Love Letters to the Dead

Then he took my hand and pulled me through the maze back to his bedroom. I wanted to know more, but he started kissing me. He started kissing me hard, and hungry, and for some reason it scared me. But I tried to go with it. Because I was in his house. Because I could feel the moths that needed a light beating hard, and I wanted to keep glowing for him.

Soon he had my shirt off, and he had his hands up my skirt, and everything felt confusing. I wanted him to love me. I wanted to be a light. So I told my brain to be quiet. I told my brain to just go somewhere else. And I went. I went somewhere I didn’t mean to go. I went back to May, when we were kids.

I remembered the night I asked her, “If we are fairies, why can’t we fly?”

I was scared that somehow the seventh generation inheritance missed me. That I wasn’t a real fairy and she’d find out. More than anything, I didn’t want her to be disappointed in me.

“Only the oldest child inherits the flight gene,” she told me. “But that doesn’t mean you aren’t a fairy.”

“But you can fly?” I asked hopefully.

“Yeah,” she said.

I was so excited. “Can I see you?”

“No one can see my wings, or it breaks them.”

“Oh,” I said, trying not to show her I was devastated. “When do you use them then?”

“At night. When I know everyone is sleeping and no one can see me.”

“Can I just see you once?”

“You don’t want my wings to break, do you?”

“No,” I said.

But still, I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help how badly I wanted to see her wings. If I saw them, I would know for sure I was part of the magic.

Some nights, I used to beg her to let me sleep in the top bunk with her. I’d climb up the ladder and curl in next to her. After she fell asleep, I’d stare up at the ceiling, looking for patterns in the splotches of paint—a dragon, and the cave he’d set fire to by accident, trapped in his own flames. The princess who would come to rescue him. I’d tell myself stories and try to keep my eyes open all night, so that if May went out on a flight, I wouldn’t miss it. I thought that maybe if I just saw by accident, it wouldn’t count. But eventually, sleep would take over. I’d open my eyes again at dawn, and she would be turning under the blankets.

“Did you fly tonight?” I’d whisper.

“Mmm-hmm,” she’d murmur.

And I’d imagine her adventures.

I was staring up at Sky’s ceiling now, trying to find pictures in the walls the way I used to do, when he asked me, “Laurel?”

I tried to shake myself out of it. “Yeah?”

“Where did you go?”

“Nowhere. I’m here.”

“You left me.”

“No, I … I didn’t mean to…” I started crying. I couldn’t help it.

“Laurel, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” I said, trying to wipe the tears away.

I had that same feeling that I did when I was a kid. She was a real fairy, and I was faking it. I knew that eventually, Sky would find out.

“You can’t always do this,” he said. “You can’t just disappear on me.”

“I’m sorry.”

I pulled him closer and tried to keep kissing. Sky’s hands were hot on me. I wanted to like it, but the world was spinning. I tried to focus on his face, but I couldn’t. I was going backward through a tunnel. I was seeing magic carpets, riding on one with Aladdin. I was seeing May, her lips turning dark with lipstick. May leaving the movie theater in Paul’s car. I saw her look back at me, and all of a sudden her smile that had looked so bright seemed scared.

“We don’t have to have sex if you don’t want to,” Sky said.

“Okay.”

“But you have to talk to me.”

“I—I don’t know what to say.” I wondered again how he knew May. I couldn’t help it anymore. After a moment, I asked, “Sky? What was your old school?”

“Sandia.”

My heart stopped for a beat, or maybe three. It was true. “So you went with May.”

“Yeah,” he said.

I imagined him seeing her, turning a corner in the hallway. She would be wearing her pink sweater, cut to show her collarbone, her hair flowing behind her. She would have taken his breath away. I wonder if when he sees me coming around a corner, sometimes he thinks for a moment he sees her there.

“I bet everyone loved her,” I said.

Sky was quiet.

“Right?” I asked softly.

“Yeah,” he said. “Do you want me to take you home?”

“All right,” I said. “I guess.”

So we drove in his truck, the quiet of the night stifling us. I wished that I wouldn’t have been weird. I wished that I hadn’t broken the spell. I was scared, and there was nothing to stop it.

We pulled up in front of my house.

“Good night,” Sky said. “Get some sleep.”

And I snuck back into our house full of shadows.

Yours,

Laurel