Daylight breaks through the large windows and spills into the room prismatically. It’s not welcoming and warm like it used to be when I was a kid. Instead, it’s blazing and fiery.
The library looks the same as it did years ago. I walk through the shelves, remembering all the times my mom had scolded me if she had found me here. “Why don’t you go out and play with your friends?” A tear slips down my cheek, recalling how mad she used to get.
Going through my old books, I find one that I haven’t seen here before. I don’t recognize the author. The pages are ripped and torn. I go through the pages to remember how come I haven’t seen this before. Strangely, I also find a letter in the middle of the pages, and it isn’t addressed to anyone. I shuffle through the other pages and find many more like these. I pick one of the letters and start reading.
Dear stranger,
I hope through this letter, you may find the strength to go through life. Whatever difficulty you’re facing, find inspiration in these powerful words. It expresses the phase of my life where I was all alone, trapped in my own mind.
It’s late at night, and I’m struggling to find the words that I wish would come easily. In truth, I’m not sure it’s even possible to convey in words how much I am hurting right now. That I’m filled with guilt and shame, and I have no other option but to confide myself in these words.
A few months ago, my family was met in a car accident, and I lost my parents. I survived, even though the accident was caused by me. I was whining all along the ride and—
The words are like a cold bucket of ice. It stings. It’s a harsh slap. The words open the dam of tears that I have suppressed for so long. Suddenly, I’m covered, head to toe, in a crawling sensation. I can’t see. I can’t hear my own thoughts. I rush down the stairs and go to the nearest bathroom I find in the hallways.
I slam the bathroom door and start throwing up in the toilet. There’s a ringing in my ears and warmth from the side of my head and bile rising from my throat because I can smell it. I can smell death. The same I did when my parents died.
Tears streamline down my cheeks, empty stomach vomit stings my nose and burns my throat as I drag myself into the shower, clothed.
Shame. Guilt. Car Accident.
The words make me gag, and more bile comes up, swirling around the drain hole.
“I hate myself” I keep muttering this to myself in the shower. I sit on the floor, knees to my chest, my parent’s dead face clouding the forefront of my thoughts. I wish I’d never seen them dying in front of me.
That evening. My mother’s eyes. It’s always her eyes. I see it all the time. I saw them in pain, closing for the last time. The memory won’t go. It’s fresh. It’s fresh again. Sometimes I wish I was knocked out cold then so I wouldn’t have to live with these bursts of memories.
I try to shut my eyes tightly, but the images won’t go away. I see them with my eyes closed. I see my parent’s death.
There was a hideous splotch of pale purple that marred the base of my mother’s neck and the same hue of mauve on the side of my father’s right wrist. It was as if death had painted them from one palette, unceasing when he got to the other part, without washing off the paint.
The sound of shattered glass hitting the pavement and the buzzing of horns is engrained in my mind. The copper taste of my own blood was mixed in with the salt of my tears because when I opened my eyes, I saw so much red. There was red, and there was black because my mother had already started bruising. For some goddamn reason, I only had some fractured bone.
My eyes dart towards a razor that’s on the floor next to me. I pick it up and break it, the blades fall out, and I pick one up.
My wrist hurts a little, but it’s a different kind of pain. Blood runs off, a bright red against the white tile, swirling around the drain hole. Watered-down blood reminds me of food coloring. It’s prettier than straight blood, easier to look at. This is easier. It’s a relief, the blood washes off under the rain of the shower, and I wait for it to wash the truth away with it.
Inhaling becomes frantic. Grasping for oxygen is almost impossible as I pick up a razor again and think of pressing it into my wrist. It hurts already, but it’s not enough. I should dig harder.
I close my eyes for a minute, and I see the words of that letter in my mind. The images of my dead parents are unexpectedly filled with the words from those letters. And I want to know what that girl must have had felt.
I open my eyes and look at my wrist. Suddenly I don’t feel so alone anymore. I don’t feel anything.
No guilt. No regret. No shame.
Those letters. Those letters without addresses. I want to read them. I want to know that I’m not the only one feeling this. I take a deep breath, get up, and leave the bathroom, practically dragging my feet, to find some band-aids.
I spent hours and hours reading the letters. There were so many of them, but I felt like someone understood me.
Now standing in my balcony, I gaze out at the glittering lake, the breathtaking sky above it, and think about all the moments I spent with my parents.
“Thank you,” I whisper out the words hoping the mystery girl would hear me. I wish I could tell her how much those letters have given me hope. Those letters without any addresses have pulled me out of my grief. And I can’t thank her enough for that.
I am sad and angry with myself. But I know I couldn’t have saved my parents from the accident. They believed in fate, and they have always wanted me to experience everything that I could. My parents believed in living life to the fullest. There is so much beauty in just existing. In being alive. And I don’t want to miss a second.
I still go to bed sad and wake up sad, and it still hurts like hell, but there are moments during the day when it hurts less. Sometimes I can think of my parents and not want to burst into tears. Sometimes I’m close to happy, and it doesn’t even hurt much. Of course, I’ll never be the way I was before, but maybe that’s okay. Life goes on. I’m going on, even without them. Not every day hurts. Not every breath hurts.
THE END
Leave a Reply