Letters to the Lost (Letters to the Lost, #1)

by Brigid Kemmerer

THIS GUY IS 17?!

they were going to charge me as an adult—but it’s not like I killed anyone. Only property damage.

Pain flares in every word. The kind of pain that makes you write letters to someone who will never read them.

Guuurl, better seal it next time!

Privacy is an illusion.

But then his eyes find mine, and something he sees there steals the dark expression from his face.

What if he is the guy who is writing back to her letters!!

Sometimes I feel like the girl. Sometimes I feel like the bird. Sometimes I feel like the photographer, unable to do anything but watch. Kevin Carter killed himself after he won the Pulitzer. Sometimes I think I understand why.

My best friend believes in God and heaven and eternal life, but I’m not sure how I feel about all that.

I used to think like this too, I would question what really happened to us when it's time for us to die. There is no "perfect" answer for this no matter how many resource one does or what they believe.

Cancer didn’t kill her. My father did. I could have stopped it, but I didn’t. So when you say you feel like the photographer, unable to do anything but watch, I think I know exactly what you mean.

He is killing me. Pain is ripping me apart. I can barely hold the phone. I hate him. I hate him for this.

Something about it reminds me of the carefree innocence in the picture of the bombed village. This little girl doesn’t know me. She doesn’t see what everyone else sees.

It makes me want to warn her away.

you want to protect her innoscence, I would too.

Melonhead watches this, and I pull it back, remembering how he grabbed her away from me.

Melonhead better feel bad. But yet again maybe he just wanted to start working, I hope he didn't mean to do this for the wrong intention

is Declan.”

SHUT UP...... OH... MY....GOSH.... !!!!!!!

No, that’s not true. I know exactly what she sees in him: a sweet-talker who figured out how to get in her pants.

“You’re going to end up just like your father.”

oh no.... He is going to catch some hands.

DOES HE NOW?! HMMMMM, I WONDER WHYYYY

The promise of violence weighs heavy in the air.

maybe one simple change of direction is what led them down the path they followed.

All of a sudden, something that felt so safe feels like another opportunity for disappointment.

Guilt isn’t a competition.

You’re the one who showed me I could be normal.

I wonder, if I keep faking it, will I eventually believe it? A part of me worries that I’ll keep faking it and completely forget what’s real at all.

Oh no

Can a picture ever tell the whole story?

“One day isn’t your whole life, Murph.” He waits until I look at him. “A day is just a day.”

It’s kind of like how kids on a farm can plow a field when they’re seven or kids who grow up hunting can fire a rifle as soon as they’re strong enough to carry one.

Every moment is meaningful.

“I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”

SHUT….UP….. no….

It’s not Declan—but the crime is still unsolved.

oh thank goodness it's not Declan

I was so worried you were him, and I was going to have to stop talking to you.

But you will find your own way to make an impact.”

It’s not my father’s.

ooooo....

She was cheating on him. She was cheating.

Hammonds Ferry Road isn’t on the way to the airport. She came home early, exactly like I’d begged her to do. She came home three days early. Just not to be with us.

By the time I get to Juliet, her fingers are bleeding and swollen. Tears streak her face, and her voice has gone hoarse. I can’t understand what she’s saying through her sobs, but she barely recognizes I’m there. She slams her hand into the gravestone again.

“You make your own path.”