Love Letters to the Dead

I started walking away, toward the parking lot. “Wait. Laurel!” Sky called, but I didn’t let myself look over my shoulder. And he didn’t follow me.

When I got home, I went into my room and I put on “Rehab” and turned up the volume. I tried to shout along, “No, no, no,” but I couldn’t stop thinking about the irony of it. Amy, you were saying I am who I am. Don’t tell me what to do. But now you’re dead. Nobody did anything about it. You wouldn’t go. You wouldn’t get better. Happy in love, tripping on the stage, and we loved you for being yourself, but we let you go.

I shut off the music and the room got quiet. I tried to shake Sky’s voice out of my head, but I couldn’t get rid of it, no matter what I did. I kept hearing him telling me that both of the things I was afraid of were true—May felt shattered, too, and I’ll never be as good or as beautiful as her.

After Dad went to bed tonight, I knew I couldn’t sleep. I snuck some Scotch out of his liquor cabinet. I’ve never been drunk before without Natalie and Hannah. This time I didn’t even mix it with cider or anything, I just swallowed up the burn of it.

When things started to spin, I lay down and put on Back to Black again and listened to you sing the whole thing from the beginning. When I got up and went to brush my teeth for bed, I stood in front of the mirror, looking at my face and not understanding it. It was just me, plain and blank, and I didn’t know what to see in it. I kept looking, looking for something else that I couldn’t find anymore. I stared until there were just shapes that didn’t figure into a person. But nothing reformed. I kept waiting for it to change, for May to be there, looking back at me. But I couldn’t see her. I couldn’t find her anywhere.

Yours,

Laurel




Dear Kurt,

I’m really sorry about the poster and about everything. But I need to talk to you. Since I got in the fight with Sky last week, everything has felt terrible. Then tonight, Hannah and Natalie and I went to this big party with Kasey. It was at the house of a football player who graduated last year, and he said that it was going to be a rager. When we walked in, Kasey started looking around for the booze, and that’s when we saw that Hannah’s brother, Jason, was there. Jason was not at all happy to see Hannah. In fact, he said, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Hannah looked afraid. Kasey came over and put his arm around her. She’d kept him a secret from Jason so far, and she was trying to squirm away.

But Kasey said, “She’s with me. And if you can’t deal with that, we can take this outside.” He was trying to be super tough for Hannah, blowing up like a blowfish.

Hannah muttered, “Kasey … don’t…” but it seemed like her face had resolved into knowing that something bad would come.

Jason seemed like he was about to punch Kasey, but then one of Jason’s buddies said, “Who gives a shit about that douche bag? Let’s not waste the opportunity to drink some free beer.” So that’s what they did.

Hannah kept tucking her hair behind her ears and glancing back and forth between Kasey, Natalie, and the back door, where Jason and his friends had disappeared to the keg. I guess she thought the best way to deal with all this would be to get drunk. So she and Natalie and Kasey and the college boys took tequila shots, clinking glasses and sucking limes and cringing. Hannah started acting wild, slamming her glass on the table and asking for another. Finally, after the shots, she wandered off with Natalie, clinging on to Natalie’s arm to hold her up.

I found a corner and tried to look absorbed in things, examining the sheen on the leaves of a houseplant, which was browning at the top, and inspecting the loose threads in the curtain. The party was a carnival of so many people, laughing and bouncing and blaring. It seemed everyone knew their place in it, but I was in the mood where I would rather be alone and look at the houseplants. Part of me kept wishing that Sky would show up, but I hated myself for even thinking about him.

Then, while I was arranging a bowl of M&M’s by their colors, this guy Teddy, one of the soccer boys who’s friends with Evan Friedman, walked up and said that I should come hang out. It was clearly just me and the M&M’s there, and I couldn’t think of an excuse, so I followed him. When I got outside, I saw Evan with some of the college guys, ex-baseball/soccer/football players, including Jason. Jason must have been really drunk, because he didn’t seem to notice me. Evan said, “Hey,” and sort of shifted back and forth from foot to foot nervously. “You look good,” he said. I looked down. I was just wearing a tee shirt and a cotton skirt, and I didn’t really agree. The world was all off its axis. I was confused about why he wanted to talk to me. A couple of the older guys nudged Evan, and he offered me some beer. The taste was like a yellow raincoat, but a dirty one. They also had caffeine pills. They said they wouldn’t do anything, hardly, except wake me up. I would rather have been asleep, honestly, totally asleep.