The Brightest Star

Chapter Two

Sitting on the floor, biting her nails to compensate for the anxiety, Lia tried to make a decision. Was she finally going to open the box? That same box she cried on for weeks after Matt's passing. That same box she saw everyday but chose to ignore. That same box she tried to erase from her existence without having the strength to give up on what's inside... The silence of the room was playing with her mind and so she played an irregular rhythm by taping her fingers on the floor. Her thoughts were so unclear, she didn't know what to do and not to do. Should she open it? Should she push it further away in the corner and forever forget it? Forever forget Matt? Cecilia just couldn't bear that thought. Her fingers stopped taping the floor and she stopped breathing for a few seconds. The room was plunged in an anxious silence. Dust was flying through the strips of sunshine going through the drapes. Soon more of those tiny particles would land on the box and she would be able to use these as an excuse to keep on ignoring it. She slowly rose to her feet without ever leaving the box out of her sight. She was too frightened to find it gone if she'd dare look away even for a second.

"You can do it," she shyly cheered herself.

Lia was only two steps away from the box and yet it still felt like an adventure to go near it. Once she was close enough to only need to bend over to pick it up, she was out of breath. She felt her heart sink by the idea of opening it but something made her stomach twist: she had almost no memory of what was in that box anymore. She had made it, she was the one that carefully put every single item in it but she had no recollection. Only then did she realise how horrible of a friend she had been. At least that's what she was thinking of herself. Grief is a complex process and she knew that. More than anybody. Yet she couldn't help but hate herself. She had chosen to purposely forget Matt to bury her pain but she had only managed to make it deeper. What would he think of her?

"Come on, Cecilia..."

She took the box.

The first touch of it felt like ice. She almost abandoned the mission but she held onto it. Sliding her hands down the sides, she carefully carried it from the bottom. A single tear going down her cheek, she couldn't believe she was doing it. The trip to her desk, which was three steps long, felt like an eternity. Her eyes were glued on the box and she was careful to take the smallest steps possible, to treat the box as an ancient artefact. It felt like it could collapse at any time, that what was inside was in fact the finest work of glass you could imagine and that it could crumble to dust and get lost forever at any time. Once the box was secured on the desk, she allowed herself to breathe. She wanted to wipe her tears away from her face but couldn't bear the thought of touching it, as if her hands were covered in him and that wiping them would wipe him away.

Outside, the sky was clear and the weather surprisingly hot for the beginning of November. Some birds were singing and she hated it. She hated the feeling of being alone. Alone and in pain. She tried to forget the box for a second and focus on breathing but nothing would work. She slowly sat at her desk, feeling the heavy presence of the box on her left. She reached for a black notebook in front of her. No reason as to why this particular one apart that she knew it was empty of any content. Picking up a random pen, she left it hanging above the blank page. What was she supposed to write? How was she supposed to write? Was it stupid? Will it really be helpful? Or is it gonna make her miss him even more? Lia felt her brain explode with questions and couldn't take the overthinking anymore. She let the pen get in contact with the paper and wrote whatever was crossing her mind, and her heart.

"Dear Matt,

Am I stupid to do that? Probably. Is it gonna help me get rid of the pain? Unlikely. Is it gonna make me hate you less? Probably not. But I'm hopeless and desperate to get out of this cycle... I will hate and love you for the rest of my life. I want to learn how to live without you. And letting this box sit in the corner of my sad room is probably not what I need to do to move on. I need to say goodbye... God knows I don't want to let you go but you left... By yourself. You left without giving me a chance to say goodbye. You left me alone and didn't think of the consequences of your actions. I needed and still need to tell you so many things. So allow me to write this as my final goodbye. My final goodbye to you. To us."