Bitter Sweet

Letter to Sarah - Beautiful Things

Um I love Grayson a lot here

I'm extending the collection of letters by four to be eligible for the Wattys (though we all know that Mariam's going to win the Short Story category). c: Get ready for another round of #Saray!

Dedicated to Arean because she is so cute and lovely and amazing and fab and she is the war god so can't touch dis xoxo

~

To Sarah,

McKenna offered me a cigarette today.

I never saw that she'd turn out this way so early.

Me: You have a cigarette?

Her: No shit, Sherlock.

Me:

Her: Don't you trust me?

Me: I don't, actually. It's technically illegal you know.

Her: But it's, like, sex in my mouth. Stop being so uptight!

Me: You've never even had sex before, McKenna.

Her: Well-

Me: You think I didn't see you cough and choke like shit after smoking one this morning?

Her:

Me:

Her:

Me: We started high school just about three months ago, McKenna. Freshmen. We're still freshmen. And you know the one thing I know about cigarettes? It's that they fucking kill you.

Her: You got that from those stupid Health videos, didn't you?

Me: No, I didn't.

Me:

Her:

Me:

Her: Gray-

Me: I got it from my dad.

My voice shook at the end.

And what I said wasn't exactly correct; Dad smoked weed - weed bought from Uncle Jared.

Mom didn't care all that much. She'd smoke a joint once in a while, but Dad had an addiction for it that none of us would like to admit. I guess I was a little stoned too, since I'd be in the same room as where they were smoking it at Jared's house, playing with Transformers.

Then there was a time when I came to realize that the stuff was bad for you, but Mom had her reasonings - her fucking stupid reasons that I actually believed. She told me that 1) the price was luckily cut in half for us as a family, 2) we were helping Jared with his drug business, and 3) weed wasn't a drug - not really - it wasn't like cocaine or meth or something.

But Avery was all up against it. She knew, Sarah, she knew. She knew what would happen in the end. And nobody listened - not even I.

Uncle Jared's trade soon collapsed due to lots of his customers stopped buying his weed. He cursed and cursed to us about how expensive the plants were, and how carefully he tended them.

Avery told him that he should become a gardener instead, if that's the case.

I don't want to talk about what happened after that; sorry Sarah. My arm is getting sore and I think it started to rain outside.

McKenna: Your dad... smoked?

Me: Yeah.

Her: And...?

Me:

Her:

Me:

Her: Oh.

She gave me a hug, which I half-heartedly returned.

Her: I love you, Grayson.

Me: I know you do.

She smirked and I thought I saw a flash of what used to be - what used to be us. When it was arguments over who gets the blue Ring Pop instead of who was shit to who. When it was persuading her to jump off a diving board instead of persuading me to smoke a cigarette. When it was pitying her for being grounded instead of pitying me for losing Dad.

People change; you're supposed to accept that. But when you pause and look back, you'd shock yourself with the spark of memories rushing back. Then you'd dream and dream on about if only those little things stayed the same.

And you'd get that weird feeling when something really good happens, because it'd feel like an important snapshot somebody is taking for your life and you're trying your hardest to look authentically and expressively overjoyed when all you are inside is confused about how you would react it that imaginary camera weren't there. Nevertheless, you'd catch the happiness in midair - and cherish it - knowing that it'll soon slip like sand between your fingers until there's nothing left except the memory which, I've mentioned before, "you'd dream on and on about if only those little things stayed the same".

The only place where beautiful things stay the same is

They don't stay any where. All we can do is pretend.

Sincerely,

Grayson.