After You

*Contains themes of death and grief.*

I know I shouldn’t be here.

I just needed to feel you again.

Your parents are out—they’re with my parents at the Carsons’ Christmas party across the street. I snuck over here because I saw the lights on your house flickering while I was out back smoking a cigarette. They’re disgusting. I don’t know why I smoke them. No, I do. They’re the only way people will leave you alone outside for a few minutes, so I mostly just hold them to the side and pretend to smoke them if anyone comes out.

Anyway, I was staring at your house—at your window, or what used to be. I wondered if your room was the same as it was. I wondered if the window was locked so that I couldn’t climb the tree to get inside anymore. Then, as I watched, the Christmas lights twinkled. And to be clear, your dad didn’t hang the kind that do that. They were just under your window and I thought maybe I was lightheaded from not breathing or breathing in too much cigarette smoke, or only eating one of those mini sausage things that you loved. I could only eat one before I started feeling like I would cry or puke—that’s how much I miss you right now.

So, here I am, standing in your room. Or what used to be.

I climbed up the tree and your window was still unlocked. I don’t think your parents wanted to change anything. I know the feeling, even though everything has changed. Everything is different. If you had been at school afterward, you wouldn’t have believed the difference—it was, like … quiet. Maybe not to everyone, because not everyone knew you. But to those of us who did—it was like the music at Disney World had suddenly stopped playing over the speakers and all the guests were wandering around like “What now? What are we supposed to do now?”

By the way—I meant to tell you this before—Stacy Arlington has been a complete mess. Guess she knew you existed after all. Told you.

Your desk looks the same. I read your last English paper—why didn’t you tell me you got an A-? Was it because I got a C? You shouldn’t have felt bad—I hated that book and I read as little of it as possible. I mean, did they not have developmental editors back then or what? 

Your bed is made—I still can’t believe we both fit on it to make forts and watch movies when we were little. Remember when I made us get married in your backyard? I know that doesn’t have anything to do with your bed, except that it does because I used your pillowcase as my veil—it was white, after all, after we turned it inside out so the dinosaurs didn’t show.

You were a good sport. I think for a long time, I thought of you as my secret boyfriend, even though I never said it out loud—did I? I talked your ear off so much that I think I’ve forgotten everything I said to you through the years. 

Remember in middle school, when we held hands for a whole week and pretended to be dating so that Stacy would be jealous? I kind of hoped you would fall for me instead. You had a birthday party at the end of that week at the skating rink, and I left early because I had a stomach ache, but I lied. It was the end of our pretend dating and I couldn’t stand it. We were supposed to skate during couples skate and hold hands and then pretend to get in a fight and then I was supposed to run off to the bathroom and cry. I cried for real, though. 

Actually, you knew that. I know that you knew because you came in after me, even though it was the girls’ bathroom, and you hugged me and reminded me that it was pretend and that we hadn’t really fought. I couldn’t tell you that I didn’t want to pretend.

I did later, though. Four years later, remember?

Our senior prom was coming up and you had watched me date douchebag after bigger douchebag all through high school and I had watched you gently let down girl after amazing girl as you waited for Stacy. Seriously, I want to shake her sometimes. She could have had you and she stayed with that asshat, Scott Jensen. 

I see her all the time when I’m home from Michigan State—Stacy. She works at the community center and goes to community college—I thought for sure she would be in LA, modeling or something. But this summer, she had these purple shadows under her eyes like she hadn’t slept. And she gave me these looks whenever I took Sammy to the pool—like some sort of understanding. Like, “Hey, how are you doing? Not good? Me either.” 

Sometimes I wonder if you guys were more than lab partners and that you never told me because you knew I was in love with you. That seems like the kind of thing you wouldn’t tell me, just so you wouldn’t hurt my feelings. Which makes me love you more.

I hope your parents don’t come in and hear me crying on your bed. I’m not trying to be a creep or weird or anything, I just miss you. I’m also trying to wipe the tears out of your yearbook so they don’t distort the pages or whatever. This stupid fake velvet crap on my sleeve doesn’t wipe things off very well. 

What was I talking about before? Oh right—prom.

You agreed to go with me because neither of us had dates. And even though we agreed, you still asked me with a rose and those jelly beans I like and I felt all giggly and I knew it was stupid, but part of me pretended that it was real. Sometimes that twinkle in your eyes tricked me—not that you ever meant to. It wasn’t your fault that you were so charming. 

Your books are still sitting here—I wonder if the school will charge your parents for them. Surely not. I wonder if anyone would notice if I took your journal? I want to remember your handwriting. I already have it though—you wrote me a sweet card with the rose and the jelly beans to ask me to prom and I’ll never get rid of it. My parents wouldn’t dare, either. 

Did I tell you that they put me in therapy? I started sleeping in their room because I was afraid of being alone. Not because I thought I would do anything—I just felt like the darkness and the quiet and the empty space that used to hold you would swallow me, you know? The absence seems like it takes up three times as much space as you did. 

Anyway, he’s okay—the therapist. Kind of old. He has those butterscotch candies in his office. Sometimes I eat one, but they’re so gross. He sometimes falls asleep while I’m talking, too. Like, at first I thought he was just listening really closely like some people do, like with their eyes kind of looking down and almost closed? But he nods and his chin goes to his chest and it’s like … I’m pretty sure he’s sleeping or getting there.

You never saw my dress.

I know you knew what color it was because I cut out a tiny part from the extra material at the bottom so that you could match me. I chose that pale blue because of that summer our families went to the beach and the water and the sky were that color. I know you liked that color, too. Did I ever ask you why? Right now, my chest aches because I can’t remember.

I played how the night would go so many times in my head, you would have thought I was pathetic. No, you wouldn’t. You were never that mean. Any kind of mean. You might have felt a little sorry for me, though, so I never told you about the playing it over in my head. I knew it wasn’t a real date, but I appreciated you taking me. It just seemed right for us to go together, after all of those years.

Do you remember when I snuck into your room on Halloween that one year and I almost slipped off the roof on the way because there was frost on it? I was still wearing my costume and I brought my candy and you had yours already on the floor and we pulled your blanket off of your bed and made a fort with your little TV and chair and watched TV and ate candy, and then 16 Candles came on and we watched it because you knew I would like it. “One of those girly movies you like” is what you called them back then. Anyway, that’s when I first started dreaming of going to prom with you.

I didn’t change out of that dress for three days after. I couldn’t.

I wonder if your tux is still in your closet.

I know I shouldn’t look, but I want it to … I don’t know, smell like you? I’m not sure, but I walk to the closet and I slide it open and unzip the bag that has to be the tux. You didn’t rent one because you already had it for something else. It’s been cleaned recently—the dry cleaning receipt is stapled to it. If I had the ceiling light on, would I be able to see the blood stains? 

I feel lightheaded and close the closet door again, leaving the garnet bag unzipped. I can’t look anymore.

I sit against your bed with my head between my knees because I might pass out. My hands and feet feel tingly and I’m getting that cold-all-over feeling like right before you throw up.

After a few minutes, it gets better, though.

I glance over your bed from where I’m sitting and stare at the colored lights outside your window. I can’t see the bulbs—just the colors. 

They do that twinkling thing again.

Then my breath hitches because I feel someone behind me and I know it’s your parents home to bust me.

But it’s not—it’s you. I know it’s not possible, but it is. 

You’re in your tux, even though it’s in the closet. And you’re looking at me in your easy way, with the smile that’s mostly your eyes, and then you lift your hand and reach toward me.

I get up in a way that is far from graceful and can’t stop staring. I expect my hand to go through yours, but it doesn’t. It’s warm and solid, and I can feel callouses on your fingers from guitar strings, and then you’re pulling me in and putting my arms around your neck and we’re dancing. 

“Nice dress,” you say, and I look down and I’m wearing it. It’s not rumpled and stained from laying on the bathroom floor for three days, either. It’s clean and lacy and beautiful, the way I wanted it to look for you. 

“I like the hair, too.” 

“Thanks,” I say. I don’t tell you that it took me almost three hours and that I used about twenty-seven curly products to make it look like that. My makeup took a long time, too, but this was my only shot at prom with you.

“You look great—good job matching,” I say. Your tie is exactly the color of my dress, and it brings out the blue part of your hazel eyes. Maybe that’s secretly why I love that color.

I look down at my wrist, to see what kind of corsage you bought, but I don’t have one and you don’t have a boutonniere because we never got that far. The driver hit you on the way to the florist. Until I die, I will hate the time of day when the sun is in everyone’s eyes. 

“Oh boy, here’s that cheesy ‘80s music you love,” you say.

I must have turned on your stereo without remembering it, but I don’t worry about your parents coming home and hearing it because your arms are around my waist and we’re dancing so close that I can feel your breath near my face.

I have to stop dancing for a second, though, because I know this isn’t real.

I have so much to say to you, but how can I possibly say it all?

I look at you and you cock your head to the side and I can’t help the tears that spring to my eyes and I say that I miss you.

But did the words come out?

Because you’re not looking at me, anymore. You’re looking at something over my shoulder and I turn to look, too, and I crick my neck and that’s how I wake up, on your floor, with a cricked neck.

And oh god, I need to make it home before my parents do.

I scramble to your window and almost slip on the roof because there’s frost again—more than frost—it snowed a couple nights ago.

I should have brought a coat because it’s so cold outside now and I think the tears are freezing to my face. I don’t have the energy to jump the fence, so I open your back gate and then my back gate and then thankfully, the back door is still unlocked and I sit down against the refrigerator in the kitchen because that’s where I can’t breathe anymore.

If my parents find me here, they’ll make me do extra therapy next week, but I can’t make myself get up.

If I could have pressed ‘pause,’ I would have stayed in your arms forever, even if that meant that you never got to dance with Stacy. How selfish is that? 

Maybe I can crawl. 

I’m crawling across the linoleum and someone spilled cereal and it was probably me. It crunches under my knees and Cheerios are really sharp, and I make it to the stairs and up them and somehow I’m in my room and then staring at your house again.

Did I remember to close your window? I’m pretty sure.

I love you, I think, so hard that I’m going to give myself a headache.

And the lights twinkle again, and I swear it’s you. I pray it’s you, even though I don’t pray. I need it to be you.

God, I miss you.