Letters from my daughter's best friend

Letter 1
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22nd September 2007
To *****,
Happy 16th!! It seems hard to believe that another year has passed already, and I can look back at all the great times that we’ve had together, yet also think about all the things that we haven’t done together, and things that I wish I’d said to you. I wish that I had told you that I didn’t think it was good idea for you to go and meet *****. I sometimes wonder if you would still be here today celebrating your birthday and having a great time if I had done so. More than anything I would have liked to have given you your present, brought in a cake, and also a balloon for you and let the whole class sing happy birthday to you. This is certainly different to how I wanted you to be able to celebrate your 16th. I miss you so much. Not a day goes by when I don’t think about you, wonder if you’re ok. I hope that one day you’ll be able to read this letter and realise how much I care for you. You’re one of my best friends and I don’t know what I’d do without you. I haven’t really been able to cope. **** and ***** have been breaking down in tears, but I know that no-one can care for you like I do. Everyone thinks I’m coping fine, but I’m not. I just want to curl up in a corner and wait for you to come home. I hope every day that your mum will phone saying that you’ve been found. Even after all this time I can’t believe that you’ve gone, despite all of the coverage on the news and your absence at school. I want to come and visit you after school as though your ill, but deep down I know your not and that I can’t see you. I just want to hear your voice.
Goodnight for now,
******
xxxxxx


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Letter 2
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23rd September 2007
To *****,
I wasn’t expecting to write you another letter so soon, but I’ve just found out about some things that ***** has been saying and it’s made me so angry. I want you to see how much he lies, and how he can’t possibly be all that you think he is because of this. You’ve gone missing because of him. He’s torn you away from your friends and family, and no matter what he says, we all care deeply for you otherwise we wouldn’t be advertising your disappearance, appealing for information on your whereabouts. Your mum and dad are also deeply worried about you. You might think that they’re putting on an act, but I can tell that it’s all real. I don’t think that you’ll even have seen the press coverage that you’ve had because of them. I just hope that when you come back you’ll realise how much you’ve been missed and that everyone will be able to move past this and just be glad that you’re back. Don’t forget how much we all care about you.
******
xxxxxx

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Letter 3
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30th September 2007
To *****,
I wonder how you are today. Recently I’ve been dreaming about you a lot. Most of the time I walk into our form room and you’re just sitting there, like you were never even gone. It’s really strange, because everyone else in our class is sitting there as well like nothing happened, and I think was it all a dream. But then I wake up and realise that what I just saw was a dream and that in reality you’re still missing. I dream about you when I’ve been thinking about you during the day, which at the moment is quite often. I wonder if you’ll come back for Christmas or if I’ll have heard from you before then. I’d like to think so but inside the hope is dying away. Yesterday was the autumn fair and there was a stall for missing persons, and there was a huge poster of you. Almost anywhere that I looked people were wearing yellow ribbons and showing their support. I know that it must have meant a lot to your parents. Also on Friday its non-uniform jeans 4 genes day (not sure which way round it goes lol), and half the money raised is going to go to missing persons charity. Everyone cares about you so much and just wants you home.
Thinking of you
******
xxxxxx

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Letter 4
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1st January 2008
To *****,
Well it is now 2008. Happy New Year! I hope that you’re safe and that you had a good Christmas. I know that you have made contact but there is little comfort in knowing that you are living in Bristol with *****. That doesn’t qualify that you are safe in my mind.
It seems strange to think that this time last year we had been meeting up and showing each other what we got for Christmas. I remember you showing me a purple magnet necklace that you got from your parents amongst other gifts. You were so happy, although you and ***** started to "date" on Boxing Day of last year. I remember you talking to me about *****, saying how you thought he was in love with you. Then you got messages from him saying that this was how he felt and that he just wanted to be with you. I don’t think you actually wanted to date him, I think you just didn’t want to say no and make him depressed again and make his illness worse. You told me that you said yes on Boxing Day when you were drunk and that you were really regretting it. A couple of days later you were asking me for advice on how to tell him that you didn’t want to go out with him. He had immediately started sending you his declarations of love and it really freaked you out. So why did you agree to go and meet him? Deep inside you knew it wasn’t right to go and meet him alone. At one point you even asked me to go with you. Me and **** talked together about the situation and agreed to tell you that we didn’t want you to go and meet him, but you were annoyed because we had gone to the cinema without you. We explained that we had both tried to contact you the night before to find out if you coming but neither of us could get through to you. I think that must have been the first time that ***** threatened to commit suicide. That was the first time that Kate and I noticed a change in you. You weren’t the same from that point on, and I miss the old you so much. Our first and apparently last sleepover was spent mostly with you on the phone to *****.
Yesterday I was sat with my family and neighbours celebrating New Year. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I was wondering what you were doing at that point. I fear that you’ve gotten involved with drugs or that you’re pregnant or something. In that way I dread hearing from your mum. I hope that this year you will see how this experience has set you back. You have left school without any qualifications and for what? The love of your life? The love of your life wouldn’t have done this to you or your family. I hope that one day I will see you again, but every day I doubt that more and more. The last time that I saw you it seemed as though you were breaking free from *****’s grasp. He told you to make me leave. He gave us half an hour. But you wouldn’t let me leave until I was ready, even when he phoned to find out if I had gone. I hoped that that would be the point where you saw what he was really like and that everyone would get through this, but then you left again. You were missing for 6 months. The first time that I spoke to you after you had made contact it sounded like you would soon be coming home. You told me that you had seen the press appeals asking for any information on your whereabouts. Yet you still remained hidden. I don’t know what to think anymore. I just hope that one day you’ll see sense and realise what a huge mistake you’ve made. I can only hope that this will happen, and if it does, all of your family and friends will still be standing by you. That is how much we care.
******
xxxxxx