Dear Camilla,

3: I Need You

Dear Camilla,

I needed you that day like I always have. It's not like we were ever average school friends growing up. We met at a fencing camp the summer before my sixth grade. I can't exactly pinpoint when, but, suddenly, you were just always around.

I remember you signed yourself up out of your own volition. I only went because my mother had forced me to. Something about it building character... I'm not sure if she was supporting my future or just trying to get me out of the house. Your father, in a way, encouraged you seeing as his central priority lay at the bottom of a Hennessy bottle.

Although you are several years older than me, an age gap significant at eleven, we were inseparable. I have this bright red, splotchy birthmark that stretched from my left ear to the middle of my hairline. Do you remember? It looks like someone tried to scalp me, but then promptly gave up. Before the day when we first met, I never paid it much mind, but, I was hurtling towards the age of self-awareness. When it was my turn to introduce myself, I couldn't even get my name out before the boy across from me asked aggressively "Yo, what's that thing you've got on your face? It's not Halloween yet."

It seemed like all the other kids were laughing at me then, agreeing with him. My cheeks turned the same crimson color as my birthmark. I felt my stomach drop. The instructor just stared at me with stupid doe eyes. Bless her heart.

But, then, you— this magical, graceful, taller creature, who seemed to command respect by just standing as proudly as you did— gave the boy next to her a sharp elbow to the rib cage. He winced in pain and seemed to cower under your gaze. You were, after all, several inches taller than him. "Yo, what are all of those red things you've got on your face? At least her's looks cool, like a battle scar or something tough, you prepubescent fuck."The profanity in your language was apparently enough to catch the instructor's attention because she bounced into action. scolding, simply: "students, settle down!" But her warning was too little, too late, for now, he played the fool's role. I mumbled my name before anyone could take any more verbal punches at my vulnerability.

I instantly liked you after this encounter and looked up to you too. You were real enough to see past my external appearance, clever enough to rebrand my flaws into something worth admiring, and brave enough to say something in front of everyone. I felt grateful and proud that you cared, that you saw me. And, you don't hold that day over my head, I doubt you remember. But, I do. It's those early childhood memories that leave the strongest imprints on a person, I guess.

That immediate like quickly grew into something deeper as we spent more time together. Memories flash before my eyes like slides on an old film reel. Every day with you felt like both flying and falling: pure, unfettered adrenaline. In my mind we are sprawled on green grass and blooming wildflowers like two lazy cats, discussing everything under the sun and beyond. And we are biking away from the downtown 7 Eleven, racing in the rose dusk with stolen beers in our baskets. We are in my kitchen, you're searching the cabinets for your favorite cereal and ranting about your father, raving about this new classic rock album you found, dreaming about leaving Tennessee and moving to New York.

And, you did make it to New York. One day, you were leaving my front porch carrying a cardboard box to collect all your stuff that had accumulated at my house over the years. A chartreuse ceramic rabbit you made in pottery class, your fencing armor, the hot pink bong covered in 90's stickers, a stack of math binders, and an inexplicable piece of my entity, its gap stinging red hot every time I glance at it. Camilla, your stuff was alive with energy, pazazz, and vibrance. Now, the only thing that lives in their absence is dust and a sinking sense that life will never be as beautiful as it once was.

Within the week you were gone completely. That, I can pinpoint exactly. Endings are much sharper than their soft counterparts. It was a Wednesday, the 22nd of July at 4:30 pm. You took the night train. I stood on the platform and watched you through the glass like a parent sending their child away for safekeeping during wartime, like a mourner at a funeral. The heat was too hazy and the cicadas were too loud. The station was nearly empty and the light felt tainted with sepia, like an old western film. The concrete was a salmon shade, almost matching the red dirt under the tracks. I felt like we were in a miniature model of the world with no ground or sky or physical things outside the bounds of this particular scene, like a model train set in someone's basement, or a snowglobe.

When your eyes left mine as the train marched away, I didn't stop watching. Part of me was hoping the train would reverse on its tracks. That'd you'd forgotten something and willed the driver to turn around, I knew you could, being as charismatic as you are. But I think that, really, I just didn't know how to leave. I couldn't let go. To me, it was as if the world followed you, that I was frozen in place, destined to be rigidly still there, ready for your return. It's funny because I don't think I let on that I cared this much. That memory seems too surreal— too whimsical to be real, but it feels so strong nonetheless.

And, in that moment, when you missed our meeting, I felt all the pain from that day come crashing back in a consuming, blinding stampede of sorrow. While I layed there, in Central Park, missing you. Watching the clouds take the shape of your face. 

Maxine.