I'm sorry.
When I woke up this morning, I still had a pen in my hand and the word "tired" dragged across the entire page. That's not what I meant to do. I keep trying to dig into the past, to make you understand. Clair deserves to be remembered, but I can't do it properly. Or maybe I can, but not like last night. I was a mess and that won't help her.
And you can't understand if I'm like that. You can't understand what it was like to be on that bridge and to have her throw you a half-smile, the freckles dancing across her nose.
So I'll make you understand.
Once, when you were little, your dad built you and Tyler a swing set. He built the roof first, so he could attach it at the end to complete the project. The last tower on the castle. The cherry on top. Really, you only remember this because you and the neighbor kids started using it as a ramp. The peaked roof was like a mountain, and you would run up the side and fling yourself off when you reached the top and sail through the sky.
On your last jump, you decided to tumble through the air, gracefully flipping and land flat on your feet to the stunned gasps of the other kids. Instead, you thumped your back hard on the ground, all the breath forced out of your lungs and the sky taking up all your vision.
It wasn't that high, so it mostly just stung. Your lungs couldn't grab enough air, even though you were sucking in heaps of it, and it took a moment to regain your breath.
That's how it feels when you see Clair chatting with Lacy on the bridge. (Your mind plays tricks on memory. It's like two sides of a coin: what happened and what you remember.
After all, it was Lacy who told you about that party and Sam and Jay came also came along. But all you can remember is you and Clair there. It's hard to imagine there was a single other person present.
But there was.)
So Lacy and Clair are leaning against the wall of the covered bridge, and Sam and the other boy crouch down to peer at a wooden panel, and Jay's hand is heavy on your shoulder.
"M.?" Jay's peering down at you, his eyebrows furrowed. You shake your head to clear your thoughts and throw him a small smile.
"Dammit. Why do freshmen get roped into this?" Sam mutters to the panel and the boy next to him. Your eyes flick to Lacy who wiggles her eyebrows.
"The folly of youth," Jay replies, "Meaning, we didn't know what we were getting into." He grins.
Sam cocks his head to the side, and nudges the other boy in the ribs. "Thoughts, Nick?"
"Fresh out."
You laugh. "What are we doing here?"
Jay swings you around, and gestures to the other groups of students. "This, dear M., is a time-honored tradition. Student groups wait all year to leave their mark upon this sacred bridge. To paint their panel as if to say, 'Look at us. We exist.'"
Lacy rolls her eyes. "That's dramatic. Even I think that's dramatic."
"I dunno," Sam replies, "I think I got a little misty." He swipes at his eyes, wiping away nonexistent tears.
Jay grimaces. "What's the point of telling a story if you can't embellish a little? The princess is always beautiful, the dragon terrible, painting-the-bridge a time-honored tradition."
"All right, genius, you got any ideas?"
"That's why I've brought my minion, M."
You peer at the panel. A few feet high, a few feet long. Blank as a fresh page. "Can I be the princess instead of the minion?"
"Okay, everyone, it's a metaphor." Jay blows air out of his nose. "And you're the white knight, come to save the day."
"Sounds fair." You nod. "What's our student group?"
"Well, not yours." This is from Nick, who's eyeballing you. "I don't think, anyway."
"Nah, M.'s not in CSE."
"Neither are you, Lace." You glance around the circle and your eyes land on Clair.
"Guilty." She smiles, and her freckles bound across her cheeks. You wouldn't have pegged her for a science and engineering girl, but then again, you thought she was a fairy.
"It doesn't matter, guys." Sam glares at the lot of you. "Miss White Knight, do you have any thoughts?"
"It was a metaphor!"
"I don't think that's the right word for it," Lacy says and Nick nods aggressively.
Clair holds up her hand when Jay starts to protest. "Let's just start painting. What's the worst that can happen?"
Clair wasn't there for the popcorn fight, so you don't blame her for being out of her depth. You don't blame her when you each grab a different color, and start racing to see who can fill up the most space. You don't blame her when the colors become muddied, or when Sam spills paint over half of you or when Lacy swipes at him with her brush in retaliation.
With all of you huddled around a four foot square, it's not surprising that the paint is dripping down the wall and splattering on shoes in your haste. And then, like the movie the other night, the wall is forgotten. Lacy dabs at Jay's chin, leaving a streak of maroon.
"Hey!" he yelps.
She offers him her cheek. "It's only fair. But make it pretty." She's left with a sloppy flower, and brown paint bleeds down her face.
"She said pretty. What is that shit?"
"Sam, don't be an ass!"
You sweep in, striking right above his lip. "Ha! Gotcha!"
"M.!"
"Wait, I'll fix it. Lacy's brushstrokes are light and sketchy. She's staring at Sam's lip and biting her own. When they both turn to face everyone, Sam has a curling mustache in bright orange.
"I want one!" You lean in close to Clair, who ended up beside you at some point during the painting fray. Her paint is supposed to be gold, one of the schools colors, but it's really just yellow.
Her strokes are sure, but Jay laughs when he sees you. "Nice goatee."
Within minutes, everyone is sporting colorful facial hair or crude paintings. It's beautiful.
Nick strokes his blue beard. "Maybe we should do something about the wall."
It's ugly. There are splotches of every color and no relation to the Science and Engineering student group, unless you count the fact that most of them probably aren't artistic.
"Okay, I've got it." Jay crouches in front of the panel. In broad strokes, he paints COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING over the monstrosity. "There."
It's ugly. Colors bleed into one another and thick streaks of paint run down the length of the wall. The only good thing you can say is the letters cover a good chunk of the background. You are the first to giggle, and Clair fist-bumps Jay while Nick claps him on the back.
"Could've been worse," Lacy says, tilting her head to the side.
"Not much," Sam retorts and Jay punches his shoulder, grinning.
None of the light falling on the bridge is direct. It throws odd shadows across everyone's faces (and probably yours) and gives them a carved quality, like masks.
The filtered light and smudged paint was how everything should've been.
Light, laughter and forever.
I will always choke on forever.
I'm sorry. I can't stop writing like that. I try not to be dramatic; it just keeps happening. Every time I'm caught up in a memory, it catches in my throat: this will never be again.
Of course, you can say that about anything. I will never stand on the Washington Avenue bridge with Clair again, but I will also never have to take freshman year finals again, or cry with relief when I end up with a C- and never have to take another language course.
I'm trying to think like that. That those bad things are over and done with and can't touch me. It's not true, but sometimes it's nice to daydream in this nightmare.
But when I wake up again, I'll remember old truths.
And this will never be again.