First off lifesaver, mega big props to you for using the word "scootch."
It's funny, I was just thinking about something similar to this the other day. The summer after my sophomore year in college was the summer from hell - multiple family deaths, job I didn't really like, other problems. While I had all this shit on my mind, out of the blue, I wrote a letter to an old friend. We had been close friends in 7th & 8th grade and she moved away halfway through 8th. I found out at the end of 8th that she came back to visit and never called me, never contacted me, anything. I was extremely, extremely hurt. So I wrote her a letter 7 years later and told her so. She wrote back and apologized, we wrote one more time and that was that. Point I'm trying to make is I wasn't carrying this around to the point that it interfered with my life - I was just cleaning out my closet (thank you Eminem) and letting her know my feelings was one of the things I had to do. It sounds like Alex is in a similar state (although way more vindictive).
Kelly's paragraph is excellent - something like that.