x.
forgiveness
I took a long walk the day after. It was a crisply bitter morning, and the temperature of the air bit at the apples of my cheeks as soon as I stepped out the front door. It was the first morning in a very long time that I had awoken without a pounding headache; I had been too consumed by what the old man had told me that I hadn't found the time to drink last night. My mind felt anything but clear, of course, but it was better than feeling as though my skull was about to split open from the ache.
A mud-brown, suede backpack dragged heavily against my shoulder blades. It was weighed down by its contents - which contained several bottles of beer and a half-empty handle of Jack Daniel's whiskey. These were the last bottles of alcohol that I owned. The leather straps of the backpack dug into my shoulders, making my legs feel sluggish and heavy.
I tried not to think too much as I walked. Yesterday I had done more than my fair share of thinking, and I was beginning to wonder if my head would start to ache just from the constant stream of thoughts, even without the alcohol. I slowly made my way across town, alone, with nothing but a backpack laden down by mistakes.
Gradually the buildings and shops around me began to thin. I crossed the length of an empty park, passing by mini playing fields and swings that creaked in the breeze. At the edge of the park, I stepped over the low wooden fence one leg at a time. I could see my destination just beyond the cusp of a scattered line of pine trees - an eroded cliff-side of bluffs that overlooked a tiny corner of the Atlantic Ocean.
The scent of pine sap filled my nostrils, mixing with the cool, salted air, and I breathed in deeply. Fallen, brittle needles crinkled beneath the worn soles of my Nikes, and the ground gently sloped downwards as the earth rushed to meet the cliff's edge. The trees quickly cleared as I reached the bluffs, the crisp wind whipping back strands of my hair as soon as I escaped the barrier of tree trunks.
I could hear the waves, a low and steady hum beneath me. Over the edge of the cliffs, there was a smattering of weathered boulders that the waves broke against. The ocean's water was calm, and yet the foaming barrels of sea matter remained powerful as they crashed against the base of the cliff, sending up sprays of water in arcs through the air. It was nearly a fifty foot drop to the rocky lining below. I felt an anxious dip in the pit of my gut when I leaned over the cliff's edge to examine the bottom.
My shoulders ached with relief when I allowed the backpack's straps to slide off, the bag dropping to the ground beside me with a clink and rustle of pine needles. I stood for a moment, my back free of the alcohol's weight, as I looked out across the misted horizon of the ocean. The salted air filled my chest, cooling the inner lining of my lungs and calming the heated beat of my heart. I listened to the sound of waves breaking beneath me, a rhythmic note that eased my mind into a blank state.
I hadn't felt this calm in well over two years.
The first beer bottle was cold to the touch, my palm stinging from the frosty glass as I withdrew it from the depths of my backpack. I straightened with the beer held tightly in one hand, taking a careful step closer to the cliff's edge. The amber liquid bubbled and frothed inside the translucent green bottle.
Ana's hair had been bleached to a whitish blonde in our sophomore year of high school. She had worn the new color boldly, her head held high as several students turned to get a second look across the crowded hallways. I had been walking to chemistry, the thick textbook tucked under one arm, and I had nearly dropped it when I saw her.
"Do you like it?" Ana had asked. She'd laughed as she flipped the freshly dyed hair over one shoulder, the blonde strands glinting in the sunlight that leaked through the adjacent window.
I told her it reminded me of Dumbledore, but Ana knew I was only joking. I wouldn't find out until later, but she had dyed her hair so suddenly because her boyfriend Luke had dumped her the night before. Ana went out and bought the bleach the minute she stopped crying.
All she had told me was, "I just needed a change."
The beer bottle spun through empty air, slipping from my hand and disappearing over the cliff's edge. I leaned forwards to watch, just in time to see the bottle smash against an eroded boulder at the bottom. Glass shards spun through the air, before a wave washed over the rock and swallowed the broken bottle whole.
I reached for the second beer, my breaths escaping out into the air in an erratic pattern. My chest felt heavy, but the weight seemed to lessen with each passing second.
When we were five, Ana and I kissed.
We had pulled away laughing. The two of us were soaked in pond water and our legs were caked in mud, and the wet grass where we sat scratched against our thighs. It had been mid-summer, the hot air clinging to our skin. We had just watched a Disney movie where the prince had kissed the princess, and it had been Ana's idea to try it.
"It's like kissing my brother," Ana had giggled. I laughed, too, because her lips had felt weird against mine and it hadn't felt right. She was covering her mouth with tiny fingers, dirt caught beneath her fingernails from the mud fight we'd had. "Let's never do that again. Jason, we can't kiss. You're like my brother."
The second bottle smashed, louder than the first. I bent down to retrieve the third, and the final beer clinked against the bottle of Jack as I removed it.
Two months before she died, Ana talked about her future.
"I'm going to live in the city," she told me. We were laid on our backs in a circular trampoline, the sounds of our friend Mariah's house party echoing just behind us. Both of us had been coming down from a mixture of alcohol and weed, so Ana's lips were loose with the things she never usually dared speak about. "I want an apartment in New York. Is it bad I just want to rush through college? Four years is too long. I want to start my life, you know?
I'm going to own two dogs. I'll name one Rocky and one Luna. Would you ever want a dog?"
My body shook when the last beer bottle shattered against the boulders. The weight that swallowed my chest had been cut in half, but it was as though I could hear Ana's voice whispering in my ears. They were only memories, of course, but it seemed as though I was reliving each and every one of them with each bottle that broke against the rocks.
Cool tears gathered at the corners of my eyes. My chest ached and my fingers trembled as I dug the bottle of whiskey out from the backpack, but it was becoming easier to breathe. The air was tinged with the scent of the ocean, and it cooled my lungs with each breath I took.
I held the bottle's neck with a sweaty palm. The glass was smooth beneath my fingers, and the words Jack Daniel's blurred and swam before my eyes. Inside the bottle, the dark brown liquid sloshed in circles, unable to escape. I held the whiskey outwards, my right arm flat as it extended over the cliff's edge. I could feel the approaching fall in the bones of my forearm.
"Jason," Ana had asked, "what do you think your kids will look like?"
We were twelve at the time, and my head had been filled with images of beautiful actresses like Kate Upton or Angelina Jolie. Automatically I replied, "They'll be models. I want two girls and one boy."
"Mine will be blonde." Her tone had turned softer, her gaze unfocused as she stared out across the busy playground. It was recess, but Ana and I were sat upon the slope of a tiny hill - the farthest spot from the school's back door. She was picking at the grass with one hand, plucking strands of green from the dirt absentmindedly. "I'm going to marry someone with blonde hair. I want a girl, too. But then I'll have to have a second kid so the first one won't be lonely."
She said this because I was an only child. Ana knew how jealous I was of her having a brother, Jackson. She never seemed to forget, no matter what I told her.
Ana had looked over at me and smiled, a gap in her bottom row of teeth from a late baby tooth. "Our kids are going to be best friends, just like you and me. Hey, maybe they'll get married."
The bottle of whiskey slipped from my hand. It spun through the air, turning end over end and the dark amber liquid chasing circles within the glass. I watched the bottle clip the edge of one boulder before smashing against a second, the thick glass shattering as it collided with a slick boulder. Whiskey darkened the wet rock immediately, before it was washed away by a particularly powerful wave. With a loud crash, the wave broke against the rock's edge and swept away the shards of glass and Jack Daniel's whiskey and every single regret.
I breathed deeply, in and out at a slow pace. My chest felt light and airy, as though my bones had become hollow like a bird's. The skin of my cheeks was slick with tear tracks, but I couldn't be bothered to reach up and wipe them away. My hands shook at my sides, but I wasn't afraid. The backpack was empty at my feet, and I felt calm.
The ocean breeze played with strands of my hair. I could feel the cool air against my forehead, a salty scent mixing with the sweet smell of pine behind me. I stared out across the bluffs at the ocean below, exhaling heavily. When the air escaped my lungs, so did the weight of two years' worth of sadness and pain. I spoke out loud, then, my voice reaching nothing but the empty ocean air.
"I'm sorry, Ana. I have to forgive myself, okay? I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
I paused with a lump in my throat, and I shut my eyes. The cool breeze pressed against my eyelids, and I lost myself in the sound of the breaking waves below my feet. The world around me was full of sounds and whole and complete, but the inside of my mind was quiet. It was finally, peacefully quiet.
I whispered, "Goodbye, Ana."
- the end -