Dear Blue, I hate you.

Dear Blue,

Blue used to mean something. It was a name for things that behaved like blue things—reliable, distant, inarguable. Ocean, sky, and the bruises on my knees after I tripped in front of the laundromat. But then you happened, and the word fell apart. Blue. Even writing it down feels like a betrayal. My white blood cells have spent the time repairing the damage, and here you are, peeling off the scabs. Blue. I hate you. I hate you, Blue.

Reason 1 why I hate you.

The Fall

I hated you from the moment I met you, but I misread the signals. Love and hate use the same wiring, and somewhere in my brain, the electricity hiccupped. A warning signal telling me to flee got mislabeled as romantic intrigue, and I crashed headfirst into it like a moth mistaking fire for light. 

I was a freshman. You didn’t know that because I lied. You were older, and I needed that to not matter. You liked that I was in chemistry—not the class, just the word. It sounded fascinating, but only until I started talking about math. I told you chemistry was more than just numbers, and you said, “Show me some time.” That was it. That was how we became something. Two strangers who found a reason to keep talking. You asked me out because, of course, you did. You were direct, a trait I envy. 

Our first date was a traffic jam. You wanted to see a ballet. I did not like ballet, but you convinced me I might. Then, a thirteen-car pileup turned our night into eight hours of watching the same billboard change advertisements. And in that car, we were polite. First-date-polite. I had been misled by Drew Barrymore.

 I thought love was supposed to feel like fireworks, but I haven’t felt a fireworks signal in my life. I cannot lie and say that our date was bad, it wasn’t. I wish I could say we were not a match that would make everything easier. We were in sync. When the traffic started moving, we did not want to go to the real world. 

Reason 2 why I hate you.

Your Father

When I met your father, I knew him. I mean, I had never seen him before, but my stomach lurched with recognition. A disgusting sense of Deja Vu settled in my stomach like a virus. I introduced myself, and he stared at me blankly. I gave him my jacket, and he threw it back at me. 

“Dinner’s in the kitchen.” He said

I looked at you, but you were no help. You walked with him to the kitchen and followed him obediently. Dinner was cold, and the Deja Vu had become unrelenting. I couldn’t focus on the soup, and the questions your father was asking me made no sense.  

“Did you clean your room?”

I nodded. My room was spotless in my head. He grunted and went back to eating. You were asleep. You had abandoned me to the logic of a house I did not understand. Then he got up and returned with a pile of letters. He slid one across the table. I read the header: Manchester High. My school.

“You were allowed one F. I see three. What happened?”

It wasn’t my report card, but he was waiting for an answer. I turned to you, and he hit the table so hard my bones vibrated.

“Don’t look away from me.”

You woke up, and, for the first time, I thought you might help me. Instead, you started brushing your hair. Then your father stood up and grabbed my throat. I swung at him, and he slapped me so hard I saw alternate timelines where I had never agreed to meet you. You finally spoke.

“Stop him!” you said to no one in particular.

I bit his arm, I chewed through the vein of his wrist, and he pushed me to the ground. He kicked me in the stomach, and you just kept yelling.

“Stop him!” 

I stumbled to the door. You finally said something useful.

“Take his keys.”

Reason 3 why I hate you.

The Doctor

I hate the doctor. Her voice rearranges my thoughts like a child idly shuffling and suddenly, I am thinking things that do not belong to me. I try to focus, really try, but it’s like I’m not in control anymore. I’m just sitting there, listening, but it feels like I’m hearing everything through a fog. And I’m not even sure when it started, but it’s like I’m not really me anymore. I’m a version of myself that she’s slowly shaping with each word she says. I want to scream, to tell her that I’m fine, that I don’t need this, but the words feel stuck somewhere deep inside.I wonder if she knows. I wonder if she’s doing this on purpose, or if it’s just part of the whole thing. 

It was her idea to write this letter. She says it will help. That it will “align my thoughts.” I do not feel aligned. I feel like a tower built by a drunk architect. This letter does not clarify a thing. It just reminds me that you left. It reminds me that I would never have robbed a bank. Blue, everything reminds me of you. 

You were so sure it would work, that it would be easy, that no one would even notice. I would’ve never done it if you hadn’t been there. You were the one with all the ideas, the one who thought we could outrun everything. And now I’m sitting here, writing a letter to someone I don’t even know, trying to make sense of why you left, why I stayed. You always had a way of twisting things, making them seem like something they weren’t. But this—this is something I can’t twist back. This is something I can’t forget.

I don’t even own a gun.

Blue, I need you to come. The doctor thinks you are not real.

The police think I am lying.

At least write back.

So I know I haven’t made you up.

I hate you, Blue. Please respond.