Love Letters to the Dead(49)

So after that, when it was May’s turn, I would stand on the sidewalk, curling my bare toes into the cement, still warm from the day’s sun. I would try not to look at the street. I would look instead at the coming stars and wish for May to be okay. But at the last minute, I couldn’t help it. I always looked down and saw her body there, motionless. When she’d roll away in time, I would wipe the hot tears from my eyes. And then she would be so alive, grinning and panting in the summer night air, high on it.

Yours,

Laurel




Dear River,

In chorus today, Hannah held my hand almost the whole time. I kept thinking, Don’t look at Sky. But I couldn’t help lifting my eyes, just once, to where he was like a mirage across the room, and remembering how his chest felt rising up and down with breath. I would have given anything to go back to his arms around my body. I would have given anything to be someone different, someone he wouldn’t have left.

After class, Hannah was waiting for me, but I told her I’d meet her in the alley. When the room cleared out, I sat down, putting my head against my knees and trying to stop breathing so fast.

Eventually I walked out to the alley and found Natalie and Hannah with Tristan and Kristen. When they saw me, they all got quiet and looked at me, in that way that makes you certain about why you never wanted to talk about anything in the first place. If it had just been about Sky, they would have found something to say. But it was more than that. It was May. I guessed that Natalie and Hannah had told them that I’d finally admitted that I had a sister who’s dead.

After a few moments of silence, they forced themselves to chatter. Tristan lit a cigarette with his giant kitchen lighter. When he and Kristen had to leave to get ready to go to dinner with her parents, they both squeezed my hands, like they were trying to transmit a secret I’m sorry. But I didn’t want any pity. I didn’t deserve it. It wasn’t a normal kind of thing where I could just cry and be sad and let them stroke my hair. There were too many mixed-up feelings—and what’s starting to grow, more and more, is this ball of anger in my stomach that I can’t control. I know that it’s not what I’m supposed to feel. And I feel even guiltier for feeling it. But I can’t help it.

When Tristan and Kristen left, I was about to go, too, so that I wouldn’t be late again to meet Aunt Amy. But then Hannah said, “Hey. About your sister. I’m sorry that there’s nothing good to say. And I’m sorry that we didn’t say anything sooner.”

The way that she said it, so kindly, made me wish that I could tell her everything. “I’m sorry, too,” I answered, “that I didn’t talk to you guys about it before.”

Hannah said, “I mean, words can’t be good enough for a lot of things. But, you know, I guess we have to try.”

Then Natalie said, sounding very serious, “It’s, like, really sad that people die.”

We all laughed at once, because this was so obvious. It was an accidental, perfect example of what Hannah had just said.

“Are you drunk?” I asked her, which made us laugh harder.

When it finally got that after-laugh quiet, I said, “I’m so glad I have you guys.” And I am.

I thought about what Hannah said, how words aren’t good enough for a lot of things, but we have to try. And maybe I should try harder. I just don’t know what they’d think of me if they knew what I told May that night. If they knew what I’d let happen the nights before that. I worry that I’d lose them, too.

The night you died, River, your brother and your sister and your girlfriend found you collapsed outside of a club. You’d taken too many drugs. Your sister tried to breathe life into your body. Your brother called 911. He shouted and shouted into the phone, begging for someone to come. Begging for someone to save you. But by the time the ambulance came, it was too late.

When they found May’s body in the river, the coroner said it didn’t look like her anymore. That’s why Mom and Dad decided to cremate her. I never saw her. I’ve never seen anyone dead.

I guess you know what it’s like to fail someone. To fail everyone. River, you were a star so bright. One that people made wishes on. Until you took so many drugs that you took your life. Do you think that everyone gets to be a star like that? Do you think that everyone gets to be seen? Gets to be loved? Gets to glow? They don’t. They don’t get to do it like you did. They don’t get to be as beautiful as you were. And you just wanted to burn up.

Yours,

Laurel




Dear Elizabeth Bishop,

The art of losing isn’t hard to master. I’ve done it. The days feel transparent, like I am walking through that kind of barely yellow sun coming through a shield of clouds—too thin. Empty light. It doesn’t land.

Sky broke up with me three weeks and one day ago. After school this afternoon, me and Natalie and Hannah and Kristen were in the alleyway. They were smoking and talking. I wasn’t listening. I was just looking at the flecks of late January snow, swirling in the yellow street lamp. The sky was glowing the way it does right before it’s going to get really dark. I was holding Sky’s sweatshirt that he’d let me borrow one night when we snuck out. I’d started wearing it to school back then and had joked that I’d never give it back. Now I never will. I finally pulled it out of my locker that day to take home and put in the back of my drawer where I keep memory things that make me sad. But it was snowing and I was cold, so I put it on. It smelled like him.