Dear Leo,

I think I have more dreams with you in them than any other identifiable person I know. Even though we parted on good terms, and even though our communications are now limited to twice-a-year how-are-yous for the last ten years, you’re still the face in my dreams that won’t go away.

I’m not sure why. We didn’t have a particularly outstanding friendship, and they usually aren’t happy dreams. In my few fantastical adventure dreams, I work alone or with strangers. Most of my dreams are themeless and neutral, or very unhappy. It’s always in these lattermost dreams that you are present.

You’re also the only friend of mine in my dreams who always dies.

This worries me.
Mother says that dying in a dream is actually good fortune, although I can’t imagine why. Then again, the death card in Tarot isn’t sad, either: it represents transformation, passage and rebirth.

But I don’t think my dreams are thinking of Tarot.

I don’t know if it means I worry about you more, or you’re subconsciously on my mind the most. I certainly don’t wish you any harm.

I’ve had a recurring nightmare for as far back as I can remember. My first recollection of the nightmare was when I was four or five. In the beginning, the faces were all blank, but as the years went on, the figures began to pick up the faces of certain individuals in my life.

The first face that was ever clear in that dream— the first person who always dies in that dream— is you.

I had another dream about you recently. We were trapped in a big, dark house together, with precarious platforms partially rotted and stairwells creaking unsteadily beneath our feet. I could feel my mind starting to shatter. I was depressed— I was desperate— I was on the brink of madness.

I’m sorry. In my dream, I killed you.

But you came back, as you always do. You plucked the bullet from your neck and kept me from killing myself. You wouldn’t let me release the rage and anxieties that had me destroying anything and anyone I could.

You were suffocating me.

None of this is remotely what we’re really like. None of this portrays our friendship at all. I love you dearly even now, in our twice-a-year how-are-yous. I would never wish you harm. You’re a good, giving person who sacrifices yourself all the time for those around you. You always have been, and probably always will be.

I admire that.

I’m so sorry. I can’t explain why my sleeping mind seems to want you dead. Maybe it’s to protect you from everything else, or maybe it’s to protect you from me. Maybe I’m trying to push you away. I swear I don’t know. I want you healthy and happy and alive. I want ten more years of how-are-yous, and ten more after that, and ten more after that.

Friends forever. I think we can do it; how about you?

Pisces, age 23