Headlights

10 New Year

Halfway through developing a headache from analyzing all her mishaps with student loans from the bank, she stumbled upon a different sort of letter. From the way it looked, this envelope was from someone she knew personally. Her name was scrawled in the middle of the envelope almost endearingly, and the name on the return address sounded faintly familiar. She opened it.

It was dated from three weeks earlier, around the time she had gone on road trips to the middle of nowhere with him. She licked her lips nervously, forcing herself to read on.

Dear Hailey,

Wishing you a wonderful Christmas and New Year! I hope that you find success in everything that you attempt, whether that is to straighten out your goals or to bring my son up to par. You are such a wonderful young woman; you make me wonder how Calvin found someone like you in such a big place like New York City.

He'll always be there for you, and I'll always support you and him in whatever you have planned in the future.

It was from his mother.

She choked back a lump in her throat. His mother was such a sweet woman, and evidently, this was sent before the accident and before Hailey had cut ties with her son. Hailey saw green eyes in her mind, and for a terrible moment, she didn't know if she saw his eyes or his mother's.

Her chest throbbed. The awful stinging in her eyes started again, something she had gotten used to over the latter part of this month. But this time, she let it go, releasing the dam in her heart, and she sobbed, her body shaking, for herself and for him.

↔

It took a while before she could pick herself up from the dining table. Her tears had fallen onto the letters, and her voice was so, so sore from screaming. She hadn't been afraid of the memories of him. What frightened her the most was that she wasn't sure whether she was begging for him to come back or whether she was cursing his damned green eyes and his family's misfortunes.

She stumbled away. She needed a change of scenery now, which the kitchen would certainly not provide. As she made her way up the stairs to her bedroom, she felt her hand shake as she clutched the handrail. Why was she hit with so many memories now, out of all times?

She stopped briefly to look at the clock hung in the middle of the hallway. Fuck, it was getting really late now. Did she really want to spend the last hours of this year sorting through papers nostalgically like a retired old woman?

Yes, she would. She steeled her nerves and pushed on into her room.

More bills. They would choke her if she didn't know better. Something flashed inside her, and she snatched an envelope off the table.

"You taunt me, you," she muttered. "They never told me about this part of growing up. God, my life is all bills, bills, money, work, responsibility, and I never seem to have another way to get the fuck out."

She tore the envelope in half and dropped the pieces of paper to the ground.

"Maybe I'm meant for the woods," she said quietly. "I guess that's why hermits and hitchhikers choose to live like that—no stupid bills or student loans to weigh on them."

She paused. She was going insane. Why in the world was she talking to herself like that? Maybe it was from locking herself up for so long. Maybe it was from being surrounded by him. Maybe it was from never really giving herself a break. Or maybe it was simply because she was sex-deprived—she couldn't know, and all the reasons didn't matter. Only the end results did.

"No. I belong in the city. After all, all the colorful lights are like the shithole in my head, right?"

She let out a laugh.