Love Letters to the Dead(36)

Hannah looked suspicious, like she was worried that suddenly everyone could see through her. Even with our friends, Hannah still likes to pretend that she and Natalie aren’t in love like that. Finally she untied the bow and pulled off the sheet and screamed, “Oh my god!” like she didn’t know how to take it. Maybe no one had given her something that good before. It was the tulip painting Natalie had made her in art class.

Natalie shifted back and forth between her feet. “You don’t like it.”

But Hannah kept looking at it, like she didn’t want to take her eyes away. The way there were so many shades of color in the tulip petals, opening and closing at once, it reminded me of the feeling of watching a sunset—you are in awe of something so beautiful, and at the same time, you know that particular sunset will only be there for a moment.

Hannah said, “Thank you.” She meant it. She could have cried, I could see, but she was in front of everybody, so she shook herself out of it.

When we were walking to the parking lot, Natalie said to Hannah, “I made the tulip that way, I made it a painting, because now you’ll always have it. It can’t wilt or die.” Natalie had taken what’s ephemeral and turned it into something that Hannah can keep. Hannah looked at Natalie like she was trying to make herself understand what it means to have someone love you like that.

At least that’s what I imagined, because I know that it can be hard to believe that someone loves you if you are afraid of being yourself, or if you are not exactly sure who you are. It can be hard to believe that someone won’t leave. Since that night at his house a week ago, things have been strange between me and Sky. He’s trying to act like they’re not, and when I asked him if he was mad at me, he said, “No. Forget about it, all right?” So I am trying my best.

Yours,

Laurel




Dear River,

I watched My Own Private Idaho last night. In the movie, you’d changed, like I have. You weren’t the kid from Stand by Me anymore. You’d grown up, and I could see that it hurt. You play Mike, a narcoleptic who lives on the streets as a hustler. The movie opens on an empty open road. You are stuck there, alone, waiting for sleep to take you over. The clouds roll away, so fast through the wide-open sky.

When you fall to sleep by the side of the road, you dream of your mom rubbing your head, telling you everything will be okay. “I know you’re sorry,” she says. In the movie, your mom abandoned you when you were little, and you want more than anything to find her.

My mom went away, too. I know how it feels to be sorry for something you can’t say. If I could have walked through the screen, I would have taken you in my arms. And I knew what you meant when you said, “The road never ends.” I know a road like that. It’s the last road I drove on with May.

It stretches past the cottonwood trees lining the river and the railroad tracks and the bridge. It stretches past when me and May were kids making spells, past climbing trees and picking apples and past the first time I saw her wearing lipstick, past the look on her face when she met Paul, past the movies that we never saw. It goes into a place where none of it ever existed, where it always did, where there is no such thing as time, but just a feeling that goes on forever. A feeling I can’t escape from. I’m sorry. I made her leave me.

It’s the feeling that I am afraid will make Sky go, too, eventually. And it’s the feeling that was with me all night when Tristan and Kristen took us to a senior’s party before they left for their trip. They said it’s a big holiday party that happens every year, where they like to go to watch the straight-edge kids cut lose. It was at a huge house with a Christmas tree and parents who were out of town and spiked eggnog and lots of kids I’d never seen before, some of them from other schools, I guess. Kristen wore a necklace that lit up with mini Christmas lights. She’s the kind of girl who can do stuff like that and make it seem cool, paired with her long tangled hair and her broomstick skirt.

Kristen had hijacked the iPod, and she and Natalie were dancing together and singing “Freedom’s just another word…” at the tops of their lungs. Hannah had brought Kasey along, and the two of them were sitting at the dining room table nearby, doing shots with some other guys. Natalie kept glancing over her shoulder at Hannah as she danced.

I was standing off to the side, thinking of calling Sky. He’d said he was tired and didn’t feel like coming out tonight. I wished I were somewhere with him, instead of there. I was feeling like some kind of strangely shaped balloon whose string he was holding, and if he let go, I’d float off into the ether.

I was thinking about that, how high a balloon could fly before it popped, and what the world would look like from there, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw Janey, my old friend from elementary and middle school. She was with that soccer player she’d been with when I saw her outside the supermarket. I tried to look for somewhere to hide, but it was too late. She’d let go of his hand and was walking over. Her already rosy cheeks were a few shades brighter than usual, and I guessed she’d been drinking.

“Laurel!” she shouted, throwing her arms around me. I looked around to see if anyone had noticed, but Natalie and Kristen were now dancing to “This Is What Makes Us Girls,” and Hannah was licking salt off Kasey’s wrist.

“Hey,” I said, and smiled weakly. “What are you doing here?”