The Cherryhill Tree: Paper Heart
Liv sat beneath the cherry tree for a long time. Her knees were pulled to her chest so hard that her locket jabbed into her breastbone, but her weary bones couldn't be bothered to move. Her hair was damp and hung all around her face, her makeup smudged this way and that, and if Jack were here, he would think someone died. But she was glad Jack wasn't here because he would hug her and promise her that everything would be okay, but she wasn't sure of that, and neither was he, and she wasn't in the mood for empty promises whether or not they meant well.
It had been raining all week, and Liv felt like it was her fault. The rain was a natural depressant, and she felt terrible knowing that someone out there was gloomy because of the rain she wished for. She always felt more alive when the cold droplets pelted her skin, but knowing that she sacrificed someone else's happiness for her own broke her heart, and she began to cry. She cried for that person, and she cried for Jack, and she cried even more when she felt the letter she had written trembling against the chipped golden polish of her fingernails.
Jack,
I'm going to write this like a trail of thought because that's all I've ever been. I'm just a never-ending trail of unconsequential thoughts, and you always found that fascinating, and I never knew why you found that fascinating, but it's important that you did.
I'm wearing that red lipstick you bought me last week. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted to smear it across my face and dance in the sprinklers of your front yard at three o'clock in the morning, but the last time I danced in your sprinklers at the hour that your father called "ungodly," your mother phoned the cops because she thought I was a drug addict, but she was drunk, and maybe I was too. I can't remember. But I remember that you smiled, and you wouldn't stop laughing when that pudgy policeman told me that I had a bit of lipstick on my face. We all knew it was more than a bit, but he was too nice to say so. And so were you. Your dad said I looked like a wet dog. You said I looked more alive than I ever had. Then you said every part of me was "magnificently fluorescent."
I'll never forget all those Sundays as kids when we'd go to the library and grab all the classics, and we'd sit in your bedroom at night beneath your blanket with flashlights reading them and trying to learn how to be grown up. You learned before I did, and you said it was because of the books. You never really did tell me which book you learned it from, but if you had, I knew I'd force myself to learn from that book even though I wasn't ready and was meant to learn from a different book. I don't think I've found my book yet, but I'm glad you found yours.
Remember that night when we rode our bikes to the freeway and watched all of the headlights blur passed on the horizon of city lights? And we talked about everything and nothing at all, and even tiny somethings that held little relevance to lives not of our own. We talked about the concept of parallel lives, and you said you were glad our lives intersected because you couldn't conceive living in a world where you never met me. That broke my heart and made me smile all at once because I knew that I felt the same but couldn't express it as eloquently as you.
More than anything else, I enjoy recalling that one Saturday in a week, month, and year I can't remember, but we laid on this hill and you said you loved me, and I cried, and you thought you did something wrong, and I wouldn't stop crying, and you started crying too, and we laid here crying for three hours. I never told you why I cried, but I suppose it's vital for me to tell you now. I cried because it made me feel purposeful.
My favorite memory is the night after your thirteenth birthday when I crawled through your window at midnight like always, and we laid side by side on the sheet set your aunt got for you before she went away. We just laid there, and it's probably an event you can't recall, and it was hardly an event at all, but it was the way I felt laying beside you that made it a significant event to me. My heart flew above the moonlight roads and passed the stars while the rest of me was left lying in your bed. The darkness felt warm when it was wrapped up in you. It felt like the chaos of the world was shut off in that moment. It was a feeling I'll never forget.
