Robyn
Groggy and light-headed from travelling across the world at 36,000 feet, I nevertheless felt better than I had for ages because I had a mission, a goal, a purpose at last. After drifting in limbo for the past eight days, I had discovered the solution to all my problems and all I had to do was get to my room.
I hadn't been there since the night of Sabastienne's leaving party: first, because I'd refused to leave the hospital while she was there and then because her parents had flown us all out to Russia in their private jet. Now I yearned to be there. I needed to spend time in the space in which she and I had been so close, so intimate. All I wanted was to wrap myself in memories like blankets and feel as though she'd walk through the door any second. Couldn't I delude myself a little while before the inevitable?
The streets were familiar now so there couldn't be long to go. My heart fluttered: soon I was going to be with my baby. I counted the seconds, fingers drumming incessantly on my leg, teeth worrying at my bottom lip. I tasted blood but didn't stop.
The car halted. I jumped out and ran. Zoey chased me: what the fuck was her problem? Everyone else followed like ducklings behind their mother. 'Pathetic,' I thought, full of spite. They'd all been whispering together on the plane, thinking I was asleep, discussing my unstable frame of mind. And now they weren't giving me any privacy: to stop me doing something stupid, to be 'good friends'. So be it. I'd just wait until they left. Or fell asleep.
I spun around. Zoey was going too fast to react and nearly slammed into me. I darted away yelling: "Tag!"
"What the fuck?"
I laughed, "See, I'm fine. Fuck off." My little exhibition didn't have the desired effect. If anything, it just made her more determined to stay. She and her cohort followed me through the school. Okay. Challenge accepted! "You know what," I turned on her, "let's go to your room. We're always in mine."
"Uh, no."
"Why?"
"Because."
"Good response. Anthony, your room free?"
"Not really," he said, rubbing the back of his head, eyes shifting uncomfortably.
"Brilliant. Isn't this going tremendously? Gosh, could it get any better?"
"For fuck's sake, Robyn," Charlotte exclaimed, "stop that. Just talk to us. We're worried about you."
"Of course, because sarcasm masks deep unhappiness," I said.
Charlotte practically snarled, "Real fuckin' witty. Are you going to spend your whole life in denial? Do you know where that'll get you? Back in that fucking psych ward, you idiot!"
"Charlie, maybe you should-" Jonas tried to interject but I cut him off.
"No, let her," I fixed the dark-haired girl with a cold stare. This made it all the easier not to feel guilty. "I'm listening." But they weren't. Charlotte and Jonas were heading away together, leaving me alone with Zoey, Anthony and Alexis. "You sure three's enough?" I sneered, "Can't be too careful with these crazy ones, you might need to sit on me." Zoey looked at me as though I was an abused puppy: on the brink of tears. "Oh come off it," I snapped and Anthony stepped forward, grabbed me by the arm and began dragging me away.
"That's enough," he commanded. "We're going to the gym."
"Should we-" Alexis started but Antony cut her off with a quick shake of his head.
"I don't lift, bro. Also, I'm wearing jeans."
"Too bad." He was pretty determined and also pretty strong so I had no choice but to obey. Inside the gym, the smell of sweat was strong and I wrinkled my nose. Anthony flicked on the lights to display a surprisingly large room full of all the usual equipment. The only things I recognised were the treadmills and cycling machines. "Take your pick," said he, making a gesture with his hand that encompassed everything.
I crossed my arms defiantly, "I'm not doing this."
"Then we're going to be here a while," he replied, jaw set. I narrowed my eyes at this jerk, trying to work out how to get him to give in. I could just leave, but he'd surely come after me and we already knew he was stronger ... so, psychological manipulation it was.
"Anthony, please, I just want to go to bed. It's the middle of the night, we've had a long journey and I'm so tired."
He snorted, "Nice try."
"I'm serious!"
"If you're so tired, sleep here."
I hissed air in between my teeth, trying to control my burning rage, "No. I want to be-" my voice broke and I yelled out in frustration.
"Want to be what?"
"Just fuck off, Anthony. Stop acting like you've some fucking control and let me deal with this my way."
"No."
"Why the fuck not!?"
"Because I promised her I'd take care of you. Because she loved you. Because she cared about you more than she cared about herself and if you think I'm going to let you do what you're planning then you are out of your fucking mind! Stop being so selfish! I don't give a shit if you don't want to survive without her, none of us fucking do, but you don't get to take the easy way out! She's worth so much fucking more than that and you know it! How dare you try to throw away what she couldn't have? That's completely fucking disrespectful, inconsiderate and any other fucking word you can think of. That's - fuck." He scrubbed at his eyes.
Everything in my body was gone, drained away by his words, leaving me numb. They spun inside me.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, moving forward, extending my arms, "I have been selfish."
He stepped away, but I kept coming and he needed comfort. We hugged.
"I'm sorry too," he said, voice like gravel. "I didn't mean to be so harsh. You're not all those things, I apologise for losing my temper."
"Don't apologise. I needed to hear it." We sat together on a bench. "I've been in this fog, not thinking right. It doesn't feel real."
"I understand. Better than you know," he said. "When my mum died I thought that would be the end of me too. I was only twelve but I went off the rails, got into hard drugs, alcohol, didn't deal with any of it for years. Then when I was maybe fifteen, sixteen, so years after she died, I came home and found my dad crying. He said he'd lost the two most important things in the world to him." He paused a moment. "That hit me pretty hard." Another pause with him staring blankly across the room, seeing only the past, "I'd never thought about him or how he felt or what it must be like to have a son like me. But that day I faced up what I'd been avoiding all those years and vowed to deal with my shit. I picked up football and soccer and raised my grades and, yeah, it was hard, but it got easier. It gets easier. Especially when you stop thinking about yourself.
"But that doesn't mean I don't think about her every day because I do. It also doesn't mean I don't miss her, sometimes so much I think I'd rather be dead too than feel. However, it does make it something you can deal with. Something manageable." He cleared his throat. I looked away discreetly as he wiped his eyes. "I guess what I'm really trying to say is you're not alone. That it's going to be shit for a long time, but don't give up. Live for her because that's the best gift you can give."
I couldn't process this, so I said, "Can we go to our room? Mine and Sabby's." He nodded, walked with me.
When we reached the passage, my blood began flowing more quickly and with greater pressure. It rushed in my ears. I stopped at the door, took a deep breath, then another, oh Lord, and we opened it.
It was still. Quiet. Our breathing became shallow in compliance with the silence. The atmosphere was like a huge old building, full of history, seen with reverence. A relic of some time long gone. I tiptoed to the centre of the floor, feeling like a stranger, a trespasser in my own bedroom. I knew I could not stay. Would not be able to settle.
"This is crazy," Anthony whispered, peering around in a similar state of awe. "It's the exact same but also totally different."
"Yeah," I sat on my bed. He joined me. "I can't sleep here." I looked around again, "I can't stand it."
"Do you want to come to mine? I'll be able to convince my roommate."
"Where will I sleep?"
"Share my bed."
"Won't your girlfriend be mad?"
"Maybe."
"I'm not tired anyway. I just ... I want to do something. I feel so..."
"Helpless," Anthony finished for me. "I understand. I actually have a suggestion and I completely get it if this is too much too soon and I know you said you can't stand it in here but it would be doing something and might give you some sort of closure if we maybe started packing her things?
I stared blankly across the room, "Yeah, why not?" I didn't feel anything.
We rode out to Walmart to pick up some cardboard boxes. When we got back, we began with her school stuff. Everything in her bookbag, the textbooks and notepads she had in our room, not to mention her laptop. Her pens and pencils we put in an envelope and placed on top. And while doing all of this, I felt nothing. Disconnected. Unreal. Didn't look too hard at the things in my hands, didn't think too long about the memories connected to these seemingly ordinary objects. It might not have been the right way to go about it but it sure was a hell of a lot easier. I just hoped I could remain closed off throughout the entire process. No sense in unnecessary emotion until I was alone.
We taped up the first box, labelled it with a black marker and placed it beside the door.
Then we opened the closet. My gaze fell upon her clothes hung neatly on their hangers, all pristine and free of wrinkles. Every feeling came rushing back tenfold. I slowly slid a jacket free, arm by arm, the leather sticking slightly to my trembling fingers, and stared at it. Then did that thing they do on TV, pressing the jacket to my face and inhaling. It was leather, didn't hold much scent, but there still lingered a hint of her. From the right-hand pocket, I pulled a pair of Aviator glasses and groaned.
"Robyn?"
"I'm okay," I stuffed the glasses back into the pocket and threw the jacket at him.
"Okay."
We worked our way along the rail, folding and packing, then began another box for all the shoes carefully paired on the floor. Under them were three plastic storage boxes. The first two contained more glasses, some hats, a few scarves, lots of odds and ends really, but in the third and final box, things got interesting.
I brought it out onto the floor, having to strain to lift it. Were there bricks in there? I pulled off the lid to reveal a pile of paper nearly filling the container. The top sheet had just three words printed dead centre in bold black writing: 'Let Her Go'. I picked it up, frowned, passed it to Anthony. There was more writing on the sheet underneath, filling the entire page, done in pencil, a tight, uniform font. Her handwriting.
"What the heck?" I whispered. What was this? And how had she managed to create this giant stack without me noticing? It was huge!
"What's that?" Anthony pointed to something stuck down the side and I tugged it free. It was an envelope with my name written across the front. "Hey, uh, I'm going to use the bathroom," he said. "If there's an emergency you know where to find me."
"Okay," I still stared at the letter, not yet reading, "Thanks, Tony."
"Don't mention it." The door clicked shut behind him.
I peeled back the flap falteringly, terrified of what might be within. Inching out the letter between forefinger and thumb, I actually dropped it once my fingers were trembling so badly, then I slowly unfolded it and read the entire thing in a blur of words, not taking in a single letter.
"Come on," I whispered, "breathe. Calm down and read the stupid thing. It's just a letter."
'My dear, beautiful, adorable Robbie,
There's only one reason you could be reading this and I'm sorry. Please always remember that I loved you, no matter what. I hated leaving you here and if I'd had any choice I'd have stayed; you must know that.
I don't have much time. You're asleep next to me and could wake up at any moment.
First, I have something to confess. I saw the doctor yesterday and he said I'd be okay. I didn't tell you earlier because I wanted to wait until I was leaving; I hoped then you wouldn't be as upset to see me go back to Russia if you knew we had our entire lives to be together. But my mother called last night, crying, and said she couldn't keep this from me. My father paid off the doctor, made him tell me I was going to be okay. He didn't want me to know that I was much worse. I don't know how he knew.
And, fuck, here I'd been thinking I was saved. Life never is that easy, is it? I should've known. I'm sorry I couldn't explain before. Please forgive my cowardice, I just can't stand to see you upset.
The main point of this letter is that I've written half our story, the part from my side. I've been working on it ever since I found out that... Well, anyway, read it and then write your share. Put it all down, the good, the bad, the boring, the irritating, even the shitty time you must be going through right now. But once you're done, I want you to put it to one side and move on. Don't linger on me. You're still young and you've so much more to experience. Enjoy life and forget about me.
I love you.
Let me go.'
That night, I read everything she'd written but it was a few months before I felt strong enough to begin my own section. And it took so many, many months more to write everything. I'd spend hours scribbling frenziedly, in a fever, then not touch the pen for months, unable, unwilling.
But now, finally, three years later, I've reached the end. It feels like she's died all over again. Our story is complete, but I can't do what she asked. Breathing without her is still impossible. Everything seems so bleak and I can't fulfil my promise, baby, please forgive me.
This is what I was afraid of. Terrified to reach the end and still be unable to forget, unable to forgive, to get over, to move on, to just move. I don't know what to do. Tell me what to do. Come back to me.