Chapter Text
Dear Andrew Doe,
I am not picking one of the pen pals that’s in California or whatever. I am going to write a fake name and a fake address and send this letter to a fake person. The teacher won’t let me leave until I send this to someone.
Bye
Alex
Dear Andrew Doe,
She’s making me write another one.
Alex
Dear Andrew Doe,
This is my last letter. It’s time for us to go.
Thanks for nothing.
Chris
Dear Andrew Doe,
I have to look busy. One of my father’s people is in this library watching me. I’m pretending to be a student. I am pretending to do my homework. I am pretending I don’t see his gun.
How have you been.
Chris
Dear Andrew Doe,
I got shot today. I can’t sleep.
I’m tired.
Stefan
Dear Andrew Doe,
My mom found out about you. This is my last letter.
Sorry that you’re fake.
Stefan
Dear Andrew Doe,
Sorry about the ash. My mom died today. You’re the only thing I have left.
Help me.
Neil
Dear Andrew Doe,
Coach Hernandez won’t let me stay on the team unless I socialize. I told him I had a friend in California. Guess you’re back in my life again.
Neil
Dear Andrew Doe,
I won the race today. Won’t you send me flowers?
Neil
Dear Andrew Doe,
I got a return letter with an address to South Carolina. I don’t know why. You’re not real.
Hope the weather’s good. I’m hot.
Neil
Dear Andrew Doe,
I graduate tomorrow. I’ll look for you in the stands.
Neil
Dear Andrew Doe,
Hope you haven’t forgotten about me. It’s only been a year.
Nothing new with me.
Neil
Dear Andrew Doe,
Bad news. I’ve run out of money.
Not sure how to get more.
Not sure if I care.
Neil
Dear Andrew Doe,
Did you ever read Man’s Search for Meaning? I have.
I always think about the way he wrote about hunger. I never understood.
Maybe I do now.
Neil
Dear Andrew Doe,
Thank you. Without you, I might have thought I’d die alone.
Burn my letters. Scatter the ashes with my mother’s on a beach in California.
Find me in another life. Maybe there you’ll be real and I can stay Neil Josten.
Neil was reading through the syllabi for his Monday classes when his roommate, Penny, knocked on his bedroom door and said, “Someone’s here for you.”
Neil frowned, the paper in his hand crinkling as he lowered it. “What?” he asked.
“Someone’s here for you.”
“What?” he asked again, sitting up. He was laying on his bed, backpack open and spilled on the comforter after he’d rifled through searching for the papers he wanted to review after his first day of college.
Penny finally opened the door. They’d only been living together two months, since this college campus allowed residents in the student housing during the summer months. Neil lived with two other girls, Rae and Lily, and he liked them well enough. He’d interviewed with a few other potential roommates, but the girls were the only ones not intimidated by his scars.
“I don’t know,” she said. “He just said, ‘Go get Neil.’”
Neil resisted reaching his hand under his pillow. There wasn’t a gun there, anyways. “What does he look like?”
Penny shrugged. “Short. Blonde. Scary.”
“Young?”
“Our age.”
Neil hopped out of bed, pushing Penny aside as he charged out of his room. He knew there was the possibility of some of his father’s men still out there looking for him, but he didn’t think any of them were in their twenties.
“Stay in there,” Neil told her. “Close the door. Lock it.”
Penny closed the door but only until just a crack was open, her face peeking through. “Should I call the cops?” she asked.
“No,” Neil said, moving through the living room. “It’s fine.”
Penny hadn’t closed the front door, and the visitor stood just outside of it, hands in the front pocket of his black hoodie. He was in fact short and blonde, and, as it turned out, Neil did know him, but not from his father’s circles. His visitor was Andrew Minyard, from his English class, who had stared at Neil’s scars when he’d entered the classroom and had looked over at Neil when Neil's named was called during attendance.
“Yeah?” Neil asked, confused and annoyed that he’d gotten worked up over nothing.
Andrew studied Neil, intense gaze lingering on Neil’s face and hair, currently unkempt and his natural red. His cursory glance at Neil’s clothes resulted in an unimpressed eyebrow raise at the tattered jeans and oversized sweater in the middle of August before he returned all his focus to Neil’s face, presumably his slashes and burns, and Neil glared in response.
Neil readied to slam the door closed after a minute of silence when Andrew said, “Let’s take a walk.”
“No,” Neil said, and then he really did move to slam the door when one of Andrew’s hands shot out and smacked the door, halting it.
“Walking is good for you,” Andrew said. Neil, annoyed, tried to force the door closed, but Andrew’s strength was unmatched. The door wouldn’t budge.
“I don’t want to walk with you,” Neil snapped. Maybe he’d underestimated his father. Maybe he did recruit this young.
Andrew, ignoring Neil’s ire, said, “Oh, I think you’ll want to take a walk with me, Alex.” Neil stopped fighting to close the door, his stomach weak with sudden dread. He turned his pale face to Andrew, who didn’t look smug or triumphant but still went in for the killing blow. “Or is it Chris? Stefan?”
Neil stared at Andrew, trying to size up how hard it would be to push past him and run, when Andrew shifted his other hand, the one still in his pocket, and revealed crumpled pieces of paper, lined and waterlogged. Neil tried to make sense of what Andrew was showing him, he didn’t care about a stack of old papers, but then he saw the words Andrew Doe through the back of one of the sheets and finally, fatally, understood.
“Shit,” he said.
“Let’s go,” Andrew said, dropping his hand and walking away. Neil could have closed the door and never spoke to Andrew Minyard again, but against every instinct he had left, Neil followed Andrew out.
*
Palmetto had a nice campus. The grass was green, the sidewalks were swept, and trash didn’t litter every available outdoor table. Andrew ambled aimlessly around buildings, Neil keeping pace. But when Andrew began his third lap around the science building and the art building having not said one word, Neil snapped, annoyed at this ploy and anxious to end the walk.
“What do you want from me?” he demanded, stopping them in the middle of a walkway, bustling college students stepping around them on the way to their next class.
Andrew met Neil’s eyes and drawled, “Is that any way to treat an old friend?”
Neil scowled. “You’re not my friend.”
Andrew cocked his head. “I’m Andrew Doe,” he said, and Neil tried not to flinch at the admission, the truth, the fact of the matter.
Dear Andrew Doe.
“No,” Neil argued, helpless. “You’re Andrew Minyard.”
Andrew, innocuous, pointed out, “People can have more than one name. How many have you had, again?”
They glared at each other, Neil refusing to answer, Andrew refusing to move on from the point until Neil said something. “A few,” Neil eventually ground out.
“Tsk, tsk, Neil.” Andrew shook his head in lament. “I thought we were more than this.”
“We’re nothing,” Neil said. “And I thought you weren’t real.”
The confession lay between them, an ugly, sad thing, until Andrew asked, “Why South Carolina.”
“What?” Neil asked.
“Why did you come here.”
And with that question, Neil had lost.
Because they both knew the address Neil had been sending letters to was near this town—not exactly the same place, because Neil didn’t want to go to that house and find no one there—but close enough to his only friend, the one person in his life he’d had at the end, Andrew Doe, not real, standing right in front of him.
Neil finally turned away from Andrew, the defeat and fear of the last five years closing in on him. He was remembering slices. He was remembering burns. He was remembering screams.
He was remembering his final words, written in a letter, written to himself and to the person he wanted with him when he died.
“Why are you doing this,” Neil asked, tired.
Once more the short man inspected Neil’s face, his scars and his eyes and his lips, before he said, “Because you weren’t real to me, either, Neil Josten.”
*
As soon as Neil returned to his dorm, he slammed into his room and grabbed his duffel out from under his bed. None of his roommates were home, but Penny had texted earlier asking if he was okay and informing him she’d be home around five, which was still two hours away.
Good. He’d be gone in twenty minutes.
He yanked open his dresser drawers, grabbing clothes and tossing them on his bed to be shoved into his bag. He’d need to grab his toiletries out of the bathroom, but there wasn’t much to pack. All of Neil’s life still fit snugly in his rundown duffel.
Once he’d emptied his dresser, he returned to his bed and started rolling a pair of jeans. By the time he got to his shirts, though, some of his frenzy fizzled out of him. He stared down at the shirt in his hand, threadbare and thin, and pet the double-folded tag. Old habits , he thought.
His old habits all should have died when he was in that basement.
He didn’t need to run anymore. His father wasn’t after him. He was given permission to live, to exist as Neil Josten. Neil Josten didn’t run.
Neil stopped filling his duffel bag. His hands were shaking, and he sat on the ground, taking deep breaths until his stomach stopped hurting and his hands only held a slight tremble.
Neil Josten didn’t run. Not anymore.
He would stay, in his new life, at his second chance. He didn’t care about Andrew Doe, who wasn’t real and never would be.
And he didn’t care about Andrew Minyard, who wasn’t scary and didn’t mean anything to him, either.