The Last Time We Met

31

I swam awake under the heavy flood of grief. All those deaths, over and over again. All that love lost. There was no happy ending, never once in thousands of years. Only the loss remained constant.

I had slept through the night, "slept," if you could call it that. My body didn't want to move out of bed. I had just lived through so many years.

My phone, when I checked it, had no notifications. I tried to call, but Cedric didn't pick up. So I texted him: Please don't do this. I don't want you to die.

He didn't respond. It was almost noon. I flopped back, closed my eyes, then opened them again.

Dragging myself downstairs, I fixed myself a bagel with cream cheese and sat down at the counter to eat. I found myself checking Cedric's Instagram account. His most recent post was just a black square. Most of the posts on my feed were about Black Lives Matter and the protests.

I felt shitty that I cared more about Cedric's life than about systemic racism. White privilege, my mind told me, and now I felt guilt on top of all the other emotions roiling around in my gut. I checked Cedric's Facebook, too, not expecting to find anything new and I was proven correct. Setting my phone down, I took a bite of my bagel. Chewed the tasteless lump in my mouth.

Wasn't one of the symptoms of COVID a loss of taste and smell?

"What happened with Cedric last night?" Mom asked, coming into the kitchen with a mug of coffee to warm up in the microwave. I tried to convey what I was feeling without words, and she studied my face. "I heard you crying in the middle of the night."

"I think we might have broken up," I said numbly.

"Oh, honey." Mom came over and wrapped her arms around me. I wished I wasn't so starved for human contact, because the hug enveloped me and I found myself leaning into it. "It probably doesn't help to know that this pandemic is ruining all kinds of relationships. Two of my friends are getting divorces."

It didn't really help, so I didn't say anything.

"Maybe it's for the best. It's so much better to start college without any attachments. It's just a hard transition, you know? And I've seen how unhappy you've been, missing him all the time."

"Yeah," I mumbled. I broke off the hug and stared down at my half-eaten bagel. "I guess I'll go do some homework or something."

When I opened up my computer, I still had the Reddit thread of people posting videos from the protests open. Last night, the original protest in Minneapolis had devolved into looting and fires had been started. I closed that tab, only to be faced with my playlist for our prom. I shut that tab too.

I loved Cedric. Every movie and book and song were all about the power of love and how it could overcome anything. They never talked about the inevitability of death. Based on all my past life experiences, Cedric was going to die. He was going to get COVID and die. What was the point of loving someone if they were just going to die?

After an indeterminate amount of time weeping over my keyboard, I shut my laptop and picked up the Walkman Cedric had given me, with his mix tape still inside. I flipped to side A and rewound to the beginning, to our song.

Looking from a window above, it's like a story of love

Can you hear me

Came back only yesterday

I'm moving further away

Want you near me

The lyrics perfectly described us right now. I did want Cedric near me. I wasn't worried about catching coronavirus from him. I was worried about him catching it. And now he felt so far away, and I was the one who had made it this way.