Dear Carla

Her face as red as blood. 

Her eyes as red as her face. 

Her skin as red as her eyes… 

As red as blood. 

“I didn’t know, how could I know?” Her fingers grasp the thin crinkled paper, read over and over. She could feel the small itch of her blanket across her almost raw cut hip. Her voice thin, crackling with every inflection of emotion. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry,” she pleads to a shadow of humility fleeting from the room. “Please.” She repeats the phrase like a mantra of self-destruction. “Please,” every breath she takes. “Please,” every tear. “Please.” 

Alone in the room, she sits on the quaint bed. Her door tightly closed with a thin veil of light peeking under. The light burned her eyes with the glow of a hopeless wish. She waits for a voice, any voice. A raven pounding on her chamber door. 

Then she hears it, the quiet booming voice of her father. He slips open the door and steps his foot into the room. She shuffles her knees closer to her chin and leaves her weak feet in the air as she pulls her legs close. Her father sets himself onto the bed so he can read her face without needing to see the pain in her eyes. They sit silently for a moment. They knew everything without words, the large black cloud looming over their heads, fogging down their throats, and caking their vocal cords with the looming presence of undressed context. 

“It isn’t your-” 

“Stop.” She cuts her father off.

“Your fault.” He continues “Carla was… sick,” his words dancing around the unspoken cloud.

“I knew, and I didn’t- “ Her voice trails off. 

“It was her decision and her decision only, you couldn’t have done anything, her parents couldn’t have done anything, nobody could.” He could see her tears continue. “They tried, you tried. I’m sorry.” He knew there was nothing he could do. She was steadfast in her decision, in the false conviction. 

“Carla was sick.” She repeats what her father had said time and time again. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t my fault. It only means that I should have known she needed me. I could have stopped her. I could have been there.” She pauses for a second. Looking down at the thin paper she continues “And now I have this.” She lifts the paper closer to her father “A note.” 

Dear Anne, 

I didn’t want to leave things this way. I want you to know that I love you, and I will miss you. Please, don’t blame yourself. I know you will blame yourself, this isn’t because of you. It is because of everything else. My life is like a black cloud, seeping down my throat, into my veins, and destroying my head. I can’t be happy. I try but I can’t. I am tired of it all. I am tired of repeating the same thing every day. I will always love you, Goodbye. 

“She didn’t even sign it.” Anne pauses “It’s all my fault.” 

“Write about it,” her father says. Anne looked into his eyes, she could see the red reflection of her face beat down on her father’s deep chestnut pupils. She looked down at her skin, the deep gashes of red forcing a tear down her face. 

“I can’t. This is all my fault, how am I supposed to write when Carla’s life…” She can barely speak. “Her blood was in my hands.” Anne falls into her father’s lap. 

“Write to her Anne. She knew it wasn’t your fault, she wanted you to know it wasn’t, she is the only person that can help you. Write to her.” Her father takes a small notebook paper from his back pocket, and a pen from his front. He tries to flatten the tight crinkles on the page from his keys hitting against the paper. 

Anne shows her father a faint smile. What he mistakes for hope, she knows is faked. She daintily grabs the paper out of her father’s hand, her week fingers barely holding up the paper like it is heavier than a one-hundred-pound weight. She then reaches her hand for the pen. Her father drops the pen on her pale red palm. His movement is more lively with the spark of joy fleeting through his arm. 

Anne looked at the paper. The red line across the page. Her blood-red fingertips, the blood-red page. She traces the crinkles on the page, as a single tear fell from her eyes she looks at her father. “Can I write this alone?” She asks him softly, seeing as he’s about to ask to stay she continues “Please, I want to talk to Carla.” Without a word spoken her father slowly nods his head. Letting it fall and hang for a moment, then slowly lifting it up as he stands from her bed. The floorboards crack as they cave in and the bed frame creaks as his weight leaves the bed. He closes the door leaving a small shave of light open into the room. 

Alone, alone again, Anne looks down at her paper. Dear Carla, she writes on the page. Her emotions begin to pour out onto the page. Pandora’s box: the cloud unclogs everything. Spilling onto the blood-red lines she continues to write. 

Dear Carla, 

I’m so sorry I did this to you. You were my best friend and I can’t believe I did this to you. I should have known. The truth is, I’m thinking about it. I want to see you again and I don’t want to live with this black cloud around me. But I can’t. I can’t do that to my father. God, why didn’t you think of that? You knew that I would help you. You still did it. You left me because I wasn’t a good enough friend. If I had been better you would still be here, and now I have to wait for so long to see you again. I should have saved you. You and I know I could have. I will always miss you. I’m sorry. Goodbye.