—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
Write it. Write it. Write it, Laurel.
Yours.
Dear Jim Morrison,
I played “Light My Fire” last night and tried to wake myself up from the fog I’ve been in. I bounced around my room a bit, but it didn’t sound like it used to in the car with Sky, or at the Fallfest park, because I kept thinking about how they found you in a bathtub dead. Cause of death: unknown. It’s hard not to know.
In the picture of you, the famous one that’s on all those tee shirts and posters and stuff, your eyes are fierce. They burn into us, calling us forward and pushing us back at once. Your arms are out, making you into a cross. Your chest is bare, vulnerable, but strong like an animal’s. I read about how when the Doors were recording an album, you would only sometimes show up to the sessions, and when you did, a lot of the time you were drunk. There would be piles of chicken bones and apple juice containers and empty rose wine bottles everywhere. And sometimes you’d yell at people. It’s sad when everyone knows you, but no one knows you. I am guessing that you might have felt that way. They see what they want you to be. And if you wear leather pants, and have a beautiful body, and drink lots of expensive wine, and if your voice sounds like the edge you strike a match on, then these things are blocks that you have given them to build the person they want.
I thought May was what she wanted to be. I thought she was free and brave and the world was hers, but I’m not sure anymore. Jim, I want people to know me, but if anyone could look inside of me, if they saw that everything I feel is not what it’s supposed to be, I don’t know what would happen.
Right now I am in Algebra. I think Evan Friedman is sort of playing with himself again. Britt is staring down into a compact she has hidden in her lap, trying not to look at him. They are broken up for the second time.
It’s been five weeks and two days since Sky dumped me. I would like to say that I am getting over him, but obviously I am not. Sometimes after school I walk the long way to the parking lot around the track and I see him making out with Francesca near the bleachers, or getting into her car. I want to run and scream at him. I want to pound my fists against his chest as hard as I can, and I want him to put his arms around me and hold me so that I stop. I want him to kiss me again and make it clean. But now he’s behind the thickest glass wall, like no matter how hard I ran at it I couldn’t break it. I could only shatter myself.
Francesca is awful. She wants to beat me up. Yesterday, when I walked out of school through the alley, she was standing at the end of it with two other girls I’ve never seen before. When I saw her, I started moving fast with my head down, just wanting to get past, but they circled around me.
Francesca said, “I saw you watching Sky and me.”
My heart was about to spring out of my chest. I was trying hard to keep it in, because I didn’t want it to land on the asphalt at her feet, next to the golden ring someone had dropped in the crack. And I really didn’t want to cry.
“Let me tell you something, little girl,” she said. “He doesn’t want you anymore.”
It wasn’t fair of her. I knew he didn’t want me. She didn’t know how badly that hurt. I hated her. I could feel the tears burning in the back of my eyes, but I couldn’t let myself cry in front of her. I couldn’t.
So I said, “Don’t you think it’s a little lame that you still hang out at the high school?”
Her face turned red and she said, “I’ll kick your little ass. I’ll kick your ass so hard, no one will recognize your pretty little face.”
I had to think fast. My body felt swervy and my brain was connecting all of these dots that shouldn’t connect. But one thing I knew was she is bigger than me by far and definitely could beat me up.
So I said, “Why don’t we play a game instead?” I pushed past her and walked out into the street. I called back to her. “It’s called the dead game. Whoever lasts the longest when a car comes wins.”
I lay down and closed my eyes. I heard a car coming from a ways away. I heard it getting closer, though it was not that close yet. I could last much longer.
I heard her say to her friends, “Oh my god. This girl’s a total freak. Let’s get out of here.” And I knew then that I’d won. I knew that she was scared of me now, instead of the other way around.
I heard the car getting closer. And then I heard Sky’s voice out of nowhere. “Laurel! What the fuck are you doing?!” he was shouting.
I rolled out of the way in time and I ran and I ran, and I remembered the night I got good at the game. May had always been the best, the bravest. Carl was almost as good as she was, but not quite. And Mark was just behind him. I had been last. As soon as I’d hear a car turn down the block, I’d want to run. I’d try to wait an extra second, but when I got up and pulled the blindfold off, I’d see the car was still so many houses away and feel stupid that I thought it was about to hit me. I knew that Mark would never love me because I was afraid, and they could all see that. I thought if only I could be fearless like May. If only I could be flushed and daring and beautiful in the twilight like she was. I thought if I wasn’t such a wimp, then it would all be different. He might love me back.
Then something changed. It was after May started taking me out with her to the movies. We were playing the game, and I lay down for my turn. I felt a new kind of quiet. Like nothing could touch me. Waiting, just waiting for the car to come. And when I heard it turn down the block, I wasn’t scared of anything. I could hear exactly where it was. I didn’t need my eyes. I could see the street, the car traveling. It was in front of the Fergusons’. The Padillas’, the Blairs’, the Wunders’—I knew just how close and just how far. It came in front of Carl and Mark’s. I heard May screaming, “Laurel! Get out of the way!” But I didn’t need to go yet. I waited one last second. Then I rolled and ran and saw the car whizzing right by. When I walked up to the sidewalk, May said, “Laurel! What’s wrong with you?!” She looked really scared. The way I was always scared for her. I thought Mark would be proud. I thought we’d high-five. But he was white as a ghost. May hugged me.