The Night is Shattered, and She is Not With Me

tw- mention of suicide

“you’re not leaving, don’t ask me again.” My mother had uttered these words to me recently, though it felt like lifetimes had passed since. I remember her lips curling against her straight, white teeth in a warning snarl. It seems strange to describe a human as snarling, or growling even, but that is the only way to name it.  

What I was asking for was possible—I needed to leave. I needed to get out of this comfortable, horrible little bubble I had wrapped myself in since the days of your death. I was a teenager grieving my favorite person, and even when you were alive, I was beyond impulsive. It would have been better to leave with her blessing, but I was not against going without.  

I should back up—rewind and tell your legacy—but what good would that do you? It is not like your history would make people admire you, or forgive you. I will never forgive you. The night you left me in this expanse of world without you. The night you took your own life. It reminds me of a poem you told me once—you wrote it on the back of a book you gave me for my birthday. You wrote “What does it matter, that my love could not keep her? The night is shattered, and she is not with me.”  

It is like you foreshadowed your own death; you shattered my night, my day, my life. But the difference between you and me is that I can take it because I am still alive. And you’re getting eaten by maggots.  

It would not have been possible, for me to get away, without my sister. She moved off to college this year and you guys had gotten along well, even if it was only when I was there to be the middleman. She understood my grief, even if my parents did not. She bought me a ticket for the 11th of November, to fly up to Reno, Arizona and stay with her. It was a round trip of 280 dollars. I would pay her back I decided, because at least I could do that much. I was going to stay for 3 days and explore a new world, if only to get you off my mind.  

When it came the day for me to leave, my mother did not even question me. I did not make it obvious, and I had been going “out” a lot recently, but part of me wanted them to stop me—to interrogate me until I admitted and they forced me to stay. It didn’t happen. I walked out the door, back pack heavy on my shoulder, and walked to a nearby convenience store. A friend would pick me up and drop me off at the airport. I didn’t have a car and I was not willing to bike the 30 miles in the negative temperatures of our Alaskan winters.  

Recently many of my friends had been moving away--all my close ones anyway—and so I was stuck with acquaintances. I was told I have this issue in retaining friendships and keeping them. You nagged me about that a lot, which caused our first and last fight. So, it was an old acquaintance from freshman year, she was grieving you too. We looked similar, the same blond hair and ice blue eyes, we both looked basic and boring. Neither of which I would disagree with, but she was plumper than me, and the little muscle I had gained this summer had eaten itself away from my bones since the days of your death.  

The ride was near-silent, and I was not eager to ruin it. I muttered my condolences as she dropped me off with a nod. I was about an hour early, so I watched till the fog and snow swallowed the last of the light from the rear-lights.  

After I got through security and stomached a hot chai from Starbucks, I decided to write. It was the first draft of this, really. The first draft of my final words to you. Trust me, I am not delusional, I understand that you cannot hear me, and you never will. But when you died, my narrow world narrowed further: to pen scratches on my pages and dirt scuffs on my shoes.  

So, here is to you—for leaving me in this god-awful world alone—I will curse you every day because of it. And you will never have to deal with the consequences because you forced us too instead.  

My sister meets me at the terminal after the flight. Her hair Is chestnut-brown and tangled with the occasional boredom-braid. I understand that my feet walked over to her, and my arms pulled her into a hug, but none of it is conscious, I am on autopilot and I’m afraid I will stay stuck on that setting. Her smell is comforting. She leads me, gently, to her car. If she said anything, I didn’t catch it.  

Nobody else has treated me like I am grieving, and when she does it almost makes me angry. I’m not a child, I want to tell her. I do not. She buys me milk tea and at some point, she drives us to a lake, so large I cannot see the other side. It's comforting, almost. Because I know there is another side, even if I can’t see it.  

Our friendship was like that in the end. When you moved and I could not bother to text you enough. But you were still alive. I still had the possibility to call you at midnight and cry to you about how much I missed you. Not anymore.  

In truth, after you had died, I revisited every bit of our history from Alaska. I walked our path from school, through the woods, to the town. In town we had our “clubhouse” or hangout spot which was just an old office trailer that had been abandoned for about a decade. You left candles there. I stole them back into my room, to have just that tiny part more of you. We had also tagged the walls. Our little designs and quotes.  

But that was all. Of the five years I have known you, we had only two main spots of history, aside from my room and yours. Both of which are different now. You hated my paintings and drawings, claimed them to be too eerie for your liking. I should have torn them down, instead I just made more.  

So now I am here, to ditch our history, to let the dust settle in our world so that by the time I have come back; it will only be mine.