100 Words

Every morning, when the sun was still gone and his parents were still asleep, Chris sat down at his desk and wrote. He wrote letters, each only a page long. A new day, a new letter to write.

Some of the letters were happy. Some of the letters were sad. Some were love letters, though Chris never felt sincere writing those ones.

Chris wrote to himself, he wrote to his parents, he wrote to his brothers and sisters, and he wrote to his friends. He wrote to people he had yet to meet, and to people who he could never meet. He wrote to the living and he wrote to the deceased.

He hadn't honestly expected to make it past a month. Thirty letters alone seemed like a lot, and Chris never had the best skills for keeping a schedule. But something changed for him with this task he pressed upon himself. There seemed to be some reason that he always remembered to write.

Through the course of time, he realized that he was writing to find out why he wrote. His letters, while never intended to receive any responses, became filled with all sorts of rhetorical questions.

To his parents he asked if they felt their lives had been intended for them. To his brothers and sisters he asked if they knew what it was like to not know. To his friends he asked why they had been brought together as they were. To his grandparents he asked if they had any regrets. To the living he asked why they lived, and to the deceased he asked if it had all been worth it.

His determination was so strong that before he knew it, not one month had passed, but three. And then another week passed.

Chris numbered every one of the letters. He was actually frightened when he saw the number 100 at the top of the page. His fear may have stemmed from the feeling that this was it. This was the letter that he needed to write, because it would give him an answer. One final answer.

The usual quiet that filled the house as he wrote was now eerie and bone-chilling. Chris shivered and his hands trembled. He thought he might not even be able to write this letter, because he was shaking so hard. But as the pen touched the paper, the lines of ink came out as steady as ever.

This day he wrote to someone he didn't know, a boy called Jonny. It felt as if some sort of otherworldly presence was trying to speak through Chris, because he had never met this boy, but he knew everything about him. He could feel the pain this boy had been through, all the suffering he had experienced and the tears he had cried. Chris's heart went out to this boy.

He told Jonny that everything was going to be OK. That no matter what awful tragedies he had endured, there would always be someone there to help him get by. Chris wrote that he would be there for this boy, and as he wrote he seemed to have forgotten that they didn't even know each other. But Jonny was as real to him as anything else in his life.

Chris wrote that Jonny could always trust in him, and he would always be a shoulder to cry on, if Jonny ever needed it. Then it was no longer Jonny's pain that he felt, but his own pain. He quickly reread what he had written, surprised to find that unlike the other letters, this one lacked any questions. Maybe it wasn't so surprising after all, but he realized that it did need a question, the one question that was burning in Chris's heart.

Some of the blue lines on the page ran down as a few tears splashed onto the paper, and Chris penned the last line of the letter: But, Jonny... why don't you love me?

Chris threw his pen across the room and buried his head in his hands. He wasn't very happy at all with his discoveries, though even from the beginning he was skeptical of the idea that he would be pleased with his answer. After a few minutes he looked back at the paper, snatched it from the desk and crumpled it with a fiery anger coursing through his veins.

Then Chris opened the drawer of his desk and took out every single one of the other ninety-nine letters. He left his room exactly as it was as he walked out into the living room and headed straight for the fireplace.

Once he had the fire going strong enough, Chris began to throw the papers in one by one, classified by who he had written them to. He threw his parents' letters in and knew what life was intended for him. He threw his brothers' and sisters' letters in and knew that he would never fully know. He threw his friends' letters in and knew that he and Jonny would meet so that he could save Jonny. He threw in his grandparents' letters and knew that he would always have regrets.

He knew he would live for Jonny, but as he burned the rest of the letters his feelings changed, and he suddenly knew that it would all be worth it.

When he reached the letter marked 100, he stopped. He had burned the rest in anger, because he didn't want this to be his future, a dreary and loveless existence that he would live in vain. He put the fire out and carried the letter to Jonny with him as he returned to his room.

His last question was mistakenly asked.

He folded the paper and kept it in his shirt pocket for the rest of the day. Then the next day he took it out and put it in the new shirt he wore. For three years he did this, and every day the paper rested against his heart.

At the age of nineteen, Chris was entering his second year of college. He was not late for his first class, but by the time he walked into the room, almost all of the seats had been taken. He quickly rushed to the first seat he could find, and as he turned to his right he saw that he was sitting next to an unusually depressed-looking boy. And something clicked.

"Excuse me," he said to the boy, as he reached for his pocket. He unfolded the paper before he handed it over. "I think this is for you."

The boy, rather startled, took the paper and began to read it. It was obvious that he had not read much of it before he set it down and reached for something in his backpack. Chris sat by patiently, waiting for whatever this boy was about to do.

Without a word, Chris was handed another paper by the boy. The first thing he noticed was that at the top of the page had been written the number 100. He didn't even need to read the letter to know what it said, and he looked up and smiled at the boy, who grinned right back.

Then Chris looked down at the bottom of the letter, just because, and he read the very last line: You probably think I don't love you, but I'm just too afraid to show it.

And Chris was very pleased with his answer.