Synopsis: Silent Letters

Gwen is stuck at home with nothing to do during vacation in July. Almost all of her friends are on the Lit. Tour with the school. Unforunately, she was too poor to join them. Forunately, it's almost over and all of her friends will be back soon. She's spent most of her time alone thinking about the object of her desire: Robin. They were just friends before the holiday; almost casual aquaintances, but over the past week she's really become quite infatuated with him.

She wakes up the next morning and turns on the TV. Her parents are already at work and ths house is quiet. On the news comes the report of a horrendous plane crash.
"Huh," she says over her corn flakes.
"A group of literature students from *********** College were killed in the plane crash."

This is unbelievable. Gwen drops her bowl and the contents splashes around her ankles. They're all dead. She's the only one left behind of her closest buddies. Her best friend, Audrey, is dead as can be. Her second best friend, Carol, is also dead. Everyone. Almost everyone she loves is gone. Sure, her family is alive but it's not the same. Her life feels useless and worthless. These were people she'd grown to love tremendously. There were some things that only they knew about her. Amazing memories that only she would have and no one else. It's too much to bear. Gwen doesn't want to live anymore but still... she doesn't want to leave her family. It's selfish of her. It's almost like she would be saying that she values her friends over her family.

Instead, she broaches her parents with the idea of sending her to a different school for her senior year. There's no way that she can return to her old high school. Classes would be dull but behind all of that, behind her inevitable bored expression as routine turns to life, would be the most intense feeling of unhappiness as the reality of the deaths of her friends comes to light.

Thus, she winds up in ******** Senior High School at the beginning of the school year and who should be by her side but her only friend now; Robin. He is just as torn apart about the accident as Gwen is and they vow to stick together forever (or at least until they graduate). It's just them left now. The pair of them soon become somewhat well-known in their new school. Everyone has heard of the two kids whose friends were all on that Boeing. They have to stick together through thick and thin.

Soon enough, they both develop a kind of immature love for each other stunted by their incapabilities to express emotional thoughts beyond "See you tomorrow", a result from the "EVerybody Dies" concept. Even though it exists Gwen refuses to admit it even when she knows that Robin requits this feeling and even though she knows he wants something to happen between them both. But how can she? It feels like a betrayal. Here she is living this life in which she's falling in love, making new friends, going through high school and on the road to college, to a job, to experiencing things that her friends will never get to.

Gwen is more reluctant to make new friends, make a new life for herself, in this school than Robin. He joins the basketball team. He has his own new group of friends and, once agaan, Gwen has been left behind. What she doesn't know though is that underneath that new popular jock exterior he doesn't play with as much vigour as his teammates, he doesn't go to the parties, he doesn't make-out with the cheerleaders, he doesn't try. All he wants is to forget who he is, forget the friends he used to have, and to be with Gwen, friends or lovers. He just wants that one person that understands him.

It's Christmas. Robin is very religious. He spends the holiday with his extended family and Gwen is left behind with her small family and her brother who can't quite understand the gargantuan impact of what has happened. Still.

When Robin returns from his holiday he is even more crestfallen. His parents have decided to move across the country because they want to take Robin away from his hometown. They've seen his depression. A new school hasn't really helped. He seems even more sad. It's everything; a culmination of the terrible accident, the seemingly unrequited love, the stupid new friends who have no grasp on how he's really feeling and who don't care.

When he approaches her she becomes defensive and says she may never get over the deaths of her friends. Robin says that he can help and that he loves her with all of his heart and just wants to mean something to her. He doesn't want to be a replacement anymore or someone with no future in her mind. But Gwen becomes mad because everyone is pressuring her. Her parents get frustrated and enraged at her when she mopes. They tell her to get over it. What's done is done. No amount of sadness can bring them back. Heartless people. They'd never understand. But Gwen is even more upset with Robin. He's supposed to understand. He's in her exact position. He's supposed to know how it feels having lost everyone.

"I do know how it feels," he says. "But I want to get over it."

Gwen leaves Robin behind; tells him to go. She hates him now. She goes to Audrey's house. Old house. Just her parents and little sisters life there now. When she gets there, there are boxes on the front lawn and a stack of old furniture sitting on the curb. The Moors are leaving. Just like she and Robin they can't stand to be in this place anymore. She begs them to stay but they just can't. As she looks at their faces, dead of emotion, at Audrey's littlest sister, Marilyn, trying to vye for a hug from her mom but getting rejected, she suddenly realizes what's happening and decides that she has to find Robin, make things work.

So she finds him and three years later they're still together in college. They'll never leave each other. They don't live in their hometown anymore; they go to college thousands of miles away. Not only do they love each other endlessly but they're the only connection they have of their dearly departed friends and so long as they stay together they shall never forget them.