Minnesota Goodbyes

Entry #56

The winter sun is midday high when you wake up.

There's a rapping on the door that drags you fully into consciousness, and when you open it (groggy and head-achy) to Nick's eyes welling up and looking anywhere but you, and you know. (His eyes staring at the ceiling, held open too long and then blinking away his shame. His face pale and lips bloodless. His voice monotone and dull. You know.)

Because he hadn't found her, and someone else had. Because you hadn't followed her into the night, and neither had he. And when someone else finally, finally found her, and she was already gone.

And then you know, and it is over. An end so complete.

It's like a lightning strike. For a moment, you are so painfully alive, everything lit up white-hot. Just as quickly, you are swallowed in blackness. Everything shown in stark detail, a moment caught in a flash of pain, your disbelief a riot in your chest, hair standing on end, heartbeat so alive, beating staccato in your chest.

You are so forcefully alive. Inappropriately alive in such a dead place.

Clair is gone. That's what he said. Maybe not like that, but Nick said she was gone. But she can't be. She's in her room, waiting for you. Hungover, likely as not, because you dragged her to that stupid party she didn't even want to go to. And she'll be upset (as you are) that you aren't there in the morning, ready to roll out of bed and go grab breakfast with her.

If you're quick though (you shove Nick, open palms striking his chest hard. Tears stream down your face as you push past him. You must be quicker), you can get to her room before she wakes up—

But when you unlock her door (quietly, so you don't wake her), you know.

Your breath comes out ragged and clots on every surface, fogging up on all of her things. Your beer-sour breath. Dragging in air and— (So loud. Why are your heart and lungs so painfully functional? You try not to breathe, to stop your heart, to close your eyes forever. To end all of this.)

How can a room seem so big and so empty? Like you're viewing yourself from so far away, and watching yourself decompose, even though you haven't moved, even though you're just standing and waiting and waiting and she'll come back she has to this can't be the end

Your heart rises up, choking you, and your breath straggles out of your throat and it's not quiet anymore and you're choking on your lungs and organs and you're going to let them spill out onto her carpet and maybe you'll follow her to where she's gone when they're all in a pile on her floor.

But they don't come out.

Your breathing slows, and the silence devours you and you are so afraid. You've never been this afraid, and your skin crawls, trying to draw you further inside yourself, away from your terror. (You're afraid to touch anything. To taint it. If you sit quietly at the edge of her futon, waiting waiting w a i t i n g she'll come bursting in. Eyes crinkling and freckles dancing wickedly as she tells some story.

But only if you touch nothing, taint nothing. If you don't disrupt the shrine (crypt. tomb.) She cannot leave her Pale Blue Dot poster or her discarded heels or

Or you.

(But you know. You know and you can't stop knowing.)

You are only there a minute because you cannot wait. You cannot sit in this shrine to her, because that's what this is now. Not a living piece of art, flowing and changing daily, but a dead testimony to her and what she was.

As you go, you lock the door behind you, and suddenly, there's nothing left of her.

What have you done?