the stories the ocean tells

007

"Tell me more, tell me something I don't know."
"Did we come close to having it all?"
****

I didn't see or hear from Natalia Page again for a month. I was starting to think two people died that day instead of just one.

I did confirm that.

Henry Trenton, was now dead.

I even went and saw his grave.

Henry Trenton
2003-2021
Beloved son and friend

I knew right then, no matter how I felt about Talia, she needed me as a friend more than she needed me as a boyfriend.

And that's what I was going to be. Her friend.

So when Natalia Page finally did walk through the big green door to room B6. I was going to be her friend. And nothing more.

She walked into class and sat down.

She looked dead.

Just as dead as Henry probably looked in his casket in the ground right now.

"Hey Talia." I said.

She only nodded in response.

It went quiet for a few moments before I opened my loud mouth again. "What was he like?"

She never looked directly at me. Only sighed, continuing to play with her pen on the desk. "How'd you find out?"

I shrugged. "In the paper."

"People still read the paper?"

"Yea."

She shakes her head. "Why does it matter to you what he was like?"

"I'm just trying to make you feel better"

"Well stop. Because I'm not sad about it."

"You're........you're not sad?"

"No. What's the point. Everyone dies anyway. Everyone's atoms seep into nothingness at some point right? Of course I miss him but why would I sit and grieve about something that happens to everyone." She goes quite for a second. "Besides. He isn't hurting anymore."

Oh yeah.

The cancer.

That's when she finally turned to me. "Have you ever lost someone you love, Casper?"

I shake my head.

"Ok let me ask you this," she started, pausing. ""When you were little, did you ever have a toy that you loved so much you carried it every where with you?"

I nodded.

When I was four, I worn a stuffed turtle at a pizza restaurant. I named him Tommy the Turtle and he was literally my life. Dinner at a fancy restaurant? Tommy was there. Aunt Lousille and Uncle Tom's wedding? Tommy was there. Pre-school? Tommy was in my back pack. Bath time? Tommy sat on the counter and waited for me to get out.

"Did you ever loose that toy?"

I nodded again.

I had Tommy the turtle until I was ten years old. It was the first day of fifth grade and dad had convinced me to leave him at home, saying I was too old to keep bringing him to school. When I came home, Suzy—our dog at the time—had chewed him up. I cried for a week.

Suzy also wouldn't stop pooping stuffing, we had to take her to the vet to get it all surgically removed. It was a bad week for us all.

"Remember that feeling you had? That emptiness that can only be filled by that toy?"

I nodded remembering the week of sobs and fuzzy dog poop.

"That's what it feels like to loose someone you love, but worse. And you know that feeling you have about it now?"

"What do you mean now?"

"I mean how you wouldn't have even thought about that toy until I just mentioned it now."

I nod slowly.

"That's where I want to be with Henry."

"Why would you want to forget him?"

"Because that's what he wants." She started. "He wants me to forget he ever existed in the first place. He wants me to be happy."

"Can't you be happy without forgetting about him?" I ask her and she shakes her head.

"Not while he is still fresh in my mind like this." She gives a small laugh. "The last time I saw Henry I told him not to leave, to change his mind. I was so selfish that I would have rather had him be in pain for the rest of his life, as long as I didn't have to live without him. Do you know how horrible that is to leave with, Casper? I can't be happy knowing the last words I said to him were selfish."

I noticed her eyes glass over and a single tear fell down her cheek before she turned away wiping it.

"Mr. Reid, can I go to the bathroom?" We're the last words Natalia Page said before disappearing for the rest of the day.

She didn't even come to the first year book meeting after school.