I've gone to class three days in a row. I tore out all the ruined pages of this notebook (the ones bloated with coffee) and threw them all away. For a while I sat in the sunshine today, and flipped back through the pages to see if I'd remembered wrongly. And then I stopped reading them, and sat outside a coffee shop and just watched as people walked by because I couldn't think about her. (I cried, too, but when I wiped away the tears, I felt a little better. My chest keeps feeling achy, though, and I don't know if it's from the tears or from understanding the totality of my mistakes.)
That feeling lingered when I finally made it back home, and when Lacy sat across from me at the table and when I started on my homework.
How do you not realize the road you're walking? Are all the signs torn down (struck blank by everything you feel, or think you feel), or do you just ignore them?
These aren't idle questions. They scream out, tearing at every fiber that I am, and I have no answers to them.
Are there things we don't recognize in ourselves? Are there things in us, slippery and dark, that try to destroy us? That strangle our better parts in false promises and artificial light and drag us down until we go willingly? How could I not see it then? When I was warned and told, how could I still ignore the us we actually were?
When I look back, will I only see us? Will I remember my classes of high school or Tyler teaching me to ride Baby Blue? Or will my life always be what-might-have-beens?
The thought makes me want to cry. Clair is dead, so I owe her my life. That... that's penance, but I don't want to forget either. I want to selfishly grip hold of the past forever.
But do I owe Tyler? Or Lacy? Or Jay and Sam? My parents? If I fill myself up with her, what happens to them?
Lacy just brought me a mug of tea and is doing her homework on the other side of the table. We aren't talking, but she isn't ignoring me either. She reminds me of Tyler right now. Swallowing the tea helps me not to cry. It loosens the lump in my throat, and if I focus on it forever, maybe I won't have to think about anything else anymore.
I trace the contours of the mug, slowly, my fingertips leaving thick smudges behind. When I get back to my starting point, I glance up.
She must've noticed my slight motion (she must be so attuned to it by now) because Lacy meets my gaze, poking her head up from her textbook. She smiles. It's a pale thing, tentative and fragile as the first snowfall.
My voice comes out quiet, "Thank you."
She nods. "You're welcome."
YOU ARE READING
Minnesota Goodbyes
Teen FictionM., 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...
