I looked at the letter.

_____

To those who even care,

For the last two years I have had a terminal illness, or so many thought. In reality I was completely fine. I had been acting, showing signs and symptoms of the rare, neurological disease the doctors and nurses believe I had. I won’t get into the details of how I kept the ruse going, but the most important part was to have the debilitations crescendo until death was likely. Because it needed to be likely for me to take my own life.

You don’t need to know why I wanted to die, but I’m sure you know that in the world we live in, had I attempted to take my own life and failed, I would have been watched the rest of my life. Never a moment to myself, every decision spoon fed to me. If I succeeded, the suicide would have resulted in my entire family being reviled and shunned from society. I don’t make the rules, but I knew I could skirt them to get what I want.

Then why am I writing this letter? Because as selfless as I was to fake the illness to ensure my family remains a part of the community, selfishness has won. The world needs to know how well I acted. As a struggling actor, I now know that all I needed was to be cast in a life or death role for my skills to shine. This was an Oscar worthy performance I kept up for years and even shunned my family should be proud of me.

Good Bye.

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I decided to burn the letter.