A modern Echo-Nadia

"Kiss me and take me somewhere beautiful... where neither of us will know who you are or who I am.. we will know that we are just in a beautiful place and we will kiss each other childishly. I will blush and you will smile beautifully at me like a young person without hope."

***

Dear father,

Life among strangers is getting harder and harder! We have to pay the rent and none of us is working! No one is helping us with anything. You don't know how hard it's been so far, hiding from you, not letting you know anything about him. Maybe it will seem childish to you, but I fell in love with him in a place devoid of love, where love was dazzled by the poor quality neon light. His kisses seemed infinite and instead of you, I chose him. A grandiose him who made every day happier for me... or so I thought! I started smoking in your absence, and maybe now you'll laugh and remember how mom and I used to scold you when we caught you smoking! I miss mom so much! But she left too early...

I'm writing to you only now because I didn't have the courage, but the pain in my soul overwhelmed me, and I gave in to the darkness... I know I left you alone, but you knew that no one would stop me from running away. I was always the good girl, who studied well and listened to her parents, but I wanted something else, and I had it. I characterize this period with drinking, cigarette smoke, drugs, and a lot of suffering. I was a rebel!

He betrayed and changed me, but I remained the same soul you know. Lord, if you knew how much I miss you and how much I would like to hug you, and you, as a good and wise parent, to kiss me on the forehead, scold me, and start over.

He's the one I blame... and I do it for all the dances at midnight and all the rainy moments on the way. He only told me that he loved me and that I was his epic love! I wasn't blind... I knew that it would end at some point, but I was naive, and I still want to be... To know the consequences but to be naive and enjoy all the moments.

I know you had something similar with mom. Weren't you happy? Happiness was a lifetime for you... My happiness lasted three months...

My last meeting with him was on a rainy day... I was crying, but my tears were hidden in the raindrops... His kiss was sweet but frozen, and my heart, soul... were gone... And it hurt... it hurt terribly, but we didn't say goodbye... He knew it would hurt me more than it did then... Dad, he was afraid of how I would react... and I knelt in the rain, praying to the sky that it wasn't the end. He found a job, and I learned to get into college. I promised you that I would go to college and follow my dream. Because of him, I postponed it a little, but now I'm ready to follow it.

The last days with him were painful... He would come from wherever he came or from whomever he came and lie down next to me in bed. I liked wearing his shirt because I felt the scent enveloping me, and I neither felt cold nor warm. But I always told him to pull the blanket over us because that's how I felt with him, like in a cocoon, where he couldn't metamorphose, and that's how I always kept him as mine. I was afraid...

He was always dressed in that green Pink Floyd t-shirt and ripped jeans. His leather jacket cried, forgotten somewhere behind my closet.

The narcissistic days were over, and the deathly period was approaching, where every part of us suffered a cruel death. I would get up to put on my makeup... Yes, Dad, now I know how to put on makeup and I don't smudge everything I touch (here I hope you laugh because I miss your warm smile). And he no longer followed me into the bathroom to tease me... That's when I realized it was the end. I felt him indifferent, but I didn't say anything. I kept silent because I thought it was better that way. He would stay in bed and gaze at the ceiling as it dripped onto our already dirty sheets, stained with lost and found love in the feathers of our pillows. I made coffee, but it didn't taste the same anymore. He never made coffee because he claimed it never turned out as good as when I made it. Mine was better. He quietly lit a cigarette and got lost in the ashes, and his eyes were always filled with tears. I never understood him because he never spoke about it, but I felt that something was eating him away, shaking him, and the silence was tormenting. I would wake up to ask him something every time, but the answer was delayed like a spring day after a long winter... I would end up going to the bathroom where tears would stream down my cheeks, and then I had to redo my makeup and pretend to be happy. He would leave, I don't know where, but before that, he would kiss me... and it was a bitter kiss like a wormwood leaf, like a summer day without enthusiasm.

The last day was... sad with a lot of rain...

***

"Why are you leaving? Don't you think about leaving me alone? I left everything behind for you, and now you're leaving? Can't you see that everything you're doing is backwards? We should have been happy by now, enjoying our own home. You choose to leave? To leave me like this... on my own? Are you stupid? How... how can you have no mercy for this?... For me?"

"I'm leaving... because it's better this way... people choose their own temptation... whereas I, on the other hand, am doing you a favor... I'm distancing myself from you because I'm not the angel in your life... in fact, I am the demon, and that's what I'll always be... Nadia... go wherever you want, do whatever you want, but be happy... happiness isn't gained with a kiss or an embrace... happiness, Nadia, is obtained through sleepless nights under the starry sky, and you only achieve it when you die and live with the hope that you were once happy. Nadia, my hope... my light in the darkness!"

***

These words echo in my head for days, Dad... and I don't know how to escape them. I just lie in bed and think about the days with him... why did you and Mom give me this name? Hope... What were you thinking? I remember crying uncontrollably, but the rain was covering my eyes... The world around me ceased to exist. I only saw him standing there. I asked him, "Why are you crying?" and he replied that he wasn't... it was just the rain. But I couldn't ignore the tears in his eyes because I could hear his soul crying and trying to detach from mine. He turned around and left... I wandered aimlessly and ended up back home, where I lit a cigarette and started crying. I got out of bed and put on one of his shirts, forgotten in my closet among my own clothes. It hurt, but once I put on his shirt, all the pain shattered. Tears began to flow involuntarily, and I still felt his kiss in my untouched palms, except for the pain. The next day, I started cleaning the house... I was in mourning, hoping it would alleviate the pain, but even the trash hurt because it reminded me of him and the things we did in the corners of the house... I remembered even the words he said to me when we were drunk.

"Nadia, your kiss... is my hope!"

I felt like a widow who didn't know what to do except mourn her husband... Then came the letter brought by a police officer... I was in mourning, and with each line, something inside me died. He, my magnificent him, had taken his own life.

***

Hope dies last, doesn't it?

I kiss you, my grieving father!

I will love you always, even for eternity.

Nadia!