On the first day back at school today, I wore my new sweater that Mom sent me for Christmas. I cut the neck off and pinned a patch to it, like May’s first-day sweater, and I snuck into May’s room, and for the first time I put on some of the lipstick she left on her dresser—Cover Girl Everlasting. I kept imagining what it would be like when I saw Sky. We’d kiss by his locker. He’d say I looked beautiful. I’d say I was sorry. That I didn’t mean to scare him on New Year’s. I’d had too much to drink. He’d say he was sorry for what he said about May. He’d say he meant to call. And we’d be able to forget about all of it. He loved me. He’d said so, after all.
But all morning he was nowhere. And all day, nothing made sense. At lunch, Hannah started flirting with one of the soccer boys, and a few of them, including Evan Friedman, came over to our table. I felt him looking at me and heard his friend whisper something and snicker. I just tried to avoid eye contact. Hannah was bragging about Neung, how he’s a gangster and stole Christmas presents for his nephew and a gold necklace for her. (She hasn’t been back to his house since that night they hooked up, but I guess she sees him at work, and she told me if it’s slow sometimes they still make out a little in the back.) Everyone was impressed by this, except Natalie, who said that’s not the Christmas spirit, and if it were her and she had no money for gifts, she would have made her nephew something instead. What Hannah didn’t tell everyone was that on New Year’s Eve, she and Natalie had kissed out in the open, like the promise of a world where Natalie was the only one.
I didn’t say anything about Sky. When they asked where he was, I just shrugged. When they asked if I was okay, I just smiled. In spite of everything, I was still hoping that he’d come up and wrap his arms around me. I was trying to concentrate on specific things, like the thread unraveling on the seam of my new sweater, to remember that I was still there.
Finally, in eighth period, I went to chorus with Hannah. Last semester we had PE, which is over now. “Thank god we’re done with that,” Hannah said. She was excited for chorus since she loves singing, and she said what’s great is that in a chorus full of other voices, you can sing without feeling self-conscious.
As we walked into the room, I saw him. Sky. I didn’t expect it. The electives are shared between all of the grades, but I thought he’d take shop or art. Maybe those classes had filled up. He was all the way across the room, talking to a couple of other juniors. I kept waiting for our eyes to catch. But all class, he didn’t look at me, not even once. Mr. Janoff and Mrs. Buster, who co-teach, grouped us into altos and sopranos and so on, and when we started to learn our first song, “A Whole New World” from Aladdin, that’s when it got really bad. I felt like something was stuck in the back of my throat. I couldn’t sing, or even breathe right. I was gasping and looking across the room at Sky, not looking at me. Like I didn’t exist. I wondered if I wasn’t really there. I kept telling myself to get on the magic carpet and fly above everything. I could feel the hot breath of a shadow on me as I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on the voices, tried to pick out each voice from the whole chorus of them, blended together. I could hear Hannah near me, singing in her sweet soprano. I could hear the boy from Bio who sells fake acid. And I thought I could hear Sky. The lyrics to the song said not to close your eyes. But when I opened mine and looked at him, he was staring down at his sheet music, not even moving his lips. The song said that there was a whole new world to share. Sky looked blurry across the room. A fading photograph.
When the bell rang, Hannah grabbed my arm, asking, “What’s wrong?” I pulled away. “I don’t feel well,” I said, and I rushed out. I walked down the hall like a ghost who could walk through anything. Anyone. I forgot to move when I saw a crowd of boys walking in my line. One of them said, “Watch where you’re going!”
Sky’s driftwood heart is still on my dresser. I run my fingers over it to make sure my hands are real. To know that his must have been, because he carved it.
Yours,
Laurel
Dear Kurt,
Have you seen the trees in the winter, when the branches are bare and covered with birds who have landed there? It was like that today. They kept perfectly still, shawling the tree in feathers. I was shaking. The wind was blowing hard, but the branches with their blackbirds didn’t move at all.
But I’m not starting at the beginning. This was Sky and me breaking up. His voice kept getting carried off by the wind. I was looking at the birds in their trees, thinking of how fast their hearts beat and wondering if their fast-beating hearts keep them warm. I might sneak out right now just to get to cry out loud.
When I came home from school today, our second day back from break, there was a letter taped to the gate with my name on it. It was a strange thing to find, but I knew it would be from Sky. I sat down on the bench outside and tore it open. I think part of me was still hopeful, in spite of myself. And it started out like a love letter, too, the old-fashioned kind. All about how I am different from other girls. And so special, et cetera. And even about how he loves me. He said he decided to leave a letter like this because he hasn’t been sure what to say to me in person. He said that all he’s wanted is to know me, but on New Year’s he realized that neither of us is ready. He said that I have to take care of myself, and he can’t take care of me. He said, You’ll be much happier, without me.
When I read that, it was like I landed with a slam in the world that I had been trying not to live in—the world where he was really leaving. It’s a lot like something you said in your suicide note. You said that your daughter’s life would be so much happier without you. I can tell you that you are wrong. It’s a terrible excuse from someone who can’t bear to be around. It’s a bad way to make yourself feel better when you know you are leaving someone who doesn’t want you to go. Someone who needs you.
After I read the letter, I lost all sense. I had to see his face. So I got up from the bench and started to walk to his house. I brought my phone and kept trying to call him. When no one answered, I walked the whole two and a half miles, crying all the way.
I knocked on the door. I wasn’t seeing straight, until his mother answered, in her frayed satin bathrobe, a bun coming undone in whispers. Her face shocked me, and I stopped sobbing. It was so soft, the way she looked, and so kind. Her eyes said she understood everything. But before I could get a word out, Sky came. He said, “Mom, go inside. I’ll be back in a little bit.” He shut the door and stepped onto his porch, now decorated with sparkling plastic snowflakes.