Chapter Text
The first and oldest memory Jesper had of his mother was the brightness of her smile. The second one was how incredibly patient she always was with him.
He remembered how he used to sit on her lap in front of the vanity in his parents’ bedroom and inspect all the little tubes, brushes and jewellery on it while she got ready for the day, creating works of art by wrapping her long locks into colourfully patterned headscarfs and apply flecks of gold to her lids to bring out the warmth in her eyes.
She never scolded him for being curious, didn't stop him when he messed up one of her lipsticks by clumsily smearing the dark red colour all over his lips and cheeks, or when he accidentally broke one of her perfumes, knocking it off the vanity because he couldn't quite figure out how to use it.
No, she simply smiled at him through the glass of the mirror and interrupted her work to guide his little hands, to teach him how to turn himself into a work of art as well, into something he was proud of even when he got teased for it by the other kids on the playground, something that made him stick out his chest a little more, and hold his head a little higher.
There's a gift in each of us, she would say, tracing along the lines of his cheekbones to show him exactly where the colour belonged, and which shade he had to use to create the perfect blend with the tone of his skin, we just have to be brave enough to let the world see it.
He loved inspecting all the little treasures in her collection of makeup and jewellery, but most of all, he loved the letters. She used to keep them in a little box on her vanity, one that was just big enough to fit the frame of an envelope, patterned with pretty light orange flowers. He found it during one of those times, his restless hands wandering, opening the lid - and finding, to his surprise, not the jewellery he expected, but a neat bundle of letters, held together by a thin red satin ribbon.
Aditi Hilli, the envelope at the top said, and Jesper was just old enough to recognise his mother's name and his father's neat penmanship. He looked up at her from where he was sitting on her lap, waiting for permission. She nodded, with that beautiful and encouraging smile of hers, like she had been waiting for him to find them, to finally discover this part of her, too.
He took them out of the flowered box, more careful and more conscious than he usually was, and slowly undid the ribbon, felt its smooth fabric brush over the back of his hand when he took it apart.
They were all addressed to her, he realised, every single one of them. One, two, three, he counted out loud, up until twelve when reached the bottom of the stack. They were all made from the same kind of thick paper, and they all had been opened at the top, a clean cut, from a sharp knife led by a steady hand.
Why did Da write you so many letters? he asked, not understanding how many different kinds of love there were yet, but bright-eyed and curious about all the stories life had to tell.
Because he wanted me to know that he loved me and that he was thinking about me, even when we were apart. And that he carried me in his heart, no matter where he was. She placed her warm hand on his small chest. Right there.
He shifted on her lap, small hands still holding onto the last envelope. Did you write him letters too? he wanted to know.
She laughed, throwing her head back, making the soft fabric of her headscarf tickle his cheek when she squeezed his small body closer to her chest. Oh, so many, my Little Rabbit. She pressed a kiss to his cheek. So, so many. But I never sent them, not a single one. I didn’t want him to know yet, that I loved him too. I was determined to make him wait a little longer, to see if he would persist.
Why? He had so many questions, so much he didn’t know yet but wanted to know, so he kept tracing his mother’s name on every single envelope while she spoke, like by doing it, he would be able to soak in all of their secrets, all the stories they had to tell. Why did you write them if you never sent them?
Because sometimes, she took his hand into hers and guided it over the paper of the envelope, sometimes feelings are too big to be kept inside your small heart. Sometimes, you need to get them out there, because otherwise, they consume you, fully, from the inside out, until you can’t think or feel anything else.
He didn’t yet understand what she meant by that, not really. But he was happy to listen nonetheless, joyful about having uncovered another one of the secrets his mother’s vanity held, about having collected another one of her stories like they were colourful beads he could slip onto a thread and wear around his neck.
She let him keep the box, and all the letters too. So you can read them when you’re older, she said, and when you have someone in your life that might be worth writing back to. He carried the box to his room with pride and kept it on his nightstand like a valuable trophy. His father must have spotted it when he came up to his room to give him a kiss good night that day, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he tucked his son in like he always did and told him a story about a princess from a faraway land and a prince who was determined to find a way to prove his love to her, no matter how many times she rejected him.
When his mother died, Jesper suddenly didn’t feel brave anymore. He felt like that gift she always told him he was carrying in his chest had lost all of its light, because there was only hollowness, and pain. Grief wrapped itself around his heart, around his home, around his Da and all the memories he had been able to collect so far in his young life.
His Ma’s laugh disappeared, turned into a distant echo until one day he couldn’t remember its melody anymore and her colourful headscarves collected dust, just like her vanity and all her jewellery did.
After a few weeks that felt like an eternity and yet just the blink of a moment, one of his aunts came over to live with them for a while, to cook dinners for Jesper and take care of the household, clear away all the takeaway boxes in the living room and gently prod Colm to take a shower and join them for a walk around the block. He rarely did, but still, Jesper helped her to ask, again and again, hope never leaving him even though its flame grew smaller and smaller.
She also helped Jesper to put away his Ma’s stuff and he watched as all her colours slowly disappeared around the house, as her pretty dresses and scarfs wandered into plain brown cardboard boxes to be stored in the attic, their magic out of reach, out of sight, out of mind.
It will help your Da to start fresh, his aunt promised. And if it helps him, it will help you too. Jesper didn’t understand how getting rid of all the last bits of joy his mother had left behind would help fill the void in his chest in any way, but he kept assisting to sort out item after item, until his parents’ bedroom was almost empty, naked, until the house was a clean canvas, like somebody had scraped all its paint off, desperately trying to make a painting meant to last for eternity disappear in the blink of a moment.
The only thing of hers they kept in the house was the little box with the letters. Jesper hid it under his bed when his aunt insisted on clearing out his mother’s things, scared that she would make him get rid of it too. He didn’t know if she didn’t see it, or if she simply chose not to mention it, not to ask him to add it to one of the cardboard boxes, but in his little heart, which was filled with so much confusion and unfamiliar pain, he was grateful for it.
So, the box stayed. His aunt left, and his Da slowly came back. They didn’t talk about it, not at first, and Jesper was too little to know how to express real comfort to his father in a way that didn't involve words and how to ask for comfort in return. But they lived. And the world kept spinning. And the box stayed in his room, day after day, month after month.
A year after his Ma died, Jesper wrote his very first letter. He had only just learnt how to write and still needed to spell every letter out loud while he put pen to paper, but for the first time in his short life, he understood what she had meant about the freedom of writing down your feelings, about putting them out there even if you were never going to let anyone else read them.
Her name was Inej Ghafa. She was the only girl who always managed to escape him and his long legs in a game of catch, and who always won at hide and seek because of how fast she could climb the trees in the backyard of their school, so high up that nobody could spot her because the branches hid her small body so well. She got in trouble for it many times because their teacher was worried sick, thinking she had disappeared, when all she was doing was hiding out in secret for hours, silent as a ghost, clever with wisdom beyond her young age.
Jesper thought she was the coolest and prettiest girl in the entire school, even though he never dared to tell her face-to-face. But he could write it, on some pretty stationery which his aunt had gifted him for his birthday, and put it into an envelope that he sealed, never to be opened again. INEJ GHAFA he wrote in thick, bold letters onto the front, even though he knew she would never receive it. He even drew a little tree next to her name.
Then, he found his mother's box with the orange flowers on it and put the envelope in it, adding it to the collection of letters from his father. It gave him a feeling of joy he hadn’t felt quite like this in a while. It was like his mother was smiling at him again, tracing his cheek and telling him how proud she was of her Little Rabbit. It was exhilarating. It was addictive.
The next letter, he wrote in third grade. The boy he was assigned to share a desk with was the exact opposite of him: Matthias Helvar had white-blonde hair, was moody, quiet, prefered to eat his sandwich alone under the big oak tree in the schoolyard, and frequently sent Jesper icy looks out of his piercing blue eyes when his bouncing legs made their desk shake during class, or when he accidentally broke one of the crayons he had dared to steal from him. The only thing they really had in common was being the tallest boys in their class, towering over everyone else in the yearly picture.
Jesper found himself unable to resist poking and prodding the other boy and made it his personal challenge to get a smile out of him, so he tried every joke and story he could possibly think of to charm him. But the only thing he achieved through that was getting Matthias to ask the teacher for different deskmate because he found Jesper’s presence too distracting.
After that, Jesper stopped trying to get his attention, but he did write a letter for the blonde boy, one that he added to his mother’s box, his own collection growing now that there were already two of them. He wondered if his own letters would ever surpass his father’s in number and if yes, whose name would be written on the envelope that would break the record.
The third unsent letter Jesper wrote in sixth grade. Kuwei Yul-Bo won the Spelling Bee for the third year in a row and Jesper couldn’t help but admire him for it. It was the effortlessness with which the other boy seemed to almost slip through education, despite always quietly doodling in the corner of the class like he couldn’t be bothered less about what was going on in the front of the room, while Jesper tried his hardest to focus and yet kept getting back exams full of red remarks and bad grades he didn’t quite know how to explain to his father.
Kuwei was the first one of Jesper’s crushes that approached him on his own, offering to help him after he had noticed his struggles in math. Despite the fact that his efforts failed terribly - letting the person you have a crush on try to teach you something you’re bad at because you can’t focus in the first place was a plan doomed from the start, he would realise later on - Kuwei earned Jesper’s next letter, sealed and safely tucked away into his mother’s box, also never to be opened again, just like the first two.
A few years passed after that, during which Jesper didn't write any letters. All throughout middle school he almost forgot about the existence of his mother’s box, too busy with his growing social life and distancing himself from his father to avoid his disappointment about the lack of progress in school, putting all of his focus onto his free time where he could get rid of his neverending energy - and in the process, making his grades tumble even more.
But Jesper couldn’t bring himself to really care when there were so many more interesting things to do than having to sit still in a classroom all day, trapped by the inability to share every exciting thought and new idea that came to his mind and forced to take an interest in topics he didn’t quite understand the importance of in the first place.
Then, he met Nina Zenik.
Her family had just moved to town so she was new at school and for some reason, she immediately gravitated towards Jesper. Nina was cheerful and quick-witted, always had a comeback for every snide remark and an irresistible smile through which she charmed the lunch lady into giving her free waffles every day and the principal into letting her wear clothes that violated the dress code just a little bit. But she was also smart - very smart - and studious, never failing tests despite making a habit of sneaking out through her bedroom window every other night and being part of almost every after-school club.
It was a combination of character traits Jesper had never dared to think of as being possible - but there Nina was, taking a seat next to him in the cafeteria as if it had always belonged to her, considering Jesper her new best friend before he could even finish spelling out his middle name.
So for a few years, it was just them - Jesper and Nina. Nina and Jesper. The boy that never stopped talking and the girl that dared to be brutally honest to the point where it made people uncomfortable. A match made in heaven for them, a nuisance made in hell for their teachers.
Somehow, together, they made it work that Jesper kept his grades up high enough to pass through all of middle school. It was just one of the reasons their bond grew so tight that they both started to consider each other the siblings they’d never had, but always wished for.
Jesper told Nina everything. About his mother, about her death and about how it changed his Da. But he never mentioned the letters. He didn’t know why, but something about it felt like it was meant to stay a secret between him and his mother, something that would lose all of its magic if he let someone else in on it. So, he didn't.
But maybe, he also didn’t tell Nina about it because he knew that she would never need something like those letters. She would never leave them unsent, and she wouldn’t write them in the first place. No, Nina was the kind of person who would walk right up to her crush and tell them to their face how she felt, unafraid of the answer she would get and proud enough to own it either way.
Maybe, he didn’t tell her because he knew she wouldn’t get it. But she also taught him how to live a little louder, and a little more honestly, and how to push himself out of comfort zones he wasn’t even aware he had been hiding in all along.
Maybe for that reason, it took Jesper until high school to write the next letter. It was written three months into his first semester and it was addressed to Kaz Brekker, also a Freshman.
The surprising thing about Kaz was that generally, he wasn’t what was considered “cool” in the social rulebook of high school at all. It was the exact opposite, actually: He quickly became captain of both the chess and the math club, he always wore dated clothes and strange leather gloves and by the second week of classes, he had wrapped almost the entire faculty of teachers around his finger, to the annoyance of everyone else who didn’t share the privileges this gave him.
But it was the way he owned his reputation, the way he unapologetically sat alone in the middle of the cafeteria at lunchtime like he dared anyone to try and take a seat next to him, or how he always had a surprisingly articulate comeback ready which he delivered with a certain deadpan look on his face whenever an upperclassman looking for trouble found the need to approach him, that made him…fascinating. Impressive. Admirable?
Two months into the school year, every single student knew who Kaz Brekker was, because there were rumours that he single-handedly beat up a Senior who had dared to make fun of his limb, to the extent that the school nurse directly sent the poor guy to the hospital. But the most fascinating part about it wasn’t that Kaz could hold his own against a boy three years older than him, but that he managed to get away with it without facing any kind of detention or getting expelled.
Jesper didn’t know if the rumour was true, but he had to admit that there was something intriguing about the other boy, about how he carried himself with pride and confidence and looked his bullies dead in the eye. Jesper had always been popular, had been easy to like and had, just like Nina, a certain energy that naturally drew people towards him. He struggled academically, yes, but never socially. So maybe it was the way that Kaz seemed to be the polar opposite of him - and yet had a certain calm that Jesper lacked and wished he could have too, that drew him towards the other boy.
So Jesper wrote him a letter. That he didn’t dare to send. Because despite his admiration, he didn’t quite find the courage in himself to face Kaz in person - too unsure what kind of reaction he would get, and not confident enough to try and get rejected. Or alternatively, punched in the face.
And then, there was the last, and most recent letter. The fifth.
At the beginning of Sophomore year of high school, there was suddenly a mop of curly red hair at the back of the classroom that Jesper had never noticed before. It took him about half a day of asking around to figure out that it belonged to Wylan Hendriks, a new student in his year who had apparently been homeschooled up until now, before his parents had decided to put him into public school to finish off high school. That was about as much as he could figure out, despite the huge range of people he more or less subtly questioned about it.
He was even less successful in trying to talk to Wylan himself. No matter how much he tried to get near to the boy, he seemed to make it his personal challenge to always slip out of Jesper’s reach. He never got paired up with him for group projects, no matter how sneakily Jesper tried to sit close to him, and always put on headphones as soon as the bell rang and class was dismissed, making it impossible to call after him because he was already off into his own world.
This letter, the fifth one, was probably the most honest and real one out of all five. It felt different, this time, to write it. Maybe it was because Jesper was old enough to quickly identify the prickling curiosity and the skipping heartbeat for what it was. Or because of the way he seemed to possess this intense magical ability to always locate Wylan’s presence around school - despite the fact that the boy rarely graced the campus with his presence outside of classes anyway. He wasn’t in any clubs and he never showed his face at any party or other social event. It only added to his mystery.
So Jesper did the only thing he could think of to do - he wrote his unrequited feelings down on paper, onto the same stationery he had gotten from his aunt all those years ago. The same paper that once seemed to whisper exciting encouragements now almost guiltily reminded him of how often he had done this already, of how easily he still found himself infatuated by people who were always beyond his reach, always longing for something he couldn’t have.
Maybe it’s me, he couldn’t help but think. Maybe I care too much. Maybe I need to start caring less.
When he sealed the envelope and wrote the name on it - Wylan Hendriks, in careful cursive - he vowed to himself to let this be the last one, forever, to never find himself in this situation again where he let himself get carried away by things beyond his control, let his desperate need for connection eat him alive.
From now on, I’ll care less.
He put the letter into the box and closed its lid. Then he carried it into his closet, found the space furthest hidden away, buried deep behind the colourful and vibrant mess that was his wardrobe these days, and shoved it there.
Out of sight and out of mind, to make him forget about the letters' existence as fast and easily as possible.
Or, so he hoped.