Fall in San Diego

26. flakes of snow

The next few weeks made me feel like I could really be happy. Whatever happy was.

Louie and I met up somewhere to have a drink and talk. His facial expressions were very entertaining. I was laughing almost the entire time. I told him everything. He told me that he was going to draw an entire story about it and that's when I remembered the pencil.

“You should keep it,” he said and then added with a smile. “You survived the ghost of Louie's pencil.”

I chuckled at him.

He told me that his parents didn't even care that I was gone. He said his mom was a bit worried if I'd be okay but his dad seemed ‘relieved’.” And he didn't tell them that he knew when I was about to go. He said he was happy that I found somewhere to stay. I told him that he'd always be my favourite sibling.

Tanya and I…I don't know how it happened. We started dating and as the weeks went by we got closer. I really liked her, I realised. She was very funny and cute. She had her moments when she was the annoying bitch I knew her to be but she was a very interesting person. And we just got along so well, amidst our silly fights. I wasn't sure if I loved her yet. But I was willing to go on with her a little bit longer and find out. It was the first time I'd ever been with someone and it felt…nice.

As for Peter, I just knew we'd click. He was just like my former best friend. Just a little bit nerdier and loved to swear a lot. It felt nice to have a best friend again. It felt nice to have people that cared about you and people you cared about again. It felt nice to have something like a family again.

I remember one of the last days of the fall that year. I walked along the street just by the road where the accident happened. I remembered crawling out of the car and screaming everybody's name. I remember the siren of the police cars that stopped driving when the accident happened. I remembered feeling the blood dripping down my arms and my face, the shards of glass glittering all around the car, the crowd of people standing and watching.

I remembered seeing the bodies of my family and my friend not moving, covered with blood. I remembered the paramedics, the ambulance siren, the people pulling me as I screamed and cried, telling me they had to take me to the hospital to clean my wounds.

I remembered asking them why I couldn't go with my family and my best friend and they didn't answer. But I knew very well what that look in their eyes meant.

I remembered everything vividly. Every detail, like my life depended on it. I stood at the sidewalk, staring at the tarred road, looking so clean and fresh like nothing happened there. A light wind blew past and the tears that had glossed my eyes over fell. The few leaves that were left on most of the trees shook and some fell off their branches. A dried orange leaf danced in the air gracefully and landed on my jacket. I picked it off and let it fly away.
I took in a deep breath and as I let it out I hoped I was letting go of all the hurt and anger and frustration and sadness I'd felt all these years.

The fall symbolises letting go. Fall brings change. And change isn't always so bad. I think it is necessary. And at the end of every fall season, the leaves always grow back during the spring. I think it was right that these things happened to me. And as sad as it sounds, I wouldn't change it for anything. It made me who I am. I can't imagine myself not being me, not going through those things.

***

“Pass the ball!” Tanya's dad called out and I gave him a long pass. The ball rolled swiftly across the yard.

He caught and jogged the ball skillfully, trying to show off. I laughed at him knowingly.

“Learned how to do that when I was nine.”