Love Letters to the Dead(51)

Her face turned red and she said, “I’ll kick your little ass. I’ll kick your ass so hard, no one will recognize your pretty little face.”

I had to think fast. My body felt swervy and my brain was connecting all of these dots that shouldn’t connect. But one thing I knew was she is bigger than me by far and definitely could beat me up.

So I said, “Why don’t we play a game instead?” I pushed past her and walked out into the street. I called back to her. “It’s called the dead game. Whoever lasts the longest when a car comes wins.”

I lay down and closed my eyes. I heard a car coming from a ways away. I heard it getting closer, though it was not that close yet. I could last much longer.

I heard her say to her friends, “Oh my god. This girl’s a total freak. Let’s get out of here.” And I knew then that I’d won. I knew that she was scared of me now, instead of the other way around.

I heard the car getting closer. And then I heard Sky’s voice out of nowhere. “Laurel! What the f*ck are you doing?!” he was shouting.

I rolled out of the way in time and I ran and I ran, and I remembered the night I got good at the game. May had always been the best, the bravest. Carl was almost as good as she was, but not quite. And Mark was just behind him. I had been last. As soon as I’d hear a car turn down the block, I’d want to run. I’d try to wait an extra second, but when I got up and pulled the blindfold off, I’d see the car was still so many houses away and feel stupid that I thought it was about to hit me. I knew that Mark would never love me because I was afraid, and they could all see that. I thought if only I could be fearless like May. If only I could be flushed and daring and beautiful in the twilight like she was. I thought if I wasn’t such a wimp, then it would all be different. He might love me back.

Then something changed. It was after May started taking me out with her to the movies. We were playing the game, and I lay down for my turn. I felt a new kind of quiet. Like nothing could touch me. Waiting, just waiting for the car to come. And when I heard it turn down the block, I wasn’t scared of anything. I could hear exactly where it was. I didn’t need my eyes. I could see the street, the car traveling. It was in front of the Fergusons’. The Padillas’, the Blairs’, the Wunders’—I knew just how close and just how far. It came in front of Carl and Mark’s. I heard May screaming, “Laurel! Get out of the way!” But I didn’t need to go yet. I waited one last second. Then I rolled and ran and saw the car whizzing right by. When I walked up to the sidewalk, May said, “Laurel! What’s wrong with you?!” She looked really scared. The way I was always scared for her. I thought Mark would be proud. I thought we’d high-five. But he was white as a ghost. May hugged me.

She said, “Don’t ever do that again!”

“But I won, right?”

May said, breathlessly, “Yeah. You won.”

After that, I don’t think we ever played again. And after that, I knew that Mark would definitely never love me. I’d changed.

I heard Sky’s voice, echoing after me. What the f*ck are you doing? I just kept running, faster than I knew I could, sucking the cold air into my lungs. Down neighborhood streets, through the shadows cast by crooked tree branches, past the houses in a row that seemed like they would be safe inside. Until all I could hear was myself breathing, as loud, it seemed, as an ocean.

Luckily for me, Aunt Amy was late to pick me up, so by the time I ran back to the parking lot, she wasn’t there yet. Sky and Francesca and those other girls were gone. Aunt Amy felt bad for being late, so she asked me if I wanted to get fries. I did. And then I wished I could go home, home where Mom would be making enchiladas for dinner and May would be setting the table, folding the napkins into diamonds like she would.

Yours,

Laurel




Dear Kurt,

You had a daughter, and now you’ll never get to know her. You won’t see what she’s going to be when she grows up. You won’t be there to make dinner together when she comes back from the pool in the summer smelling like chlorine. And when she rides her bike with no hands and flies over the handlebars, you won’t make it better. You won’t be at her chorus concert, with all the other parents on the sweaty gym floor, watching her face when she closes her eyes and lets her voice out. You won’t watch her walk through new snow in your backyard or lie down to make an angel. You won’t see her fall in love for the first time. And if her heart gets broken and she curls under the flannel sheets she just washed and cries, you won’t hear her. When she needs you, you won’t be there. Don’t you care? How could you do that to her?

Do you know what she’ll have instead of her father? Your suicide note. Did you think of that when you wrote it, that those words would shadow her whole life?

You wrote that you have a daughter, full of love and joy, kissing every person she meets because everyone is good and will do her no harm. You said that terrified you, because you couldn’t stand the thought of her growing up and becoming like you were.

But did you think about the fact that when you wrote those words, when you took your life, you stole the innocence you loved her for? That you forever changed her heart full of joy? You were the first to do her harm. You were the first person to make the world dangerous for her.

I don’t know why I’ve written you all these letters. I thought you got it. But you just left, too. Like everyone does.