Slice of Love Stories

The Letter at the Bottom of the Trash Bin

                                                                          By Elizabeth A. Read

                                                                         Copywrite Sept. 2020

Trigger warning: Suicide, Verbal and Physical abuse, Homophobic slurs

Please proceed with caution. Take care of yourselves, lovelies. <3

It was wrinkled. Stained, in the corner with what looked like coffee. The words that coiled across the top were scripted in a cerulean blue. The handwriting was at a familiar slant that indicated that it had been written with the paper twisted at an odd angle. In the bottom right corner there was a little tear, as though the person who had written it had maybe clutched onto it just a bit too tightly. I, certainly, was holding it too tightly, hands shaking as I tried to force my eyes to comprehend what they were reading.

It was a letter from my sister, Lucy. A letter saying goodbye.

****

"It's okay, Angus. It's just a little storm. It can't hurt you. C'mon, let's play a game, okay? I spy with my little eye... something that is purple!"

"What is it? What is it?" I bounced up and down on my bed, tears forgotten. Lucy always made me forget my tears. She always knew what to say. Always came to tuck me in bed when howling winds and screaming voices whipped at each other in the dark.

"It's you, silly." she said, long fingers tickling my stomach through my purple footie pyjamas. "Your turn." She tucked her feet under the covers and pulled her knees up to her chest.

"Okay, okay. I spy," I looked around my room, trying to find something that she wouldn't get on her first guess. "Ooh! I spy something green!" I said, looking down at the ring on her finger.

"Let's see. Whatever could that be?" She exaggeratedly scanned the walls. "Is it... the carpet?"

"No!" I continued to bounce.

"What is it, then?" she smiled, mischievously.

"Your ring! Where did you get it?"

"Oh, this?" She held it up to the light and smiled, softly. "Áine gave it to me. Pretty, isn't it? She has one that matches."

"It is pretty. Here, hold it to the light!" The two of us watched as the dim lamp light bounced off of the dark green jewel. "Is Áine your best friend?" I asked, suddenly, thinking about me and Yasmine, and wondering if I should have gotten her a special best-friend bracelet or something.

"I guess you could say that." she said, suddenly going quiet. "But I love you best, Angus. You're my bestest friend and the bestest brother in existence."

"Well, you're the best sister. And I love you even more than you love me." I jumped to my feet. "I love you all the way to Pluto."

"I love you all the way to Pluto, too, bug."

****

"Lucy? Lucy, please pick up! C'mon, Luce, please!"

"Bug? Hey, whatchu doin' calling me in the middle of class like that? Mr. Myers was just about ready to send me to detention 'till I told him it was a family emergency. What's going on?" Even when I had called her in the middle of math to sob over the phone, Lucy always managed to sound calm.