A Candyfan's Reaction to Candy's Letter to Terry

 Aleksandra's Testimony

I want to share a thought about Candy’s letter to Terry which was never sent… You know, I was almost crying while reading it. Maybe the tears were not so obvious on my face, but there were sad and bitter tears in my heart. I do not know how to say what I felt while reading it, no words can describe it… The letter was so beautiful and so sad… Candy is such a special person, so kind-hearted with no selfishness at all! But the lines about Susanna… You know, something turned upside down in me when I read them. Never before did I want so much that Susanna never appeared in Terry and Candy lives and never broke their happiness! Why? Why did it happen to Candy, to the most wonderful girl in the world? Why did it happen to Terry? To the two people who deserved happiness more that anybody else on the whole Earth? Why did they lose their happiness because of HER? I did not consider her very evil (evil since birth, like Eliza, for example). I can understand a girl in love who wants her beloved guy to always be near her, but I hate that stupid obstinate behavior when she knows that he loves another girl, that he is not happy with her and will never be, and she still behaves like this --- it is disgusting! She thinks that she “loves” Terry, but can it be true love? Can love be so selfish? Susanna’s feeling is not the love should be, because true love never allows to hurt the person you love. How can she be so obstinate and egoistic and so sure about her “love”? Oh, it may be awful to say, but if she appeared in their life, why did not she jump off the roof then? Why? Why could she not do at least one good thing for another person instead of for HERSELF? She always behaves like “everything for ME, ME, ME-E-E”!!! And it doesn’t matter what price for that! And all the others feel pity for "poor Susanna”, the unhappy invalid unable to walk. Oh, her true face! She is simply an egoist! She is like Eliza, only her face is nicer.  But behind that nice face are such thoughts and behavior! Why did she appear at all? And a kind girl like Candy really feels pity towards her because in her disinterested heart she is not able to understand the real “Susie” since she would never behave like this herself. I wonder what Ms. Mizuki thought about Susanna? It cannot be that she too considered her as a poor unhappy girl. If Candy and Terry were just separated in the story, even if they could never be happy together again, I could reconcile with it (though  I would continue to dream and write fanfics). But leaving Terry with Susie, breaking his life for HER to be happy!!!???

The anime/manga really means a lot for me (and I am not angry with Mizuki or Igarashi at all because it was they who created this wonderful story for us). I think that I do not even understand how much the story means for me. Yes, it is a story, but a story which happens in life. And for me it is so real, like no other story… And how many Susannas are there around us? I am not sure if there are many Candys or Terrys (what a pity! Such people would make the world brighter!), but Susannas - there are many… And why do those “Susies” always get what they want? Those complaining, whining, always pretending, and insincere “Susies”?!!! And why do other people have to suffer? …and maybe, it was good that Candy never saw Susie’s true face, it would break Candy’s heart…

Sometimes I feel pity towards Susanna, not so much for her lost leg, but for her weak character, complaints and egoism and sometimes I hate her for this weakness and egoism. I feel pity that she appeared and broke Candy and Terry's happiness. I hate her selfishness, which triumphed over love, her complaining and whining… But I can't hate her in general… She is not so bad… She is simply weak and maybe her life has made her an egoist because it seems she always got what she liked… She is not like Eliza. Eliza was evil and her evil behavior was obvious. Susanna's evil behavior was also obvious, but I do not think she especially wanted Candy or Terry to suffer. Maybe not… And maybe yes? But it is so frightening to believe… When Candy said she would be all right, Susanna believed because she wanted to believe. We always believe what we want… She did not want to understand because of her egoism… I do not know sometimes it seems to me that an evil spirit took Susanna's soul and made her to behave like this… If there were no Candy maybe Terry could have loved Susanna because she's quite nice in appearance and quite kind in heart, but there was Candy! And Terry fell in love with Candy, not Susanna! This is the matter! Terry loves Candy and Candy loves Terry!! But Susanna broke their happiness, not knowing that by breaking their happiness she breaks hers too because later she will understand how difficult it is to live with a man who always thinks about another girl… Maybe she didn't want to make them suffer, but she did it, and it is also a fact. It is too difficult to forgive that!!! It is almost impossible to do (except if she corrects her mistake, if it is still possible, but probably she will never have enough strength to get rid of her egoism at least once in her life and let Terry go without trying to hold him with unnoticeable ties)… I do not know if you understand me, sometimes it is difficult to tell the feelings in words… I am always on Candy's side and I am her devoted fan, Terry's also (because they both deserve happiness!) But I can't say that Susanna must immediately go to hell… She made a terrible mistake and she has to correct it as soon as possible, then everybody will be happy. It seems the only possible way for me… I don't know maybe I am silly, but I really want all three to find their happiness. Is it idealistic? A wish… A wish I would tell to the star…

And finally why did Candy not send the letter to Terry and the other letter which she wrote to Susanna? To my mind, it was because it would be a lie. She wrote to Terry “I loved you”, but she still loves Terry, she always will. And speaking about her own love in the past tense would be a lie to her own heart. She could lie to Terry (a white lie!), that she would be happy, because she did not want him to suffer and worry about her (though of course, he will, and probably he did not believe her words. He made himself believe because of Susanna, because he could not behave another way. She, that egoistic girl was near him pretending that she needed him more that anybody in the world, more than Candy, and he sacrificed his feelings too). She could lie to Susanna (a white lie again!) And Susanna did not even think about what Candy’s actual sacrifice meant! She is really blind because she can’t see simple things!), but Candy could not lie to herself. Never. Candy wrote to Susanna that she was all right, that they could meet each other one day when they would be very old and laugh at everything, that she has made a right decision. Yes, her decision was right. It was the most generous, the most wonderful decision a person can do, because she sacrificed her happiness for this almost unknown girl and she wished Susanna and Terry to be happy with all her heart. And maybe she even believed they could be happy, but she could not send those letters and lie to herself that she is happy herself, that she does not love Terry anymore and that she will laugh when they all are very old…

I wonder what Terry would say if he got the letter and he knew how many times Susanna lied to him and to Candy? I wonder if Susanna opened the letter which Candy wrote to Terry… would she understand anything? What has she done? She does not understand it yet, but her life will turn into counting days, which are left for her, counting hours, that she has stolen, counting minutes, which she will spend with Terry looking at her with eyes which won’t see her, counting seconds that will never belong to her, because they belong to Candy, like Terry’s love and memories… She got what she wanted, but was it really what she wanted? Terry will never love her, probably he will even begin to hate her… Being with him --- will it be love she wanted? It will be the thing egoism made, it will be relationship she created herself…it will be a mirror where love turns into hatred, the paradise will cry and the hell will laugh… On the Earth, egoism triumphed over love, egoism of one person broke the love of two, the devils will laugh, but they will laugh even more at Susanna’s foolishness. They will turn her face into the cold mask of egoism and she will be scared when she looks into the mirror. Let them laugh, let the heaven cry… But anyway, she has lost the game, because eternal love survives through ages and nothing has enough power to destroy it. It will live and Candy’s letters will turn into yellow pieces of paper with hardly noticeable letters, and people will read and reread them and cry, cry with all their soul, with all their heart…