Love Letters to the Dead

When we parked in front of Blake’s little mountain shack, I felt immediately nervous. It wasn’t locked, so we walked right in. It smelled like cherry-flavored cigars, and all the windowsills were lined with glass bottles covered in dust.

When he came out of the bedroom, I froze. Hannah says he’s twenty-two, but to me he looked even older. And not older-in-college like Kasey. Older like Paul was, May’s boyfriend, and Paul’s friend. His black hair was grown long into his face, and he had a midnight shadow, much darker than five o’clock.

He moved right past us and opened the fridge. He pulled out some Tecates and tossed them to us. I didn’t catch mine. It flew past me and onto the carpeted floor, which I felt that I was sinking into. I tried to move my feet, but they wouldn’t budge.

Hannah bent over and picked up my beer. I felt my fingers close around it.

“Laurel, are you all right?”

“What? Um, yeah. Sorry.”

I watched Blake put his arm around Hannah, and all I could see was May, walking up to Paul. Watching her smooth hair swinging behind her. His eyes devouring her.

Blake’s roommate was sitting on the couch, which was upholstered in brown velvet and looked like it had been there since the seventies. The roommate doesn’t speak. Not because he can’t, but because he took a vow of silence a year and nine days ago. He hasn’t said a word since. After Blake explained this, he pulled Hannah off and they disappeared into his room, leaving me alone with the roommate, who was reading a book called The Birth of Tragedy. I guess Blake must have told me the roommate’s name, but I forgot.

I forced my nail under the tab of the beer and popped it open with a crack that sounded as loud as an explosion. I sipped it. The roommate’s eyes kept glancing up over the top of the page at me. I tried to count all of the little bottles sitting on the windowsill, but I kept losing track. My feet stayed just where they were, glued to the rug.

I wondered if where we were was like the places where May would go with Paul when he’d take her away those nights. It was so different than I’d thought when I pictured her driving off somewhere magical. I imagined her now in the room with the curtains drawn and fluorescent lights on, lying on the dingy cream-colored rug and smoking cigarettes, letting the smoke trail out of her dark lips.

The roommate moved his legs over, I guess to make room on the couch, and I got a sinking feeling, as if the carpet were quicksand. He patted the place on the couch beside him. All I could think was, It will just hurt worse if you fight it. As if my body were moving without me, I saw myself walk over. The world went quiet. Like we were being recorded on silent film. The roommate and the room and me. And I started just watching us in the movie. I watched his hand reach out and start to touch me.

My head was pounding. His hand—his hand was on my thigh. All of a sudden I was somewhere else. All I could think was no. Please no. Make it stop. I slammed my head against the wooden arm of the couch.

I felt the shock of the hurt and I let the colors start to come in at the edges of my eyes.

I don’t know how long it was, but when I opened them, the roommate was staring at me, confused.

And then Hannah was standing over me in her bra. She looked alarmed as I opened my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“What’s wrong?” Hannah asked.

“Can we go?”

Hannah nodded and went to get her shirt. She promised to make it up to Blake later, because he was annoyed that I’d interrupted their hookup.

On the way to the car, I picked up some snow and rubbed it on my face to try to wake up. Hannah looked at me worriedly and asked, “Laurel, what happened?”

I could feel the bump growing on the back of my head. I started to cry. “Please, just drive,” I said. So she did.

When we were partway down the mountain, she asked again. “What happened?”

“I never want to go back there,” I said.

“Okay, you don’t have to,” she said gently.

“But I don’t like Blake. I don’t want you to see him again.”

“Not you, too,” she groaned. “That’s Natalie’s line.”

“Please, Hannah, promise?”

“Why?”

I couldn’t let anything happen to Hannah. “He just—he reminds me of this guy my sister used to date. Just don’t see him again, okay?”

Hannah paused a moment and stared out at the road. “Okay,” she said finally, “if it’s really important to you.” And then she asked, “Are you mad at your sister? For leaving you?”

My heart squeezed up. I started to panic. I thought somehow she knew. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean, like, ’cause she died.”

“But it’s not her fault,” I said.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be mad. I’m mad at my parents for dying and leaving me with Jason, and I don’t even remember them.”

I thought about it. Nobody had ever said it like that before. “You’re brave,” I said.

She laughed. “What do you mean? I am not. I’m an idiot.”

“No, you’re so smart. I wish that you knew it.”