Too Late
by Melissa

Her head was spinning. She’d been at home for a week … avoiding the world. Jax called to let her know what happened with his brother … her lover. Jax sounded … cold, distant, angry, as he should, she imagined, but it hadn’t hit her yet. Jerry was dead. Death. The word didn’t mean as much to Alexis as it did normal people. She lived with it looming over her head her whole life. Her mother, her sister, her brother, Chloe, Cameron, Zander, everyone else that dared come into town and challenge Sonny. No. Sonny didn’t do this. She hung up with Jax after offering anything he needed, when really … she needed something.

She dialed the all too familiar number.

“Hello?” He sounded tired … exhausted really.

“Sonny, it’s Alexis.”

“Hi … what’s wrong?”

“Um …” she couldn’t say ‘nothing’. Jerry was dead, and she loved him. “I just … I wanted to call and … well … I’ll be blunt. Did you kill Jerry Jacks tonight?”

“No.” No emotion.

No emotion?!?!? Someone died. She swallowed … someone whom Sonny hated … Jerry held him hostage … Alexis couldn’t blame him, she guessed, for not caring.

“Are you all right?” he questioned softly, now emotion flowing freely. The question wasn’t expected.

Was she? All right? Okay? Fine? No. Her … boyfriend? Just died. Murdered. A boat explosion. Was she all right? She caught him making out with her daughter a month prior … he’d done awful things … before and after, but she loved him … didn’t she? Two months ago she did.

“Alexis?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m,” she shrugged, “I’m not dead.” She hung up. Odd. ‘I’m not dead’. Who speaks like that? She wasn’t being cocky, or mean … she was … just saying what her brain came up with. She’s not the one who died.

She sat on her couch, quiet surrounding her … suffocating her. She needed him. He was gone. Her breathing became shallow … she swallowed. It was setting in. He’d left her. The memory of an envelope sailed through her mind and she rushed to her room to retrieve it. Breathing heavier, she sat on the bed and ripped into it, pausing at the letter. The words and letters jumbled together. She couldn’t read it. Her eyes betrayed her. No, those were tears. She had to get through this, quickly. She read it, quickly, and had to go back and read it again. Revelation. Her stomach flipped.

Dear Alexis,

If you’re reading this, well, I guess it sucks to be me. That’s what the kids are saying these days, right? So, I’m dead. Wow. Honestly, thinking of all the obstacles I’ve been through in my life, I never once imagined that I’d die in Port Charles. I know that I wasn’t immortal, though I acted as if I were from time to time. I know, or, well, knew, that I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing and survive in one piece. I regret that mentality, the ‘thrill of adventure’ now, I guess. I regret, no, I’m saddened at the thought of you, what we could have done … been together. Alexis, this letter is to reveal some important information to you, and you’ll find it all attached in the documents following, but this letter is to reveal … information for you:

I loved you. I’m sorry if I never admitted it to you, although I’ve let it slip once or twice while we made love. I did love you. I do love you. I never thought that I’d fall so fast and so hard for someone. It wasn’t a game for me, ever. I guess I lied when I told you that I’d prove to you that you deserved love. Although you did, and still do, I’m not there to show you. That’s my regret. I feel a pain in my soul now, writing this, knowing that one day … one day soon you might read this and I’ll be gone. I’m working up the courage to tell you, but it’s a slow process. I don’t want to scare you as well. I’m not sure of your feelings toward me, but when we’re together, alone, you seem to need me, want me … dare I say, love me.

I’m sorry for leaving you, more than you’ll ever know. I’m not gone now, though, as I write this letter, so I’ll try … I’ll be careful. As long as I still have you, I have a reason to live.

Love lasts even after death, Alexis.

Jerry

Alexis wiped her eyes as her stomach turned. She placed her hand over her mouth and read over the words ‘As long as I still have you, I have a reason to live’. He didn’t have her at the end. She refused his phone calls, ignored him completely. He hurt her, and she was punishing him, but now … the roles were switched. She was being punished … for not listening to him. She chose her daughter, which was the right thing to do, but she wasn’t thinking clearly. She was scared. Scared shitless and … seeing them … she couldn’t handle it … not for a while, and it was too late. Too late.

She thought of her situation years ago with Sonny. She chose not to tell him that she’d fallen in love with him. She chose not to tell him that she was carrying his child. This was the opposite … ending. Jerry left her. He died. She chose, at first, not to tell him that she’d fallen in love with him, but she might have changed that. She was honestly thinking of changing that. She’d waited too long. She didn’t tell him that she’d fallen in love with him. She didn’t tell him that she was carrying his child.