On An Unrelated Note: Short Stories

Emma

It's always when you fall for someone that you realize they aren't who you thought they were. And then when you realize you can't control them, that you can't make them change and fall in love with you, that you realize how badly they need you. And its when you find out how badly they needed you that it's too late.

He was soft. He was summer nights, with crickets chirping and sitting on the doc under the stars. He was the first yawn of sunrise and the last sigh of a sunset. He was screams and giggles as cool water was splashed at you. He was the feeling of anticipation as a roller coaster started, he was my everything. My first love.

He was gay. He told me as we whispered secrets, laying on the doc late at night, tipsy on stolen whiskey and whatever else we could find.

"Can I tell you something?" He had breathed, his eyes tracing the ground.

I had  sat up a little and felt the alcohol pull my head back down. I laid back and looked at his eyes. They were green, I remember. And his freckles had brushed against his eyelashes, which were long and as dark as the night sky. "Anything" I had replied.

He breathed out and stared me straight in the eyes. It felt like my soul had been pierced. My heart was pounding.

"I'm in love with Matt." He had said.

I let my head slip down to the doc and felt my heart flutter and die. I flipped onto my back, staring at the stars, my mind and body and soul folding into one another, collapsing. "Oh." I had said.

Just "oh".

He flipped onto his back too and we sat there. Staring. I looked up into the cruel, unforgiving night. Where I once saw stars I now saw only darkness.

I couldn't breathe. I needed to cry. I needed to throw up. He did not love me. And I didn't care that it was because he could not. I didn't care that it was because he loved boys (a boy) and not girls. I just cared that he did not love me.

I needed to leave. I needed to get out. I felt a fist around my throat as I said "I have to go." I got woozily to my feet and began to run. My bare feet stung as branches cut them. I was too sad and tipsy to do anything. I felt my self stagger and balanced against a tree.

"Emma!" He called. It was too dark. He couldn't see me. I didn't want him to see me. I didn't want him to see my tears or hear my chokes.

He was behind me somewhere. I pushed off from the tree and moved on through the forest, away from him. Away from the doc. Away from everything.

He called to me twice more before giving up.

I ignored him for the rest of the summer. I didn't reply to his texts. I sat with other friends in our old lunch spot. I didn't turn my head as I passed our wishing tree. I didn't go back to the doc. I didn't look at the stars.

I didn't want to be reminded that I was in love with him. That I thought we could be together. That I thought we were extraordinary. And we were.

That was my problem. I didn't see that we were special. Our friendship was like none other. I didn't realize it before it was too late.

He killed himself a year after the night on the doc. He never left a note.

I ran to the doc every night after that. I drank stolen whiskey and screamed at the ocean for taking him. For swallowing him up. I screamed at the stars for not watching over him. I screamed at God for letting him die. For making him so painfully good and then taking him away. And when I was all screamed out, when the last of the whiskey was gone and my sobs were empty shudders, I sat on the doc and faced the truth.

That I killed him. Out of jealousy. I let him think I hated him for being gay. That I didn't accept him. That I didn't want him on the earth. And I realized he was right. I had pushed him away because he couldn't love me back. That I let my own pain blind me to his. I killed him and I never let myself forget it.

I don't know if the doc is still there today. They might have torn it down after he jumped off of it, drunk and suicidal.

I don't know if he ever kissed Matt. I don't think he did.

I don't know if the stars know where he is, but I stare at them every night, looking for answers.

I haven't found any yet.