To the eyes of Pudge,

Let's face it, you're the one. You found this. You rummaged through my life's library that I left behind and found this among the stacks. The very middle, so you would go through the work. I knew you had it in you.

By the time you read this, I'll be long gone. I'm leaving, Pudge. I can't stay at the Creek anymore. Every day, I crawl deeper in this labyrinth while I'm trying to find a way out. I realised that tonight, on the phone with Jake. He keeps me here, you keep me here, the Colonel keeps me here, everyone. I was so distracted by these mile high walls that I even forgot to leave my mother flowers on her death day. Yet, I left the labyrinth flowers on the pay phone. White flowers like the one my mother braided into my hair when I was little. I should have never shared that with the chains that hold me bound by my wrists.

My mother is the only person I know that has escaped the labyrinth. She is living in whatever lives outside of the extensive walls that surround us, if there is anything. I need to find a way to connect with her somehow, like in the movies where the dead speak through whispers in the walls and bring enlightenment to the living. I can't tell you where I'm going, I just have to go and I need to be alone. I need to be alone with my mom and my own screwed up crazy mind that has gotten enough people into trouble as it is.

That leads me to you. Tonight was beautiful. It was beautiful and I don't regret one moment of it, but I don't love you, Pudge. I know you're thinking now, "She loves her boyfriend, of course," but no I don't. I've found myself incapable of loving until I figure out this great mystery that is the labyrinth.

You were one of my best friends and I wanted you, probably too much. I wanted to feel you feeling me and loving me, even though I knew I couldn't feel the same. I meant what I said, though. We will be continued. Someday, when I find out what God was thinking in putting me on this terrible earth where we are trapped inevitably and condemned if we attempt to escape, I will come back and I will find you if the fates allow. We will reunite and I will enlighten you on the only question I ever had in Dr. Hyde's class: how do we escape this labyrinth? Then we'll escape together. We'll find a way. Maybe then I'll be able to love you. Maybe then you'll forgive me for leaving. Maybe then you'll want to try again and be continued.

So I'm on my way to a beautiful place that my mother and I shared. Like I said, I cannot tell you where, but I want you to know I'm safe. It could be years before I return or weeks, however long it takes to reach enlightenment. In the mean time, pull pranks, spend the night with girls, fight the patriarchal paradigm, and find more last words so you can tell me in the middle of the night someday when we are together again. But don't wait up, you'll miss out on life that way.

From the desk of Alaska Young