I had to leave you, Max.  They would have found us, standing
there together.  I hope you stopped crying and moved on before
they arrived.  For all your bravado, you were always such a sweet
thing--the closest to human of any of us.  As far as I can tell,
you're still like that.

I hope you make it okay.  I know you have so far, but . . .
things change, Max.  Things always change.  We left Manticore.
We've survived in a world that's spiraled into anarchy and is
trying to bounce back.  And me--I've changed.  I've gotten soft.
I've become a liar.

I lied to you, Max.  I didn't want to tell you that there aren't
any others left, so I lied.

Most of them never made it out of Wyoming.  I don't know how you
managed to.

A few others were captured two years later.

Three were still alive a year ago.  But Lydecker caught up to
Michael, and Josephine couldn't find enough pills to hold her
seizures back.

And Jordan . . . Jordan died, too.  How am I meant to tell you
that, Max, when the two of you were so close, like everybody
warned you not to be?  She died a month ago.  She asked about
the others, and I told her that she and you and I were the only
ones left.  It killed her to know that, Max.  She died in my
arms, sobbing and cursing me for making us all split up, and
begging me to take her with me to find you.  I wouldn't let her
go with me to Seattle, and she died.  You'd die too, if you knew.
You always cared so much about your siblings.

So it's just you and me now, Max.  We're the only ones left.
There's others, of course--the ones who didn't try to escape,
new ones they made after we left.  But I'm the only one you'll
ever have, and you're the only one I'll ever have.

All that about phony sentimentality?  It's just shit to keep
myself from giving in to emotions and getting us both killed.
We could have been together.  I applied at Jam Pony X-Press
because I knew you worked there.  If you just hadn't figured me
out, I could've stayed with you.  You wouldn't have ever known
who I was--safer that way--but we would've been together.

But you found out who I was, and that jeopardized us.  The ones
who were killed two years after we escaped--they died because
they found each other and were all together when Lydecker tracked
one of them down.  One, Max.  One of them got them all killed.  I
don't want that happening to us.

Being together won't do any good if we're both dead.
 
 

[ END ]