Dear Celia

VIII

September

The last I spoke to Celia was when she told me she was busy three weeks ago.

It was 6 days after the incident by the reservoir. I had finally gathered up the courage to tell her I was sorry for ruining her birthday, and that she was welcome to come over whenever and that Auntie Marie wanted her to bake some cookies.

Of course, that was a lie.

I just wanted to see her.

But she graciously declined, explaining that her mom had just received a box full of books that needed to be catalogued and sorted. She would come over some other time, she said. She would call.

Three weeks later, and nothing.

I laid in bed and stared up at the ceiling. God, I’m stupid, I thought for the billionth time.

It was something that constantly crossed my mind.

You ruined everything.           

You shouldn’t have done it.

You don’t mean anything.

I groaned and buried my face in my pillow. I laid with my hand underneath it, and as I moved my away I felt something hard touch my fingers. Curious, I pulled it out and realized it was the journal Celia had told me take home that June night.

I flipped it open and saw that it was completely empty.

My fingers trembled, and my eyes watered. I wanted to burn it, destroy it, rip the pages out. Instead, I blindly grabbed a pen from my desk and held it in my fist, then ran it aggressively over the page in random circles.

Rrrrriiiiiipppp

I pulled away and saw that my pen had tore an angry looking hole through two of the sheets. I flipped them over and opened up a blank page. What had Celia said that day?

“You should keep it. To document your life or whatever.”

I was going to do just that.

At the top of the page, I began to write.

…

september 22, 2012

i hate myself i hate myself i hate myself i hate myself i hate myself i hate myslf i hate myself i hate myself i hate myself i hate myself i hate myself i hate myself i hate myself i hate myself i hate myself i hate myself i hate myself i hate myself i hte mslf i hate mself i mseyfl i hate myself

…

“Hey, son?" Uncle Jed said to me the next day. We were sitting in the living room, watching TV. Well, at least I was. Uncle Jed was reading another For Dummies book.

“Yeah, Uncle Jed?”

Uncle Jed pushed his glasses up. “How’s school going for you?”

I turned my full attention to him, confused. Uncle Jed was acting like this more often than not over the past few months. “Um, I don’t go to school Uncle Jed.”

“Oh,” he said. He nodded. “Oh that’s right.” He nodded again, and again. “So, uh, where were you off to then all those days over the summer?”

“Uh.” I didn’t really want to take about Celia. Just thinking of her made me want to go back in time and punch myself in the face. “I was with, uh, Celia.”