel like I was seeing you for the first time. I have lost all familiarity with the pages upon pages of words dedicated solely to each other, and they're only pieces of paper now given to me by someone I don't know anymore. I look at them now and think, "Where has it all gone?" And I question whether it's real or not, and that maybe I'm part of some experiment and all this is a dream or that when I was little and I hid inside my closet, I discovered a new and alien world, and now, somehow, I've returned to my own realm, leaving you behind. That's a lot to think just over a few stupid notes that you probably tore down long ago and burned, but it's how I feel about those notes that still sleep in the front pages of my binder, untouched for months.

But I still have those faded memories that haunt me still, like your ghost left its fingerprint all across my life, smudging its reality and in the most bizarre places. When I see the Lightning Thief perched on my shelf, its spine worn and dark with age and use, I don't see the gold letters or the black coloring. I see a girl curled up in a movie-theater seat, falling asleep while a movie she was forced to see plays in front of her. When I think of those stupid blue chairs in the auditorium that I would always trip over, I see only an aspiring actress sitting in the middle of them all, looking at everyone, ignorant to the world around her as she studies each and every person, delving into their thoughts and souls…and her own. When I flip through my yearbook, I only see a girl who hated working on it, but loved every second of it nonetheless. I see myself beside her as she reaches under the desk and into a nondescript section below it, retrieving a soda and saying simply, "You didn't see that." I had to tear down one of my favorite art projects in the corner of my room, its detailed pencil markings glaring at me, reminding me of the girl that was its muse. I gave away the sea monkeys I got a girl at the beach who said that she had them once, but they had been knocked over and killed before she could watch them hatch and grow, because I couldn't look at them anymore, knowing that they represented a finality I didn't want to face. Even now, when I open up my computer and click on a file and start to work on a book that I know I'm going to give up on or a poem that is just like its brethren, I think of how many times I've sat here, writing these dumb notes to you. You're everywhere…and I don't know why.

I wasn't sure what to write next, so I pondered, searching around my room for the words I could possibly say to you that would actually matter. All I found were a bunch of stupid drawings I drew and some Asian artwork I had bought and framed. Even the "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" poster hangs above my computer next to a picture of a baby panda. I looked up and down my bookshelf, looking from Here, there be Dragons to The Named, from Twilight to, of course, The Alchemyst, but nothing came to me. So then I looked out my window into the black, starless sky, hoping to see a moon blinking back at me, mocking me, telling me how stupid this was and that I should just hold down the backspace button and go to sleep, but nothing returned my searching eyes. Actually, one thing did: my own face, reflected in the pale, white light of my computer screen. It stared back at me, and I continued to look, unsure of what exactly I was looking for. And then I saw it. My eyes, they were so dark, so old-looking, so angry. I realized then – probably only about five minutes ago – just how angry I was. And I couldn't really tell you why. I bet you're wondering, "Why is this idiot rambling and wasting my time like this?" if you've even continued to read this far. But I'm getting to it. Actually, it's come up next.

I would love to blame the anger I feel and saw in myself on you, and I did, for the longest time. But then I knew that I couldn't blame you anymore. I've done it for too long, I've realized, because you were the perfect catalyst for me, so it only seemed natural. So why not just continue? Because, it might not seem like it and that I get a kick out of arguing with you to prove a point neither of us ever will, but I'm so tired now, Maria; so tired of all these. Of the bitter emotions, of the angst, of the drama I cause and get in return, of the martyr thing, the grudges, the fighting, of everything. I'm tired of just being so angry at everyone all the time.

Today, when I was in the car, I was just listening to music, and a song came on. I can tell you exactly where I was when I clicked "next" on my mp3 player and what song was being played in the background on the car speakers. It was on the road right beside the giant sign that says "Fireworks" on it with the gorilla standing on top and "Elephant Love Medley" from Moulin Rouge was being pumped through the speakers. I can tell you that it was cloudy and that it was 5:47, I remember because my sister had just turned the stereo up and I looked at her from the backseat to glare at her, signaling that it was annoying me and my music. But none of that is important. What song came on was one that I've liked for a long time, and that I've listened to since you listened to it, too, but it never hit me like this.

There I was, on my way to dinner to celebrate my mom's birthday two days early, on a simple, nothing-special day on a crowded road where I wouldn't give anything a second glance. But when that song came on, you came to mind. I don't know why, you just did. It was strange, actually, but I didn't click forward. My thumb just hovered over the button, my mind screaming at me to change it for my own good, but I didn't. I just let it play, and I can tell you every last word to that song because I clung to each letter like I was on my deathbed and it was the only thing that could save me, which it could've. I could give you the entire lyrics, but I'm not going to. I'm just going to tell you the part that seemed to wrap around me in a sort of cocoon, suffocating me. And that song has been stuck in my head ever since that moment.

"The ground is breaking,

I can feel it shaking,

Wish it was that easy,

But it's not that easy.

Gotta hold my hands out,

Gotta keep my head up,

Gotta keep on breathing,

Baby, even if we're sinking."

Even if we are sinking.

'Cause I just gotta hold on,

Yeah I'm gonna hold on,

Baby, gotta keep holding on to what we have.

'Cause I don't wanna move on,

So I gotta hold on,

Baby, because you and me are sinking like quicksand."

And my mind did one of those weird flashback things that you only see in movies and I saw when I typed the words to one of my favorite songs on a picture I was editing for you. Then I saw the words we yelled at each other and grew apart, although I couldn't tell you what they were. I watched as I posted the link to the song "Quicksand" by Britney Spears on your profile as a sort of tip of the hat in a final good-bye, as you had practically begged me for the title of the song not long before. I can remember how you misread my actions as pointing out that it was what we were doing, "sinking like quicksand." All that came back to me, Maria, and I don't know why.

But it did. And I can't take it back. I have listened to that song over and over again, and I'm even listening to it now, searching for the answer. But there's not one. That song probably never spoke to anyone else because it's a song by Britney: made simply to entertain. But it spoke to me, and awakened something I had submerged lifetimes ago.

I had told myself I was done. I had even convinced myself of it for the longest time, deleting the last message you sent me where you described – in heart-wrenching detail, I might add – how I drove you to the point I did. But now I finally understand all those groups on Facebook that have suddenly become popular, saying, "You never really stop loving someone, you just learn to live without them." I now know that's true. And I had thought that I had learned to live without you…but now I'm not sure. I'm not sure of anything anymore, except that I'm here at two-forty-two, in the middle of the night, typing slowly as not to make too much noise on my computer, headphones plugged in so I can listen to "Quicksand", and I'm writing you a note, possibly the longest I've ever written you.

I'm not looking for some kind of forgiveness from you. I don't expect that any time soon because I know I don't deserve it. Maybe decades from now, when you're in a hospital bed with hundreds of crying people who love you as you live your last night, you say to someone, "Tell Shane I forgive him." And then that person will spend months searching for me, retracing your life to find the Shane you were talking about. But that only happens in books and movies, right? Never in real life. But hey, that's me: always hoping for the impossible.

And after watching that stupid "Valentine's Day" movie, I can only think about how real this is: the finality of it all. I mean, this is the end, Maria. You might reply to this somehow, and we'll probably fight some more over the summer and argue the few times we talk in yearbook and journalism when we couldn't avoid each other well enough, but this is it. Not this, but this, as in a whole. There will never be another movie. There'll never be another cast party. There'll never be another play, class, bus-ride, even. For you this might be something stupid that will pass like a casual storm, but to me this is real. You have known high school without me, but I've never seen it without you. Nothing will ever be the same for me in this school, this city, this stupid state, because it's all just one big slap in the face to me because of you. And I can't help but wonder how things got so bad, so fast, so drastically.

There's an ancient Celtic saying that goes, "The three things that lead to failure are: laziness, distraction, and daydreaming." I failed when I was too lazy to seize my chance and will forever have to wonder "What if she was the one…?" I failed when I let you distract me, and let myself be distracted by you. But most of all, I failed when I dreamed that there was actually a possibility with us, but there's not and I doubt there ever was. It's not your fault. It's no ones fault. It's who you are. And there's nothing wrong with that.

An old English parable says, "Follow your heart: it is oft wiser than your head." So that's what I'm doing, because, believe me, my head is screaming at me to shut up and be a man, but this empty, sinking feeling is telling me differently. It may mean nothing to you, Maria, but it means everything to me.

But I want you, Maria, to know that I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all the poems I wrote that made you feel guilty and that you kept by your computer for God-knows-what-reason. I'm sorry for helping turn the world against you. I know I did a lot to make your life hard, when you of all people don't deserve it. I'm especially sorry that I could never be the guy you needed and wanted, no matter how hard I tried to be and told myself I was. But most importantly, I'm sorry that I changed. I'm sorry that I'm not the person I use to be, and that I have to be here, right now, writing this. I think I let you down more than you let me down, because you just moved on. But I became someone entirely different because, like you said, I couldn't take a joke. I smile and find it kind of funny that that's what started the tiny wedge that turned into an immense fissure and ended all of this…all of us. I remember as you walked down the hallway with Colby and "yelled at me," and I took it seriously. I'm sorry Maria. I'm sorry I'm not the guy I use to be, because I miss him too. I miss how he use to turn bright red when you came up and hugged hum from behind. I miss how he use to have vain dreams that you would be his first kiss and that he could lay down and die and be happy after that happened. I miss how he use to get teased by your older sister for liking you. I miss…I miss the way you use to look at him. There was something there…something I can't explain. And it made me smile, it made this little ball of sunlight glow inside me where there had only been darkness for years, but most of all, it made me hope, and that's all I needed…and I destroyed it when I changed. You honestly cannot fathom what I would do and what I would give to go back and relieve those few amazing moments we had together. And I swear here and now that there is nothing I wouldn't do to be that guy that you met; the guy who fell in love with you and never stopped, because I know we're sinking like quicksand.

-Me