The Cherryhill Tree: Paper Heart
Liv sat beneath the cherry tree for a long time. Her knees were pulled to her chest so hard that her locket jabbed into her breastbone, but her weary bones couldn't be bothered to move. Her hair was damp and hung all around her face, her makeup smudged this way and that, and if Jack were here, he would think someone died. But she was glad Jack wasn't here because he would hug her and promise her that everything would be okay, but she wasn't sure of that, and neither was he, and she wasn't in the mood for empty promises whether or not they meant well.
It had been raining all week, and Liv felt like it was her fault. The rain was a natural depressant, and she felt terrible knowing that someone out there was gloomy because of the rain she wished for. She always felt more alive when the cold droplets pelted her skin, but knowing that she sacrificed someone else's happiness for her own broke her heart, and she began to cry. She cried for that person, and she cried for Jack, and she cried even more when she felt the letter she had written trembling against the chipped golden polish of her fingernails.
Jack,
I'm going to write this like a trail of thought because that's all I've ever been. I'm just a never-ending trail of unconsequential thoughts, and you always found that fascinating, and I never knew why you found that fascinating, but it's important that you did.
I'm wearing that red lipstick you bought me last week. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted to smear it across my face and dance in the sprinklers of your front yard at three o'clock in the morning, but the last time I danced in your sprinklers at the hour that your father called "ungodly," your mother phoned the cops because she thought I was a drug addict, but she was drunk, and maybe I was too. I can't remember. But I remember that you smiled, and you wouldn't stop laughing when that pudgy policeman told me that I had a bit of lipstick on my face. We all knew it was more than a bit, but he was too nice to say so. And so were you. Your dad said I looked like a wet dog. You said I looked more alive than I ever had. Then you said every part of me was "magnificently fluorescent."
I'll never forget all those Sundays as kids when we'd go to the library and grab all the classics, and we'd sit in your bedroom at night beneath your blanket with flashlights reading them and trying to learn how to be grown up. You learned before I did, and you said it was because of the books. You never really did tell me which book you learned it from, but if you had, I knew I'd force myself to learn from that book even though I wasn't ready and was meant to learn from a different book. I don't think I've found my book yet, but I'm glad you found yours.
Remember that night when we rode our bikes to the freeway and watched all of the headlights blur passed on the horizon of city lights? And we talked about everything and nothing at all, and even tiny somethings that held little relevance to lives not of our own. We talked about the concept of parallel lives, and you said you were glad our lives intersected because you couldn't conceive living in a world where you never met me. That broke my heart and made me smile all at once because I knew that I felt the same but couldn't express it as eloquently as you.
More than anything else, I enjoy recalling that one Saturday in a week, month, and year I can't remember, but we laid on this hill and you said you loved me, and I cried, and you thought you did something wrong, and I wouldn't stop crying, and you started crying too, and we laid here crying for three hours. I never told you why I cried, but I suppose it's vital for me to tell you now. I cried because it made me feel purposeful.
My favorite memory is the night after your thirteenth birthday when I crawled through your window at midnight like always, and we laid side by side on the sheet set your aunt got for you before she went away. We just laid there, and it's probably an event you can't recall, and it was hardly an event at all, but it was the way I felt laying beside you that made it a significant event to me. My heart flew above the moonlight roads and passed the stars while the rest of me was left lying in your bed. The darkness felt warm when it was wrapped up in you. It felt like the chaos of the world was shut off in that moment. It was a feeling I'll never forget.
My sixteenth birthday was the best day of my life, and you made it that way. I cry when I think about it, and I might be crying now but I'm too focused to notice. That night, I found the lover of my soul, and it was always you.
I'll never forget those nights when we felt like the world was moving way too slow, but we did nothing to make the time pass because we knew we existed in those moments. People move so fast through life, so much that they can't conceive their own existence, and they lose their sense of being. But we never did. Especially in those nights. We were alive.
You probably don't remember a lot of insignificant things that I do, and I'd like to fill those spaces of your memory up with days, but I can't do that and I wish I could.
This is a reminder for all of the nights you can't remember, and for all of moments we felt alive because I'm afraid you'll forget me when I'm gone. That's what happens. If the mind has not a constant reminder, it'll lose every inkling of what used to be, like pictures taken long ago and no one can remember when it was taken or why, and then there's a huge chunk missing from the story, and that missing part is usually a who, not a when or why. Time forgets too, and I'm scared it will forget me, but I'm more afraid that you will.
You said you could come with me, or you said I could stay. But, you can't come with me because you mom is sick again, and your dad needs help because he's not as optimistic this time. I can't stay because I would rather sacrifice time forgetting me instead of life forgetting me. There's so much out there, and I feel like I've hit a plateau here. Sometimes, I feel like I've stopped existing, and it's nothing you did, and there's nothing you could do to change this feeling. I don't want to miss anything, but I know I'll miss you while I'm looking for myself out there. But I think I'll be okay because I know I'll see you in my sleep. I do every night.
I couldn't tell you all of this in person because I couldn't bare to see your smile fading, but I decided to go away because I don't think I'm really here anymore. I am physically, but I think my real self is out there somewhere in the world and she's waiting to be found, and I need to do that for myself. I have to do that for myself.
I noticed that I'm crying now. Really hard. I'm crying because I know you'll cry, and I'd rather set flame to every blossom on our cherry tree instead of making you cry.
I wasn't going to leave until graduation, but seeing you walk the stage and smiling at me with the rest of our high school's graduating class would be too much for me to handle. I'd cry, and you'd ask me what's wrong, and I could never lie to you so I'd tell you, and you would try to convince me to stay, and I'd refuse and break your heart even more, and I can't do that. I won't let myself do that to you.
I think the saddest part is that I don't know whether we'll end up together, and I don't know how long I'll be gone, and I don't know if you'll forget me, and not knowing is terrifying. But I do know that I love you with all of my heart and then some.
I wrote my P.O. box on the back of this letter. I hope you don't feel betrayed in some way because I know you did when your aunt went away, so I won't make you feel obligated to keep in touch with me. But I hope you'll send me a letter so I know that you want to keep in touch. If you don't send me anything, I promise I won't bother you with letters and phone calls. I promise.
I love you, Jack, and I considered writing an entire page with nothing but 'I love you' written on it, but I thought that would be too weird. Even for me.
I hope to hear from you, but if not, I understand. You don't have to forgive me, but please don't forget me.
Love always,
Liv
Liv sat there for a long while more, and when she did finally shake the dust from her bones, her sobs were uncontrollable. She leaned against the tree with a fit of shakes that racked her hands, and she managed to drive a thumb tack through the corner of the letter strewn with a pencil-sketched heart. She fastened the letter on the tree's trunk in a spot beneath wide branches that shielded it from the rain. She felt it impersonal not to leave anything else, so she pressed her red lips beside her signature. With much difficultly, Liv coaxed herself down the hill and through the rain where her car packed with suitcases sat at the end of Daisy Avenue.
After her taillights disappeared into the storm, the rain pounded violently down on the small world of the Cherryhill tree. Lightening and thunder whipped overhead, and it sounded like basketball practice in the high school's gymnasium.
In the blink of an eye, the sky opened up in a bright flash that touched down on the world. The spear of light cracked, and the blossoms of the cherry tree went up in brilliant flames along with the letter addressed from Liv to Jack.