Open When I'm Gone

Epilogue. Where You're Coming From.

"Five minutes till places!" Our director calls through the dressing rooms, earning an absurd amount of applause. I can't help but grin as I slick back my hair, my pulse rushing under my skin with anticipation.

But I don't know if I can do this. I'm not sure.

"Simon." The familiar voice turns the corners of my mouth up, turning around to meet the perfect pair of brown eyes. The same pair of eyes that I've been lucky enough to see every day for the past five years of my life.

"Don't worry." Jolie places her hand on my shoulder. "You're gonna be great, this is your chance to shine."

Her grin is gold, shining through my whole private dressing room as she rises on her toes to kiss me gently on the lips.

Even five years later, her touch still makes my heart tingle.

"Jolie!" Our makeup coordinator calls from down the hall, "We need more makeup down here!"

"Oop, gotta go," She laughs, kissing me on the cheek before rushing off to go help everybody else.

I smile at her, my fingers playing at the edges of my jean pockets. Or more specifically the piece of paper inside of them.

My fingers worry out the letter, the paper worn and creased from the constant folding and unfolding.

Open When I'm Gone

The one letter that haunted me endlessly.

I carefully unfold the paper again, her slanting script on the page feeling like coming back home.

Dear Honey,

When my mom died, I was so mad. I never understood why people couldn't just live forever. But soon I realized that if you're still alive, you haven't fulfilled your true purpose on this earth yet.

I know what my purpose in my life was: it was loving you.

I've known ever since the first moment I met you that you were destined to do amazing things, and you did. You make everyone's life better, you leave an impact everywhere you go. You made my life worth living again. And I know that it doesn't have to be now, but someday, you'll find someone and something that makes your life worth living again.

I hope someday you'll find God.

Just know that I'll see you again soon. This is just a blip in your story.

I hope you know that you never have to forget the time we spent together, just make new memories alongside the old ones. Kiss girls, dance in the rain, go to all the fifty states, perform until you think you'll fall over. Because moments like that, Simon, moments where your heart feels like it's in your throat and you're worried your mouth will tear from smiling too much, those are the moments that make life worth living.

Don't mourn for me, Simon. And don't blame yourself either. The brightest fires, the most beautiful flowers, the sunsets. Nothing's meant to last forever. Just some forevers are longer than others.

I hope your forevers fill your life with so much joy, you have no more room for sadness.

Yours truly,

Eddy

I've read this letter so many times that I could almost quote it from memory. I used to cry when I read it, but now I smile, because she's right. I'm still here because I haven't fulfilled my true purpose yet, and that fact gives me a strange sense of hope deep down in my gut.

"Simon! I almost forgot!" Jolie rushes up to me again, this time with a light pink smear of makeup scratched across her cheek. She takes my hand gently in hers, her touch still magnetic as she slides off my thin gold wedding band from my finger. She drops it deftly into her apron pocket, kissing me quickly again. "Wouldn't want you losing that!" She laughs, calling the words over her shoulder, her heels clicking on the wood paneling of the backstage.

We're both still here because we haven't fulfilled our purpose yet.

I turn toward the long mirror pressed against the wall of my dressing room, taking myself in in a way I never could when I was younger.

My once thin and boney form has filled out a bit over the past few years, more lean muscle that fills out my clothes. I've let my platinum hair grow out a bit, now long enough to tuck behind the tips of my ears. Freckles splatter my nose from long days in the sun with Jolie and Abby and Hanson. I smile at myself, the mere act feeling more confident than the nervous grimace my teenage self always resorted to. It's the smile that I give when I get to the stage, when I'm in Jolie and I's one bedroom apartment on the upper east side. The same smile that I let curl up the corners of my mouth when I hear my wife laugh, the one woman who can make forget everything even if just for a moment.

"Williams, You're on in one minute." One of the stagehands peeks his head through the door. "Break a leg."

My hands are trembling, but for one of the first times in my life, not from anxiety, but from the sheer anticipation of doing the one thing I love most.

I duck out of my dressing room, waving to my cast members who all shoot me encouraging smiles and thumbs up.

The stage door creaks as I swing in open, the whole backstage wing cast in a haunting blue glow, strip lights lining the far walls under the prop and mics tables.

I easily navigate myself through the set pieces and stage crew milling around, finding my seat on the bed that's been rolled onto the stage for the first scene. I jump onto it quietly, grabbing the laptop that's been placed on the blue and gray comforter for me and flipping it open.

I think back to all the long rehearsals, all the sleepless nights it took to get here. Too many times to count that I strained my vocal chords or fell asleep on this very bed. All the backstage sing-alongs and the dressing room pranks when we were too tired to keep our heads up.

There's a reason I'm here. It's so I could live in this moment.

I feel the lights come up on my face, the music rising to signal my cue.

The words roll over my tongue, the words about today being good, today being the day that I'm finally enough.

And I've repeated the words a thousand times, each time feeling as hollow as the last. But right now, with the audience packed with people, my wife waiting in the wings to watch our dreams come true, it feels like a movie.

Because today, tomorrow, for the rest of my life, I am enough. I will always be enough.

And when I say the lines, after a million years of not believing them, they finally feel true.