Midland and Mazzy

Midland,

Do you remember the Ferris wheel? It was summer, and the fair had just come to Hrothridge for the week. We went on the last day and had that contest between us— the one where we drank that bottle of Everclear, then tried to see which one of us threw up first. We went on the rocking ship, the tilt-a-whirl, the carousel, the bumper cars, and still, no yakking for either of us. I came close on the teacups, but I never told you. After it was clear that we were both too stubborn to lose, you wanted to call it quits for the day, but I begged you to ride the Ferris wheel with me. On line, we had that same, old argument about your family and what they would think if they saw you with me. As a peace offering, you conjured up a Black & Mild from your pocket and said that we could smoke it on the ride. We didn’t really end up smoking much of it before we tossed it out the open cart window, and your tongue was inside of me while we were 100 feet in the air. 

It was always like that between us. I remember the burn in my throat when we used to yell at each other over nothing. I remember how our days were either filled with daisies or dead roses— depending on things that were as mundane as the weather. I remember that our nights were always a toss-up between spiteful and sensual, a scale that never tipped in favor of the other. I remember how my whole body used to shake at the thought of us going our separate ways. 

And we did.

I left for college, and you stayed with your family. I hear your father is sick now, and that you’re getting ready to take over the company. How is that? How do you feel? I’m sorry about what I said that one time— that you were just like him. I was angry. I didn’t mean it. You were different, but I guess that doesn’t change anything. Doesn’t change what you chose in the end, and what I chose in the end. It feels weird to call it “the end” when we’re only 21, but it really feels that way sometimes. 

I wish that things were different— that maybe you weren’t who you were, and maybe I hadn’t said all the things that I said. That we had met in a different place at a different time under different circumstances. But it doesn’t work that way. It will never work that way.  

I used to think that you were pathetic, that your life was pathetic. You were buried underneath the weight of your family and their responsibilities, and the only thing you did was grab a shovel and dig yourself even deeper. It didn’t have to be like that, but you did it anyway because I thought you were pathetic and spineless and you didn’t even want to imagine how things could be different for you. 

Forgive me for this, but maybe I still think some of those things are true, even though I know now that you’re doing what you have to do to keep Hrothridge alive. If it isn’t you, it will be someone else, someone worse who treats their workers horribly and pays them dirt. I know you won’t do that once you’re running things. You have always been kind. It seeped out of your pores when you slept by my side. 

Are you even aware of how much you loom in me still? My teeth will never forget what your skin felt like between them. In a senseless world, I would still know what you tasted like. My mouth will always be open in the shape of your name. I should have tied a rope around your neck and hung you from my ribs. 

Sometimes I wonder if I will look for you everywhere I go in the future. If I will search crowds for your eyes. If I will open the chest of strangers to find even the smallest thing that reminds me of you. If I will be dead in the ground, and the flowers that bloom on my grave will grow petals that sing your name. 

I wonder if you still hold me in your heart the same way I do, but I know you, and I know what you would say even if you did. 

You have your path ahead of you, and nothing I could say or do would change your course. Even if I came to you and begged on my knees, even if I said that I still worship at your feet, even if I said that I kiss the ground you walk on, you will never break yourself free. You are trapped in Hrothridge forever. The forces that keep you there will never let up, and you will be pressed face down into the dirt and oil until you die. You can’t wriggle free. Nothing will let up. There is no chink in the armor. This is your life, and I have to accept it.

You called me on the phone once after high school, drunk out of your mind. I could tell that you were unhappy with everything. You told me so many things: that you never thought I was less than you, that you dreamed of me all the time, that you missed me, that you were glad that I was the one out of the two of us to be happy in the end. I didn’t know how to respond at the time, but now I do, and I guess this letter is everything I couldn’t say.

I think that this may be a goodbye letter. We’re not different people, but our time together has long run out. We can’t go back to how we were when we were kids, and we can’t go forward with each other the way we are now. It took me a long time to realize that you and I will always only be back then.

I guess I just want you to know that I will keep the memory of us in my atoms. I don’t have to ask if you’ll do the same— I know you will. 

Mazzy