Dear Alex,
I don’t even know where to begin…I miss you, I can’t wait to see you, I wish you were here…all of that sounds too cliché to be true. It’s been three months since you moved to Jersey and I can honestly say these have been the longest three months of my life. I still can’t believe you made me promise to write every week instead of call, but I know better than anyone how you are with your sentimentality. Your mom always said you were born in the wrong generation. How is she by the way?
I think about you guys all the time. Mostly you though. I remember when we lived next door to each other back in Ft. Pierce. How we’d always pretend to be master chefs (you, of course, always made yourself head chef) and bake mud pies in our stick oven. I still have the picture my mom took of us; skinny legs poking out from baggy jean shorts, oversized T-shirts streaked with mud, big smiles plastered on our faces as we proudly presented our masterpieces to the camera. That seems like ages ago.
Then I moved to Naples, leaving you and all our childhood adventures behind. You pinky promised me you’d call every day after school, and every day I sat by the telephone and waited…You never broke your promise. I always knew you were an honest man Alex Garcia, even in the premature stages.
Years past by and we kept in touch. Holidays were my favorite time of year because they always brought you to me, even if only for a short visit. Next thing I knew, it was your turn to leave me…That last day we spent together at the park by my house is a memory I’ll never forget. We lay in the grass, not caring if ants crawled through our clothes, so long as they didn’t bite. It was then you made me pinky promise to write.
“Every week?” you asked.
“Every week,” I confirmed.
Did you always know I was an honest woman?
I love you. Never forget.
-Tiah
I neatly fold my letter and slip it into an envelope, already addressed. As I make my way to the door to put it in the mail, the phone rings.
“I got it,” my mom calls from the kitchen.
Outside, the winter air bites my toes as I tip toe across the gravely drive way leading to the road. The mailbox seems to be hungrily awaiting his weekly letter and I place the envelope inside its belly, closing the mouth with a satisfying click. I turn to make my way back inside when I see my mom standing at the doorway, an odd look on her face. Confused, I hop back to her, trying not to scrape my feet on the rocky pathway.
“Ma?” I ask. She looks as though she’s been crying. Instantly I know something awful has happened. My mother never cries.
“Mom?” I ask again. It is then she breaks. The tears are endless and she crumples to the ground, heaving and sobbing. I rush to her rescue, giving the best comfort I can, all the while confused.
“Alex…” she manages. “Alex baby…He’s…Alex…” she can’t seem to make a sentence. I see the phone, dropped and forgotten in this time of distress, on the ground next to her. For a reason I’m still not sure of, I pick it up and put it to my ear. I hear the long, flat drone of the dial tone.
“Momma? What happened?” I cry.
“Alex...” She sobs even louder now, but I can’t hear her. I know what is unsaid. Not knowing how to react, I get up, walk to my room and close the door. I sit at my desk, the same desk I was at just moments ago writing my weekly letter to my best friend and first love.
I take out a new sheet of paper and grab a pen.
Dear Alex,
Fifty minutes ago, I was thinking about you. Fifty minutes ago, I was missing you. Fifty minutes ago…
