Disappear.

Submitted into Contest #45 in response to: Write a story about change.... view prompt

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Dear stupid diary, 05/10/2018

I once knew a girl who disappeared. She was absolutely beautiful, like an early winter's morning blanketed in a crisp frost. Her slender, pale limbs were engraved with scars, like footprints disrupting the snow on the pathways, or cracks in a marble statue. Her hair hung to her waist in thick braids, as black as the moonless night. Despite the look in her eyes, as cold as ice, her smile was the warmest. The kind of smile one would pay to see twice. Her voice was as soft as a french king’s silk, enchanting anyone who was close enough to hear.

No one else seems to care that she’s gone. Even her older brother has stopped talking about her. I can’t understand why. Why they would want to forget about her so quickly. She was so sweet, talented and funny. She had so many brilliant ideas and thoughts to offer to the world, even if some of them were impossible. To her, nothing ever seemed impossible. Not even for a moment. Maybe, if someone, anyone, had just listened. If only they had heard her beautiful singing or her theories about the universe, instead of bullying her and pushing her away. 

She often drew skeletons, but I never asked why. It seemed pretty normal from an outside point of view. She always wrote alarming messages over her drawings, but I simply took it as artistic expression. Mybae I was too much of an optimist, taking her dark comments as jokes and laughing in her face.  I was too blind to see what she truly needed. To help her. I should have seen the signs, because they were all around me. 

Down by the railroad, we wasted days away. As days turned to months, time seemed to melt away. Before I realized it, March had turned to July, which turned to September. Spring, to summer, to fall. We helped each other with school, and stayed out way too late. We went to dumb parties, and she taught me how to skate. I finally learned how to manual today, she would be so proud. We wrote each other letters, despite only being a text away, because it was fun to doodle in the corners or create wax seals.  

For a while, I thought that I loved her. Well, no, I didn’t think it. I knew it. She was my whole world. Maybe if I had told her instead of being such a wuss, she would still be here. With me. She loved me, and I loved her. We were supposed to grow old together.

One day, while we sat by the water, she said to me "If I disappeared one day, and never came back, would you miss me? Like, would you really miss me?"

I didn't think much of the question at the time, dismissing her with a simple, "Of course, what kind of question is that?" How was I supposed to know? Everyone has dark thoughts sometimes. Everyone gets lonesome and everyone feels down. She never asked again, so I assumed something had just upset her. 

Maybe I misunderstood, or maybe I was just tone deaf. Maybe I missed the desperate pleading in her words. Maybe I was blinded by my own happiness.

Since she left, nothing was the same. Food tasted like nothing, all my music sounded the same. Her smell lingered on my jacket, and my heart wrenched every time I heard her name. Without her here my world is grey. Without her, nothing is the same.

People often ask me if I knew why she had gone. They ask me all about her, and beg me to go on. I don't want to talk, and so I don't listen. I walk the halls with my headphones in, my patience growing very thin.

Some days I consider joining her, in her deep dark prison. I consider packing my things, and going to find her again. At night I lay awake, scarring myself in the exact same places as she did. I would do anything to see her, to bring her home once more.

My mother tells me to drop it, that she's never coming back. I know that she isn't, I never asked for a fact check. Every day I pass the bridge where she jumped on my way home from school. No one would see me if I jumped. No one would have to know. No one could stop me. Sometimes, I sit on the railing of that bridge, and I just think. I remember her, I cry about her, I consider going to see her again. I also know that isn’t what she would want. 

Dear stupid diary, 10/18/2018

I’ve made up my mind, and no one can stop me. I’m going to her. No one in this world is amazing as she is, or ever will be.

My parents want us to move to another state, to start over. They think it would be good for me. I think they’re so stupid. Adults are very stupid. They could never understand, and so they don’t even try to. They act like they know everything, and what’s best for everyone. Did they once ask me if I wanted to move? How I felt about it? I’ll give you a hint, the answer is no.

So today, my absolutely retarded diary, I am going to disappear. I never want to be seen again. I’m going to disappear, without asking if anyone wants me to. I don’t care what they do and don’t want from me. I’m not listening. 

Mother, if you find this, just know that you are the most self centered, egotistical cow I ever knew. Father, I love you, but you are an overbearing, drunk, idiot. And to my sister, I hope you get out as fast as you can. Move far away and never come back. Go to school and study hard, and don’t break up with your boyfriend. I like him. 

It’s October 18th, of the year 2018. The day I disappear.

June 13, 2020 02:30

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