The Love Letter

The house is empty. Dark now that the sun has set. I could turn on a light. But they give me headaches. 

Instead I move aside the curtain, letting in the orangey glow from a nearby street lamp. 

The driveway is still empty. 

I hate it when Jason is gone. It makes me feel like when you cut an avocado in half. Exposed, browning and rotting, holding my arms out for my other half to be returned. 

The curtain slips through my fingers as I turn back to the living room. 

In the dark, I maneuver around the shadowy shapes towards the only sound in the house. Towards the ticking. 

The clock my grandfather had painstakingly crafted is no longer sitting in its old spot at the center of the fireplace’s mantle. Jason had moved it to the bottom shelf of a side table, partially obscured by the overstuffed loveseat his mother gave him after they got new furniture.  

“No,” I groan under my breath, crouching down to stare into the dirty glass. 

I lean closer, listening to the rhythmic ticking. Is something wrong with the clock? Was it making the minutes pass slower? 

A car door slams and I lurch back. 

Scrambling, I dart behind the partial wall that is supposed to act as the separation between the living room and dining room. In the shadows I listen to the key click in the lock. Watching for Jason to walk in. 

Despite everything, even his silhouette, backlit by the front porch’s automatic light, causes my heart to bang around. Those broad shoulders that swallowed me up in hugs. The sharp angle of his nose I loved to run my finger down right before kissing him. 

A second silhouette comes up behind him. 

He could’ve punched through my chest and squeezed my heart until it burst. That would have hurt less. 

In the open doorway, he steps aside to let her through, but changes his mind and pulls her into a kiss. The momentum causes them to fall back a few stuttering steps, the door opening wider. They chuckle between kisses. 

“No,” I snarl, but my voice is masked by the front door slamming. 

Attached at the face with this strange girl, Jason awkwardly walks backwards in the direction of the bedroom.

The oxygen in my lungs combusts, turning into hot flames that wake up the monster residing within me. 

“Not again,” I hiss. 

Fingernails digging into my palms, I stomp out from my corner. But I freeze part way down the hall. 

No. No, this will just happen again. He will bring her back. And if she doesn’t come, he’ll probably continue to search for someone else to replace me with. 

Not this time. 

I storm in the direction of the lone oak tree and the decaying shed Jason kept saying he would get to. I’m glad he is predictably lazy enough to leave it all there.

Sliding back inside, I follow the trail of clothes thrown haphazardly and stop at the bedroom’s open door. 

They are asleep. 

The sheets are thrown over their bodies, but I can still make out his arms wrapped around her waist. His face nestled into her messy pale hair. 

For one moment, I pretend that I am watching us entwine so tight that we become one lumpy monster. I could almost feel his warm breath tickling the back of my neck. His hand pressed flush against my stomach’s bare skin. 

I kneel beside the bed. 

Jason rolls onto his back, exposing his perfect chest to the thin stream of moon light coming in through the parted curtains. I used to imagine that he was my Eros. Maybe I liked that story a little too much. 

I hover my fingers over the scar that runs across his heart. My other hand goes to my chest, exactly where I gave myself an identical scar. 

A hot tear rolls down, leaving its salty trace on my lips. 

The monster within me rises up, fanning the flames that now consumes me. 

At the end of the bed, I wrap my fingers around where I assumed ankles were, and yank. 

A startled gasp interrupts the rhythmic ticking of my grandfather’s clock. 

The girl, the stranger, the parasite, shoots up. She looks around the darkened room but her attention is instantly captured when Jason mutters something incoherent, rolling back towards her. Reaching for her. With a faint smile, she brushes back a lock of his golden hair.

Enraged, I grab for her ankles again and pull, dragging her down the bed.

Her high pitched scream wakes Jason up. But I don’t care. He needs to know.  

“What the hell was that!” she cries, scrambling up the bed, her legs kicking the sheets farther down. She is in one of his shirts. 

The girl squeaks when I slam the bedroom door closed. 

My smug smile fell with Jason wrapping his arms protectively around this leech. 

“It was probably just the wind. I must have left a window open. It sometimes messes with this old place,” Jason tries to justify, but I can hear the way his voice wavers.

“No.” The girl shakes her head, hiccupping around her choked tears. “No, something grabbed my ankles.” 

“It was just a dream.” Jason brushes her hair away from her face and the monster in me howl. 

I fling the door open again, letting it slam against the wall hard enough to ricochet back, but I am already at the end of the bed. They are too busy staring at the door to notice me.

She tries to kick me off, but I just dig my nails harder into her ankles. 

Jason lunges for her, but is too slow. She already had thud to the ground and I am walking backwards, dragging her out of the room, slamming the door shut behind us

The knob rattles, which then turns into pounding, matching the ticks of the clock. 

Jason yells something that makes me pause halfway down the hall. 

His muffled voice comes again. 

He is yelling Andie. Not Emily. 

Andie, this girl, continues to dig her fingernails into the carpet, as if it could provide her the purchase she needs to escape me. I copy her. Mine gets another high pitch squeak that turns into yelling out Jason. 

Her foul mouth didn’t deserve to say his name.

I went back to dragging, enjoying the way her body thumps down the front step, her exposed skin scratching on the cement pathway. 

By the time I let go, Jason is at the front door.

“Andie!” he cries. 

I discovered my heart was capable of cracking more.

I at least feel a little better watching her scurry back, falling into the empty street when he rushes towards her. 

“Get away from me!” she yells at him.

While Jason tries to calm the parasite down, I make my way back into the house to complete phase two. 

As I work, I can hear Andie crying, telling him to get away from her. That she isn’t crazy. The neighbor’s lights begin to turn on, illuminating more of the house. 

I wait. I wait in my darkened corner for things to grow quiet. For Jason to come back inside. He has to come back in. He has to know. He has to remember. 

At last, he steps through the still open front door. His eyes are closed as he pinches the bridge of his nose. I hold my breath.

He doesn’t look up until he closes the door. Then, over the ticking of my clock, I catch his gasp. Well, it is more like a mixture of a cry and low groan.

“Emily,” he croaks.

His head jerks back and forth between the closed front door and the trail of leaves.

“Follow,” I silently beg. 

He takes one step. Then another. Then, almost like he was sleepwalking, he follows my trail of leaves away from the door, down the hall, and back into the bedroom. 

I’m rather proud of my design. I had pulled back the curtains, allowing the full moon to illuminate his bed where I scattered more leaves into a circle. Within that circle was the rope. And at the center of the coiled rope, was my letter, glowing bright in the moonlight.

I knew he still loved me. Obviously he did if he kept my letter. He even kept it in the draw of his bedside table. 

Jason picks it up, but doesn’t read it. Dropping to the floor, he curls in on himself, his fists crushing my letter as he raises them to his eyes. Then I hear him crying. 

He needs to know. 

Lowering myself next to him, I lean my head on his shoulder despite them rocking.

“Why, Emily?” he croaks again. “You’re dead! Why can’t you finally leave me alone.” 

He opens his fist to rub at his eyes, dropping my letter in the process. 

Why?

Well, your answer is there, Jason.

I lean forward and smooth out the wrinkles as best as I can.

You were my first love. My only.

Why couldn’t you have just loved me?