To Thaw a Farewell

“See ya soon!”  

The overly pleasant, the tender smile, the unspoken vow of a next time. The same farewell was used after the conclusion of all our evenings. At the time, I hadn’t detected the veiled hesitance concealed beneath her carefree goodbye. The cry for help entrenched beneath her words.

That was the last thing she spoke to me before tumbling off the face of the earth. Ten years later, those same words still keep me up at night.

I recall so vividly that last day. The crisp winter biting our cheeks, leaving splotches of red, painting them rosie, frozen lashes glistening under the moon. Collapsing backward onto a mound of fluffy snow to create angels. Amidst her laughing, she turned to me seriously, as if the words about to leave her mouth were life changing. “I have a secret to tell you,” I nodded, becoming serious as well, and leaned in, and swiftly, out of nowhere, my jacket was filled with snow. And then she was gone, sprinting across the yard, tripping in the snow, laughing like a maniac. The snow crunched under my feet as I followed behind, ready to tackle her from the back, before she stopped and glanced back at me. It startled me, that look. Like her world had just ended and was grieving her loss. “Let's go inside, eh?”

Right then and there I should’ve known that something was awry, that look, what it meant. I never imagined she’d hide her life from me. 18 years, side by side, but apparently, I never truly knew Ana.

At a loss for words, I had looked at her, as if waiting for a train that would never come. We locked eyes for a moment, and she spoke to me, although not with words I understood ‘It’s okay, babes, I’m ok’. And in my wrongly placed trust, I believed. I nodded, hesitant, and headed towards the door.

We kicked our boots off and thrust our jackets to the side when we entered. Glancing at my shirt, her somber eyes had switched to wicked amusement. It was drenched. “I’ll get you back for that one, mark my words,” I’d said before waltzing my way to the kitchen, tracking wet footprints behind me.

“I’m sure you will… Say, how ‘bout some hot chocolate?’” She asked, smiling warmly. I’d kill a man to hear those words again, no hesitation.

She dropped a mug into my hands and plopped beside me. Frosty the Snowman was the night's choice, Ana’s favorite. Her face was still red from the cold but washed with colorful lights from the tree. Our weekly December ritual was never missed, even when she had the stomach bug in second grade. It may have been gross, but it was worth it.

Back then, we used to nab my parents’ whiskey to mix with the chocolate. It was disgusting, but at twelve years old, we wanted to be cool. Neither of us wanted to admit how gross it really was. So we’d nurse curdled spiked cocoa very slowly and laugh at the faces each other would make. Those were good times, back when there were no worries, all that mattered was whether Rudolph would get to fly with the other reindeer. When Christmas brought forth a magic forth with which nothing else could compete. Pure and unadulterated joy. Ana never lost that joy, that same innocent child-like glint always shown in her eyes every Christmas season.

  The fire crackled beside us, emitting a warmth that could melt glaciers, yet still her presence felt harshly cold. It even made me shiver. I glanced at her, and she smiled, so I shrugged it off.

That night we talked and laughed for hours. Our childhood, work tension, and friends that had been causing issues. Everything and nothing at the same time, at least nothing important. Her presence had relaxed, and she appeared to melt. That was until I pointed out the bruise on her wrist, and she froze again. A work accident dumped a box of bread on it, she had explained, not without stuttering. The look in her gaze begged me to drop it, and regretfully I did. An uneasy silence had settled between us the rest of the night.

“I should probably get going,” she had said to me, huffing.

“Oh, ah, okay, I’ll walk you out,” I said, feigning a smile. 

“See ya soon!” Ana said and engulfed me in a tight embrace. As the door clicked shut, I thought she might have said something more after walking away. I wish I told her to stay, declared that the streets were too bad to drive, and stated I saw through the mask she was wearing the whole day, but I didn’t. There was no word from her for months after she left my house.

They discovered her body when the snow began to evaporate, still preserved by the weather. Her red hair still braided just like the night she left my house. Murder, they told me; it was her boyfriend. As they explained to me, and questioned me, I stopped listening. I had frozen in place, stopped in time, just like Ana. My best friend, my whole life, was gone in the snap of one's fingers. I don’t remember the week after the call.  The funeral, her mother continually wailed, pleading for this nightmare to come to a close. The trial, his bitter, unremorseful words. pain, my screams, my tears, my begging for her forgiveness for letting her leave. 

She lived. She died. Nothing else had changed. The world kept turning, lives left unaltered, but nothing would ever be the same. The universe suddenly felt so vast yet so meager at the same time. Years of shadow shrouded over my life. 

It might have been the hot chocolate, it might've been her spirit murmuring to me, maybe I didn't want to say goodbye, but I needed to because she deserved it because it dawned on me that this is what she'd want for me, to heal. To tell her 'this will be the most excruciating goodbye of my life’, because only then will this tragedy be slighter. And when she passed, the me who I am, the me who froze in time, who stopped existing. And saying farewell may eventually thaw me.

I open my eyes back to reality and rub the tears from my eyes. Alone in my car, sleet pelting down on my windshield, after years I finally come to terms with her death, even so without her beside me, I find myself scouring continual crowds for her face. Only to remind myself I will never find what I’m searching for.  

I trudge through the cemetery’s deep snow before I reach my destination. ‘In Loving Memory, Anabelle Adair, Daughter, Sister, and Best Friend. 05/07/01-12/22/19.’ Gingerly, I sweep the snow off the top of the stone and kneel. “Hey Ana, babes, I brought your favorite.” A thermos and two mugs, I place hers in front of the grave and fill it with hot cocoa. The cup steams amidst the freezing air. “Not as good as you make it, but it’ll have to do.” I laugh to myself.

“I talked to your mom yesterday. She, uh, got a new boyfriend. I think you’d like him. He's very tall, very handsome, and he’s got a knack for baking. I’ll look after her for ya, make sure he don’t hurt her… I promise,” I sip my drink, and it scalds my tongue, I can practically hear her laughing at my clumsiness from the afterlife. 

“I brought you something.” I pluck a little Frosty the Snowman from my backpack and place it near the mug. He peers at me with a jolly grin. I sniffle from the cold and wipe my face “I really wish you were here; cheesy Christmas movies aren’t the same without you.” A gust of wind hits me, but it feels warm. Almost as though to declare ‘I’m always here, you didn’t think I’d let you watch them without me.’ I feel myself melting further.

“I got a secret to tell you,” I say and plop backward in the snow. “I’m having a baby, her names gonna be Ana, after you… I can’t wait to bring her to meet you… She’ll love you as much as I do.” Because she will, Ana has a way about her. That draws out the best in people, even now that she’s gone, she inspires with the kind humility of a woman with a pure heart.

I flung snow at her stone “Ha, told you, I’d get you back one day.”

My darling, my best friend, my soulmate. Though not here in the flesh, will always be by my side. The void left in my heart can never truly be filled but with every memory; it diminishes. She is embossed on every Christmas movie, in every snowflake that falls on my lashes, on everything from the ornaments on the trees to the lights emitting their wonder on the world; hot chocolate in mugs we’d used every year of our lives but that had abruptly become inaccessible forever encoded on my soul. Our weekly December tradition will never be shattered, no matter the weather, I will be there.  

For a moment I think she's in front of me caressing my cheek, I close my eyes and let it wash over me. This tranquility, and I know I will never be alone.

“See you later!”