Minnesota Goodbyes

Entry #68

I like the way words taste. I'd forgotten. After— well, after I stayed inside myself. Even now, I still do, but writing is almost like speaking. It's strange how difficult that's become.

I've never had words brim up inside me and spill out. It's too easy to say the wrong thing that way. Even so, I could say what I wanted back then. Now, my words jump in my throat and get jammed behind my tongue.

But lately. Lately they've started to bust loose and I can taste them when they melt on my tongue. They feel light, almost as though they could float out if I just opened my mouth. If I speak, will I be okay? Will I be able to live again? If I can, will I be absolved or just able to bury her in my mind, like she was in the ground?

I think I'll start with speaking, though. To Lacy. To Tyler and my parents. I've talked so much to you (even when I'm not writing it down, I think of you a lot.), but it's time to start again because they don't deserve to have this ghost-girl haunting them; they deserve something more than that. Because I haven't seen anything but myself for so long and I've been so selfish and the words need to come out so I can start being with them again. Maybe I don't deserve that, but they do.

Only a minute after writing that, and I'm calling Tyler, and I'm crying because what have I done to him? I couldn't even self-destruct properly because there's no such thing. You can't just destroy yourself and I'm crying a little when he answers, but I take a shuddering breath and lick my lips.

"Hello?" He sounds startled, his voice wavering. I'm not sure my brother thought I'd ever take him up on his offer, and I bite back my shame.

My eyes prickle, but my voice stays firm. "Ty?"

"What's wrong?" Worry invades his voice and I want to reach through the phone and shove his shoulder playfully. (Everything is okay, brother. Or it's going to be. I cry a little, the sound coming out in a breathy half-sob.)

And then I laugh. It's watery, but a laugh nonetheless. "Is something always wrong?"

"C'mon, M." The line goes quiet. "Don't leave me hanging."

"Okay." Though he can't see it, I nod. "I fucked us up—"

"M.— "

"No, give me a second. It wasn't just me, but I—" The words sting in the back of my throat, so I swallow. "I forgot. Sorry, that sounds stupid. I just forgot what living meant, I guess. For both of us."

And it trickles out, little by little. Who we were and who we became. The length and breadth of our feelings, and then they were no longer feelings. We could not breathe without each other or see the sun glitter off the snow or study the stars or amble across campus. Everything was empty without the other until everything was empty.

But it's not just that. There was life before her. And that should have been empty, but it wasn't. How could we become so entwined? How could I forget who she was?

Because she was a person. She wasn't a fairy or the future or something elemental. She was a person and so was I and now it feels like neither of us are. Maybe I haven't been for a long time. Maybe I can't do that anymore.

Because she fell in love with a person, and so did I.

She deserves a person to remember her.

I can hear Tyler smile on the other end of the line, and from the wetness in his voice, I know he's been crying. The only time he's ever done that around me was when our grandpa died when we were little, and it makes me want to cry again, but for some reason I don't.

"It's okay, M. Or it will be."

I laugh, and it's wet and watery. "I know."

I can't stop crying, but it doesn't hurt this time.