Open When I'm Gone

7. Listen Before I Go.

Feet pounding on the ground is the sound that filled my endless summers. Track meets, chasing after her when she would steal my hoodies, running between the dressing room to the stage for your big entrance. Running to jump into the pool on our frequent dates at the country club. Running to the car, Eddy curled in my arms heading to her last hospital admission before she died, tears streaming down my face the whole way. Running after her as they took her body away from the hospital. Running away from her house after my date where I forgot she was dead.

But now that school has started again, the pounding of feet has turned to a dull thump in the back of my mind. I hate running now, because everytime I run, I think back to that summer.

It was the summer I lost her, but of course you know that by now.

The pounding of feet fills my ears as I sit on the bleachers of the track meet. I dropped the team two weeks after she died. I couldn't bear to be there and not hear her voice.

Their new captain is a wack job, but that's not relevant I guess.

Besides, I'm only here for Ryann. She thinks the new assistant coach is her type, and so she dragged me along to watch him so she wouldn't look like a creeper.

The thought should make me laugh, but instead it just twists a deeper pit into my stomach, makes me miss her even more.

I let my mind drift to the starch white envelope on my bed, blank of any calligraphy like the ones Eddy left me. No, this one is not like the box on my nightstand, covered in flowers with her scent still melted into the cardboard. The letter on my bed is stark against the black comforter, no name. A letter to my sisters and mom, from me.

My fingers find their way to the pocket of my khaki shorts, the bottle of antidepressants pressed against the last picture taken of Eddy and I, right next to the park by her house.

She wouldn't approve of my plan, she wouldn't approve of anything I've done. But she isn't here.

People cheer around me, but our team is losing. I remember my motivation to win, back when I ran track; it was Eddy. Her cheering always gave me enough of a push to keep going. It's why we always won, because of her.

I tremble on the bleachers, needing to run, to get out of here where everything reminds me of her.

I want to run.

I think I'm dying again.

I sat on my bedroom floor, thumbtack pinched between my fingers.

If you just stab yourself a few times, no one will ever know.

My hand trembled as I poked the tack into the fleshy part of my hand, watching the blood bubble out of the small wound. Fire burned down my arm from the pain, but I didn't care.

Next into my arm,

My thigh,

My stomach,

I let it hover over my fingertips, ready for the pain, when my door creaked open.

I gripped the thumbtack tightly in my hand as I glanced over, catching the gaze of the most beautiful green eyes I'd ever seen.

"Simon," Eddy almost asked. "What... are you doing?"

I look down, seeing the small holes from the thumbtack have dripped blood down my legs and arms, little red rivers on my skin.

"I'm sorry," I couldn't seem to get anything else out as she made her way over to me, wiping the blood away from my skin with a trembling hand. "I'm so sorry,"