The Big Boom [re-writing]

12:19 pm [updated]

12: 19 pm

The night before you had died, there were two red blinking lights that followed the distant siren of an ambulance. You should remember this. There was also a disruption of cars along the streets trying to make way for it. Far away leaves rustled, and the wind became passive aggressive, biting and nipping at our skin.

Your face, in the unforgiving cold, was of a pallor color despite the faint blush your skin always preserved, and you wouldn't answer me when I pulled my jacket tighter around myself and asked, "Was it always this cold?"

I was excited because we were finally talking. Even though things weren't okay, I had to pretend it was because it had to be.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" I asked.

Again, you wouldn't answer for the longest time. "I'm sorry," You'd said.

When we headed down the sidewalk, slower than ever now, the soggy brown leaves managed to crunch beneath our boots. The silence between us gobbled up the white noise of everything else outside and the wind whistled in our ears before coming to a stop.

The lump had come back in my throat. "What for?"

"Candice, I'm sorry."

"You didn't do anything." Literally. You did nothing.

"That's why I'm sorry."

I guess you'd known.

"I should've talked to you more," You said. Your voice remained lifeless but I heard the genuineness in them, the earnestness. The tip of your nose grew pink from the cold. "I'm sorry I didn't talk enough."

"It's okay." And though maybe it wasn't at the time and maybe it isn't now, I had to say that.

"Okay," You said.

I waited some more. There had to be more. It was our longest time together in weeks. You never called me; you never picked up any of my calls or answered any of my messages; you kept silent for most of our conversations when I tried to bring some light back into your life; you've lost interest in everything you once held intrigue with; you've been transparent. I was holding onto the remnants of who you once were.

"I'm not –I'm not mentally ill...you know. My mind is...it's clear."

I stopped walking. "What?"

You pulled your arm out. "I'm aware of everything around myself, and you don't have to miss me."

Again, I said, "What?"

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"Nothing, Candice. Nothing." Sighing, you'd returned beside me as we turned at the corner of a building.

I didn't know it at the time, maybe you did, but whether either of us knew it or not, it would be the same building ten hours later that you would shoot yourself in.

:::

Today was June 24th, and perhaps a month from now the sensitivity from crossing this corner would well down. Perhaps a year from now the poignancy that completely tied two very misshapen happenings together would desensitize, and I'd walk past this sidewalk and remember how much you loved the burger joint we just passed rather than the last time you did.

Today was June 24th, and Christopher was walking next to me this time. His suit jacket was slung over one shoulder and his black dress shirt was wrinkled, his tie loosened. Things were as tensional as the last time or not tensional at all. Maybe it was just me.