Minnesota Goodbyes

Entry #43

When Tyler steps out the front door, it takes me a moment to decide to follow him. There's that small thought that maybe he wants to be alone or maybe he doesn't want to be with me, but it's overwhelmed by my fear of being alone with me. After that, it takes only half a second for me to step into the night.

It's the pretty kind of cold, where everything is stunned alive. My hands and lungs and throat and face are all flayed by the wind, but the sting is cold and clear, like the sky and the night. Tyler tilts his head when my feet crunch over the snow, cherry light from a cigar casting long shadows over his face. A plume of smoke snakes from his lips, wreathing him like a dragon's.

"Hey." He offers me the cigar, but I shake my head.

My arms wrap around my sides, digging in to keep that cold at bay.

"Hi." My voice is carried off on the wind.

Tyler leans against the house, staring down the driveway and out into the night. From the way his eyes rove, flitting from the naked trees to the stars to the snowbanks, I can tell he's trying to come up with the right words. He taps some ash onto the ground, studying it as it lands.

"How are you, M.? I mean, how are you really?"

The night swirls between us, a chill crawling up my sleeves and down my collar, eating at my heart. "Not too good."

He doesn't laugh, even though I find it sort of morbidly funny. Hysteric laughter bubbles up my throat, and I choke it down. Thick as bile, warm as blood.

"Yeah, I figured." Tyler inhales more smoke, then lets out a jet of it. It's a pretty blue against the deep night, and I try and focus on how pretty everything is, instead of how fragile it is.

But distraction isn't easy, and Tyler pulls me from it. "Last year... Do you remember last year? Clair came that one weekend, and you just lit up. Like someone had struck a match or something. I could tell you were just so happy, and it was great.

"But, you know, you were different after she left. I dunno if you noticed, but probably. You were just so aimless. Madison came over that one day, for girl talk or whatever, and you just seemed so out of it."

Honestly, I'd forgotten about that day for the most part. I remember drinking coffee at our kitchen table (Madison would always come in unannounced during high school, and she did as soon as she knew I was back in town.) Mostly, I just remember running my fingertips over an old coffee ring that was embedded on the table.

"I sort of expected you guys to be like this—"he makes a jabbering mouth gesture with his hand, and he grins when I hit him in the chest. A flick of ash drops from the end of his cigar, and is quickly extinguished in the ice beneath his feet. I grind my foot over it, just to be sure.

"What are you trying to say, Ty?" He can do that, my brother. He knows what he wants to say, but he'll run you in circles until you get his point.

"I was just surprised. That's all."

The conversation flickers out, just like Tyler's cigar. I bite the edge of my nail, the skin around it numb from the cold.

"I'm going in," he says, and my head jerks up. I'd been staring at a moonlit patch of snow, at the dappled shadows beneath the trees. "I'll be up for awhile."

I nod, still biting at my nails. "Okay."

Cozy light spills out of the front door when he opens it, but I'm surrounded by the night quick enough. And the thoughts come, rabid and looming. There's something in me, I think, that wasn't built for this world. It's a part of me that's too fragile, tender as a bruise. Like I was dipped in lacquer or the river Styx, and it's the only part that didn't get swallowed up in armor.

And when I bump against the rougher edges of the world, that weak piece got worn smooth. Nothing can latch on, after that. Callous, right? That's what I became.

I forgot, though, that it could be rubbed away, broken down by the better parts of this world, leaving me exposed again.

And so it did.

Now, that vulnerability pulses in my fingertips, behind my eyes. It's always there.

(It might not have been made for the world, but it was made for Clair.)

That vulnerability... That was something, wasn't it? And sharing it with her, that was something, too. When she was next to me (sprawled on my bed, the two of us cooking breakfast for Tyler and my parents, whispering over mugs of hot chocolate), it felt like my edges lined up with hers. Like that little piece matched in both of us perfectly, and we were in some place no one else could travel to, no matter how they tried. When I think of fairy tales, I know that was what magic felt like. (The buzzing, pins-and-needles sensation running through your veins. Everything around her blurred, and Clair coming in sharp-focus. Magic.)

This is all I can think of now: I will never feel those things again. There won't be that moment when the world rights itself and things turn to light and stardust. So that month last winter where I stumbled around the house and feigned interest in my non-Clair life and waited for the grey to clear from my eyes? That is my forever.

I want to reach into my chest, and pluck that wounded piece out of me, let the bile and blood drip onto the ground. Let the snow soak it up, and walk on, like nothing could ever touch me.