excerpts from a book I'll never write II

last forever

Vinnie and I, we never got rid of those tattoos the three of us got in July six years ago.

I saw Jordan in the locker room after Martial Arts yesterday. It's still there.

I think maybe, and this is something I've dreaded to admit for the longest time, that it's all still there. That I hate him, but I miss him too, you know. Or that, after everything, I don't hate him enough to forget that there was once a time in my life when he sat at my family dinner table at Christmas. That he was always there, like the favourite cousin. Like a brother.

***

More than anything, I think, we just wanted it to last. We wanted it to last forever. Can you blame us for believing that it would?

And even still, when I think back on things, the Jordan who helped my dad make an abalone in the front yard pond is not the same Jordan that I saw in that bedroom. In that moment, he'd become someone completely else. Someone I couldn't forgive, though loved dearly, because I loved my sister more.

I broke his teeth in because I loved her more. I told him I wished I never met him because I loved her more, and I buried eight years of my life in a single day because I have always and will always love her more.

But I have always been so bad at these things. Loving. Grieving. I cannot bear them. I cannot look you in the eyes and say Thank God that person is out of my life for good because I would be lying if I did. Because his seat at the table is still empty. Nobody has taken it. There is a hole in my heart where he used to be. And the best I can fill it with is Addie telling me that it's okay to miss him, and hatred.

There are days when I wake up and think God, if I see him today, it's going to be my last straw. But then there are also days when I almost look for him. I seek him out in the hallways and wonder if he's still in there somewhere, or maybe if he too held a funeral and laid flowers for us. But there are also days when all I can do is cry.