Cracking Zeenath

To Evelyn.

To Evelyn.

      Evelyn, I'm writing this letter to you. Because everything before you comes in snippets. You were my best friend. The one who picked me up when I fell, the one who stopped me from falling in the first place. Because there's a hole in my heart where you once belonged. There's a cut that won't stop bleeding. Because I miss you, Evelyn. For the last time, I spread out my arms and fell, thinking you'd be there to catch me. Then my eyes widened and my heart stopped as my body cut through the glass and air and your hands weren't there to stop me. I landed on the concrete, hard, my body rocked to the core. I stared up at the grey sky, covering my eyes with my arm as my tears trailed off the sides of my face.

      Childhood memories have the funny quality of not seeming all that important until they're all gone and you're sitting there all of a sudden so much older, so different from the person you were before. That's when you realize, "Hey, it's all over now," and a piece of you breaks inside because you will never be the person you were in those memories. You're a little too guarded, a little too serious, and have a little too many scratches and bruises from your past to become that free again. To trust someone and let them get that close to you again.

      I was sitting in Anna's Coffee last week reading a book, waiting for my coffee to cool down when this group of kids walked in. They were about our age, with bright eyes and free smiles. They came in with the regular bustling noise that follows a group of people walking together, with some talking to each other or making funny faces and adding unnecessary commentary and jokes to annoy each other.

      One of them glanced at me and gave me a smile. I tentatively smiled back before going back to my book. But I couldn't pay attention to the words anymore. One of the boys in the group was talking pretty loudly, and I couldn't concentrate. I kept thinking of you. One of the girls had a voice like yours. A little rough, but sweet, with a hint of sarcasm in everything she said. And my chest constricted a little. Then someone laughed and their voice sounded so much like yours, my heart stopped for a second and I dropped the book and turned around. A kid in the group saw me looking and told his friends,  "Shut up, you're pissing everyone else off."

      When I turned around, I had expected you to be there. I don't know why, after everything that happened, but I did. And when I turned around, and you weren't there, all the memories crashed back down on me and I forgot how to breathe. I started coughing and choking on my tears. People were starting to stare at me. I got up and as the world blurred together, I kept my head down and rushed out the door.

      The air outside was hot and it burned my lungs as I swallowed it, trying to drown the memories. That night I cried myself to sleep. Everything has changed, Evelyn. My life isn't the same as it was before and you're not in it. No one is in it, and no one is left to stay beside me. Nothing is the same as it was before, and I can't help but wish that it were. That all of you were with me again and I wasn't completely alone and hollow inside. That's the thing about memories. When everyone is gone and you're nothing but a hollow skeleton of who you were before, they come back and haunt you, reminding you of everything you've lost. I'm lost, Evelyn. I've lost myself, and you're not there to find me.

~Love, Zeenath.