I'm haunted by these what ifs and maybes. With what we should've been.
But it's been scooped out of my chest, and there's nothing but hollow space where I once was, where we once were. Everything that once mattered unraveled in me, burned me down, and razed everything that meant anything.
And I still choke on the words to explain what I've done. They're the only thing I have left to give, and they lie in my heart, thorny and bitter.
Cowardice tastes like blood and bile. (I've gotten so close now. So close to letting everything spill out, to letting the words bleed over the page, the way they used to do to people, trying to get rid of diseases. But bleeding someone didn't really cure them, and it won't help me now.)
Cowardice tastes like broken words and dead embers.
(But silence is loud. And so are the graves of dead girls.)
That night—
It's been a year, and I still can't fucking talk. What happened to me? I can't even see me on the page anymore. Words that would've spilled out a year ago wouldn't've been like this. They would've burned through the page, bright with possibility, and I know it's so pointless to compare what was and what is and to think that I could've been excited about a party a year ago and now I dread thumping bass-lines and kegs and crowds, and I keep pulling myself inward to get away from those things now.
Who am I?
Because I can't be this person.
Clair didn't love this person, and neither do I.
Let the words come. There's nothing left to burn.
YOU ARE READING
Minnesota Goodbyes
Novela JuvenilM., a college sophomore, is haunted by the events of a year ago that ended another girl's life. In an attempt to clear her conscience, she writes her confession down in a battered notebook addressed to a stranger. This search for redemption is far m...
