By now it has to have been forty days since the day I died. That’s a long time if you think about it, but a short while when you live it. Don’t think about the numbers for a while, though, G. It’ll only kill you a little more every day if you keep thinking about it like that.
Today, we’re going to look back on the days that we didn’t have to count.
Let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we?
I was so nervous when I first asked you out that I couldn’t even do it in person. I instant messaged you on Facebook. That was lame and I know it but you were always the girl I watched from afar and you weren’t the one that was close enough to touch. You felt so, so out of my league. I still think that you are.
You said yes. I couldn’t even explain how goofy and ridiculous the smile on my face must have looked as I read your message again and again, as it to reassure myself that it wasn’t all a dream. It was so lame, asking you not in person, not being able to see if you were just as pleased as I was. But I don’t really regret it. It almost made it better when we next saw each other, because I didn’t know what the reaction would be.
We made plans for me to pick you up at one thirty. I got there at one twenty but I forgot which house was yours, so I parked in the street in front of a randomly selected house and helplessly wandered around your neighborhood for a little bit, cursing not asking for your number so I could have just called you. With five minutes to spare, I just picked a house at random and rang the doorbell. It was yours.
You answered. And I didn’t know what to say.
You were smiling. It was a shy smile, but I could see that you were excited for the outing—would it be a pre-date? Anyway, you met my eyes and you skipped forward, throwing your arms around me and saying that it was good to see me. Almost mechanically, I raised my arms up and hugged you back.
I still wasn’t quite sure where we stood back then. I didn’t know if you thought that it was a date or if it was a fun day out with a guy you’ve known in passing since grade school.
Since I’m lame, I took you to that place everyone at school talks about that sells frozen yogurt, The Yogurt Spot. On the way there we both confessed that we had never even had frozen yogurt before and we both laughed. When I parked I panicked and took it too sharp, making myself look like a total dick. But you just smiled at me. As if nothing had even happened.
Frozen yogurt was surprisingly delicious.
I got a mixture of about three different flavors, kind of curious about how this was going to taste. You got chocolate, but you did turn on the nozzle of Cake Batter Up and took a taste with your finger. I watched you, impressed, but you didn’t even look swayed that our posh neighborhood probably just all collectively gasped at once.
A smirk curled onto my face when I paid for us both. Because you were so shocked when I told the guy we were together and you put the cup on the scale so hesitantly, like you were trying to think of some way to fight me. I pursed my lips together when I handed over the money, hoping that you wouldn’t notice my amusement. You busied yourself with grabbing the spoons, your eyes looking everywhere but at mine.
I think you and I both knew what, when the guy pays, it’s usually a date. And it was.
Well. To me.
Anyway. We sat down to eat and I don’t think you looked me in the eye once. I know that you said that your greatest fault was not being able to look people in the eye but I didn’t know that then, and I wondered what you were looking away from. I started to get self-conscious. You might have believed that guys can, but I really did right then.
I wondered if I looked like a fool.
And then I made you laugh. I said something stupid and you looked at me, right in the eye, and you burst out laughing at the exact right time to a joke I didn’t even think was that funny—okay, I thought it was hilarious, but I didn’t know if you had the same sick kind of humor that I did. You looked a whole other kind of beautiful when you laugh. You’re always beautiful and you will always be, but when you laughed . . . Your face just lit up. Your eyes flickered like they were laughing, too. Your eyes squint when you laugh. I know you hate that but I thought it was cute.
I smiled to myself as you laughed. I think it was that moment when I realized I didn’t want to let you go.
We walked around the shopping plaza. I told you a story about the cigar shop and you countered with a story about your brother attempting to buy a hookah. We ducked into Publix and I had you try an Arnold Palmer for the first time, even if it was diet and not really the same. You surprised me by skipping right up to the window the old abandoned Blockbuster storefront and cupping your hands around your eyes, peering inside of the empty space.
“It looks a lot bigger without all the crappy videogames,” you said.
It made my day.
We walked back to the car, still talking, and we climbed inside. I started the car and glanced over at the time on the radio and saw that it had only been about fifty minutes.
“Not enough time,” I said out loud, putting the car in reverse. “I’m not ready to take you home yet.”
Your face lit up a little bit but you tried to hide it from me by looking out the window. I saw the smile and then it was gone. You didn’t want to look too eager. You were playing hard-to-get, whether you knew it or not.
No, I don’t think you did. I think that you were just modest.
I hooked a u-turn up the road and turned into the local park. We drove around, discussing stories of the place, laughing about what would happen if we got lost. I told you snippets about my father and you listened, your face concerned, not asking me anything that I might not want to tell. I stopped at one of the shelters, pulling into a spot.
“Here seems like a good place,” I remember saying and immediately regretting it. I winced internally, feeling like I sounded like a prick.
If I did, you didn’t even blink. You just hopped out of the car and took a look around before skipping to my side, following me as I walked toward the shelter.
“Is that a restroom?” I demanded once we were close enough, laughing once. “I wouldn’t want to see the inside of those.”
“I’m kind of curious,” you said. We cut through the middle and glanced at the sign attached to the chain barring the entrance to the bathrooms. Together, you and I burst into laughter.
“Only open on Saturdays and Sundays,” you laughed, your eyes watering like they always do when you truly laugh. You brushed away the laughter tears and shook your head, a giant grin on your face. “Logic. They have it.”
I laughed.
We took a walk on a little boardwalk sidewalk they had rigged up over the swampland just before the beginning of the lake. We stood at the edge of the dock and we looked out at the large body of water, both of us thinking to ourselves for a long moment. Eventually, the moment was broken, and we went back to the car. I drove you home. I watched you as you walked away from me and into your house, not once glancing over your shoulder.
I’d had one girlfriend before you (I’m not going to count the one that lasted one day), but I already knew that I cared about you so much more than I cared about here.
All after that first day.
Everything has to start somewhere.
No matter what it is, there has to be a beginning. Regrettably, there has to be an end. But that was our beginning, Gia. That was the beginning of the journey that made me fall in love with you and somehow made you fall in love with me too. Sometimes, especially now, it’s good to look back on the things that make us smile.
You shouldn’t shy away from anything that has to do with me. You should be able to look back at the memories that we shared without being in pain. Instead, you should be smiling fondly. Smiling happily.
Memories are made for us to remember them.
I would hate it if you never allowed yourself to remember, G.
All because I knew it would be my fault.
~*~
The bell above the door rang, and I winced.
There was a group of teenagers sitting at the table closest to thing window, and they had been watching me since I walked up. It had gotten around on Facebook and what have you that I was the girlfriend of the boy who killed himself and I wasn’t surprised that they recognized me, but it annoyed me that I was now infamous because of a tragedy. That shouldn’t be the way that people were known as. People should be known for who they are.
Not what happened to them.
By the time I had entered the establishment, though, they had looked away, back to giggling and laughing and going back to saying mainstream phrases because they thought that was how people talked. I stepped into the shop hesitantly, breathing out deeply. It was the same as it had been the first time I had come here.
The Yogurt Spot didn’t look any different at all.
There was the wall of yogurt and the pile of cups, telling people to pick their poison. There was the counter of toppings and the absence of the employee behind the counter, something that seemed to be a trend in this place. I sluggishly walked inside, glancing at the flat screen television over the table in the middle, the table that he and I had sat at and I had spent the majority of our first date staring at the television so he wouldn’t see how nervous I was through my eyes. There was another television behind the counter, this one tuned into a sports channel, and it had been the one he had been looking at. It seemed as though it was set up for slightly awkward first dates or something.
The Employees Only door behind the counter was pushed open, revealing a smiling face.
“Welcome to—,” the girl with dirty blonde hair began to say, but when she saw me, her words cut off. She snapped her mouth shut before opening it again, closing it. Opening it. It took her another moment to speak. “Oh. Gia. Hey.”
“Hey, Sarah,” I greeted, forcing myself not to sigh.
Sarah was in the group I hung out with at school, the one that I was the most myself in. She had been one of the people who came over to my house and watched me cautiously, like she was waiting for me to explode, after the news about him had gotten around. I knew she meant well because Sarah had an honest soul, a kind one, but it didn’t make it any easier to talk to her when she offered. I didn’t know what I could tell people even if they wanted to listen.
I didn’t want to hear people tell me that I was wrong when I knew that it was truth. It was twisted logic, but it was the thoughts that ran through my head.
And now, standing there in a neat white uniform with light blue designs, she was staring at me, waiting for me to say something. Or maybe she just didn’t know what to say, either.
Sarah was small, blonde, her hair wavy and her eyes blue. She was looking at me now, chewing on her lip, and I could see the thoughts going through her mind. She had always been clever, but even this seemed to leave her speechless.
“It’s good to see you,” I broke the silence, smiling at her timidly. Immediately a wide smile spread over her face, cheerful. I almost flinched back from the expression. “I didn’t know that you worked here.”
“This is only my second shift,” she explained to me. “Got the job about a week ago, but only started yesterday. Not a lot of people know, either. Hasn’t really come up a lot.”
I nodded slowly.
“You’re doing okay, though?” she asked me, sounding like she truthfully wanted to hear my real answer. I hesitated. “You look a lot better. More color in your cheeks.”
I vaguely wondered to myself in passing if that might have been because I had forced myself to eat that morning. I didn’t say any of that to her, though. I didn’t need to have more people staring at me, worrying about me, judging me. Thinking that I was about to drop dead at any moment.
I shrugged and sent her a tired smile. “I’m surviving.”
“That’s good to hear,” she told me genuinely, seeming to relax a little. “So what are you doing around these parts? Closet lover of yogurt that is frozen?”
And since she didn’t ask about him like I expected her to, knowing that I wouldn’t have been able to take it, I laughed at her question. I was thankful. I was relieved.
I still didn’t want to talk about him. The wound still felt way too raw.
“Something like that,” I told her, shrugging. “I’m feeling in a chocolate mood.”
She ducked under the counter and skipped toward me, smiling widely. “I’m gonna hook you up, sista. Pump some more food into you.”
I smiled emptily. So she had noticed.
She walked over and snapped up a serving cup, marching straight over to the chocolate nozzle and nearly filling it to the top. She nodded, happy with the outcome, and went over to the toppings, sprinkling bits of everything on there—jelly beans, gummy worms, M&Ms, Oreos, brownie bits. I started to laugh eventually because it was total Sarah—extravagant but not enough that people stare.
She grinned and handed me the cup, sticking a spoon directly in the center. “And I expect you to eat all of this, too.”
“Yes, sir,” I laughed, shaking my head. “How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing until you gain at least eight pounds,” she said, winking and nudging me teasingly in the ribs. “I hate when people are skinnier than me. I seek vengeance.”
And since she never mentioned him once, I surprised us both by setting the cup down on the counter and hugging her, relaxing against her even though she stood there, frozen.
“Thank you,” I whispered, but I was thanking her for so much.
She closed her eyes and hugged me back, ignoring the stares, not caring about the muttering. She knew as much as I did that I just needed someone there right now, someone who wouldn’t want to talk about him. Someone who understood that all I needed was for someone to take care of me no matter how much I told them that I could take care of myself.
We sat at the table that he and I once shared and we talked like we always had before. We talked like friends who didn’t have any ghosts in between them or didn’t tiptoe, trying not to say the wrong thing.
Finally, I had time to breathe.
I sat there and I laughed in The Yogurt Spot for the first time without him.
And it wasn’t as painful as I thought it was going to be.
~*~
The memories will come easily at some point.
At first it’ll probably hurt. You’re going to avoid thinking about me because that’s just the way you are. You’ll shy away from everything that has to do with me but that is only normal, natural. I wouldn’t blame you for that at all. But I don’t want you to be stuck in that phase. I want you to be able to look our past in the eye and not be afraid of it.
This is just another kind of fear, Gia.
And there’s nothing to be afraid of.
One day, you’ll be able to think about me and smile.
Even if it’s not today, that’s fine. It doesn’t even have to be tomorrow or any of the dates on your calendar that will run until the end of this year. It could be on that next calendar if you want it to be.
I just want you to realize that, if you start to push the memories of me to the back of your mind, I won’t mind.
Whether we both like it or not, I’m a part of your past.
And the past doesn’t have much of a place in the present.
-Holden
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Part eight :)
x Riley