Love Letters to the Dead

“But you said you love me. You don’t just leave after that.”


Sky was speaking low, like if he let himself go, he would explode. “Yeah, I did. You were the only girl I’ve ever said that to. You think it’s just you who got hurt, but it’s not like that. How do you think it was for me when I saw you climb up on the edge of that balcony? How do you think it was watching you cry all the time and not being able to do anything about it? I wasn’t lying when I said I love you. How do you think it feels watching you in the fucking middle of the street waiting for a car to come and hit you?”

Sky was angry at me. Although maybe it’s messed up to say, it felt good in a way, because it meant he cared. I guess when you love someone and they put themselves in danger, you are supposed to be mad.

I thought about what he said. That I’d hurt him. I’d never actually realized that. We do things sometimes because we feel so much inside of us, and we don’t notice how it affects somebody else. I’d been selfish. I remembered the feeling of Sky’s moths fluttering, looking for a light. I felt like a street lamp that had gone out.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I reached my hand out to his chest. He didn’t pull back.

“It’s okay. It’s just, I know that you love your sister, but it scared me, seeing you act the way that she would.”

“What do you mean? How did she act?” And then I took a deep breath and asked, “How did you even know her?”

Sky paused a moment. “Do you really want to know?” He sounded nervous.

“Yes,” I said. Although honestly, I wasn’t sure.

“We had a couple of classes together freshman year. She was pretty much the life of any room she walked into. And she was the only girl in our grade who was always at all of the parties with upperclassmen. I never used to do that kind of stuff. Then when my dad left that year, I started going out, too. So we’d talk sometimes. She was usually drunk. She’d tell me about your family, and your parents getting divorced, and she talked about you, too. But she was always hooking up with these seniors. She got a reputation for being, um, wild, I guess. Maybe she needed the attention. I just thought that she’d get sick of all of that eventually…”

Sky trailed off. He was looking at me expectantly. I didn’t know what he wanted me to say. I was trying to put it together, and the puzzle pieces fit, but the picture didn’t make sense. I was trying to see May, but it wasn’t the May who rushed off into high school like a new world was waiting to greet her. I guess it shouldn’t have been so much of a surprise. I’ve known for a long time how she snuck out at night and came home drunk, about Paul and all of that stuff, but part of me still wanted to believe that there was something beautiful on the other side of it. That she was happy.

“What are you thinking?” Sky asked.

“I don’t know. What happened after that?”

“Nothing really. By sophomore year, it’s like she was somewhere else entirely. She’d sit in the back of the class, and she’d do her work, and she’d hardly talk to anyone. She was seeing that older guy. I saw them at a party together once. She was so drunk, and he was all over her. It was clear that she was out of it. They disappeared into some bedroom together. The whole thing made me sick. A few days after she died, I spotted him hanging around the parking lot at school. Maybe he was looking for her. I guess he didn’t know yet. I was so pissed off. I beat the shit out of the guy. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. When I got questioned about it afterward, I didn’t want to say anything about who he was. I knew May had a family, of course, and I didn’t want to cause any trouble. Anyway, that’s why—I got kicked out of Sandia after that.”

He finished talking, and then there was this gulf of silence. I wished that all of the words that Sky had said could go back into his mouth and never come out. Because there was one thing about the whole thing that was sinking in, that came through in his voice when he talked about her, and soon it was all I could hear. “You liked her,” I said flatly.

“Yeah, maybe,” he said reluctantly. “I mean, maybe I had a little bit of a crush on her.”

Why did that hurt so much? I’d known it all along, anyway—when he looked at me, he’d only seen a shadow of May.

“So that’s why you talked to me that first day. That’s why you wanted to be with me. Because I was the next best thing.”

“No,” Sky said. “No, Laurel, it’s not like that. I mean, of course I thought about May at first. But then I didn’t. It’s you I was in love with. You’re actually … you’re so different from her.”

I shrugged. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter now.”