Dear Esther

Three

Eliza tucks away her stationary for the night, carefully folding the letter into the shirt she wore earlier in the day. She knows it might get crumpled somewhere along the way, since she's in no real hurry. So she tucks the folded shirt as neatly as she can into the duffle bag at the foot of her crappy motel bed, and collapses backwards, her gangly arms and legs hanging off the sides of the mattress.

She stares at the ceiling and thinks—quite hard—at it.

Shelly said that writing letters might help her figure out why she's so stuck in the past—why she's so concerned with the had beens rather than the will bes. She tried to psychoanalyze her once, Eliza recalls, and it didn't end well.

They were sitting in the student commons, working on a group project for a Bio I class, their textbooks littering the table between them. The group had taken a break—it was the old gang, Eliza remembers fondly. John and Shelly were sandwiched in an arm chair. Genna was off to the side. Dorothy was with them at the time, too, her hair primly tucked back into an infuriatingly neat ponytail.

This was before Esther.

Before the fall.

Before the heartbreak.

Laughter filtered through the air, Genna held her stomach in mock-pain, doubled over and gleeful. It was something to do with the way a professor had said one of the terms on their midterm, high-pitched and whining. And suddenly, as quickly as the seasons change in a year, Shelly said something about Catherine, and Eliza shut down, stood up, and walked away.

She turns over to stare at her palms.

Maybe she had a point.

•••

"I made it to the first stop, Shell, now quit blowing up my phone, you nag."

"How dare you," she hears through the phone line, Shelly's voice taking on mock irritation. "I hope you know I was worried sick about you all evening, without even a text to let me know you made it out of town."

"I did," Eliza smiles even as she says it.

"Barely." She hears a laugh through the line. "All it said was 'Made it.' What am I supposed to do with that? Nothing is what. I have no information to go off whatsoever."

"Yeah, right. I have my location shared with me you worrywart. I'm fine and you know it."

"Still doesn't make me worry any less."

A comfortable silence stretches between them, now miles apart, sometimes feeling like the depths of the ocean rather than the flat distance of the Earth. Maybe it's the distance, now, or maybe it's the realization that grief is never equal, that everyone experiences it differently, worlds apart from one another. Again and again, an ocean and a road. One is traversable without the gear to cope with the hardships, the other—not.

"Do you ever visit her anymore?"

"Who?" Shelly asks, distracted by something in the background, a low hum that sounds like sautéing vegetables and home-cooked meals.

"Esther."

She hears the intake of breath crackle in her ear, and her heart hurts a bit with the guilt settling on her shoulders. She shouldn't have brought her up so abruptly. Not after all this time. Healing is unique, Eliza reminds herself—it's unique in the mourning, and the carrying on.