A Prose With No Direction

goosebumps and tears

Lifting my mask to my mouth, I ring her doorbell.

Door opens to reveal a friend long lost, her presence so close yet friendship so, so far away. 

She wears her hair like a horse's mane, its dark color and smooth texture a statement against the  glare of the sun. Her eyes are swollen, cheeks red, and face pale. She hasn't been out in a while, and her clothes look like she's been in them for three days. 

I bite my lips, not knowing if I have the right to speak to her. 

I haven't seen them in so long since the incident where I abandoned them.

All of them.

I can feel the resentment across from me, one she has been keeping for months. 

But to my surprise, Keira's face softens, opening her arms up to give me a hug.

Water boils in my eyes as I approach to hug her. 

But as her arms wrap around mine, the feeling of warmth does not transmit to me.

No.  

She hugs me tightly, but instead of getting that warm feeling within me, I get a piercing-cold sensation like the feeling of touching really hot water; so hot, that it becomes painfully cold. 

Pitter-patter. 

Goosebumps graze my body, hairs standing erect and bumps forming across my arm. As Keira pulls away from the greeting, her face stiffens, eyes expressing her suppressed resentment towards me. 

"Why are you here, Clara?" She asks, closing the door behind me as I enter in. 

"You were his closest friend," I say to her. "Why? Why did he..."

"You know why," she responds coldly. 

"But he went to therapy," I say. "He said he was fine." 

"Do you really think people are fine when they say they're fine." Keira's stare is painful. "He was depressed, Clara."

"But he got through it," I say. "He knew it. You knew it. We all knew it. He was back to being his normal self towards the end of freshman year. His therapist even said so." 

Keira's eyes stare down at me, lips curling into a scowl. She leaves me in the hallway only to return with an envelope. 

Chills run down my spine, the bumps on my arms becoming more visible. 

Keira hands me the envelope, eyes looking away as tears begin to form. 

"What is this—"

"Just read it, Clara," Keira sighs, exasperated. "Read it, then get the fuck out of my house." 

I gulp, hand shaking as a take it. 

The envelope reads my name. 

"Ben gave one to all of us," Keira explains. "He gave me mine the night he died."

The hallway suddenly becomes cold.

Opening the envelope with shaking hands, I unravel to find a post-it note rather than a letter. It was a green-colored one, with a boarder of Kermit the frog's face on it. 

It was brief. 

One subject. 

Two sentences.

Three words in the first.

Four words in the last. 

Reading: 

I'm not sorry.