Her letter was no longer on his wall. And they were repeating themselves. Things he had texted her, thoughts she had spurted out over the phone, they were all reviewed.
He moved from New Haven to the South. Then to the Midwest. The to the West Coast. Then back to the Midwest.
And, she noticed, he had taken out his piercing. “Why?”
“Because I felt like it. That should really be the only reason you do anything in life.”
***
She had cried in front of him twice. The first time was on a Friday night, the type of Friday that eats at the stomach because one could be out, hypothetically having fun with a bunch of other smiling teenagers (who were only smiling because Friday was an excuse to binge smoke). Yet she was indoors, on the floor, leaning against he bed so the wood frame dug into her vertebrae, sure to leave a raw red mark. The tears were already there when she decided to call him.
He was riding his bike, and could not hear her through the sobs. He switched into protective mode, and through cell phone towers he managed to calm her down. She was never an emotional person anyway. She was smart, in spite of everything, and lovely, and better then this, remember? He made sense. Their conversation turned away from the bad to the future, to the sun that never shone where he lived. They talked for two hours, and he biked completely across Portland in that time.
***
He came back for the first time at Christmas. They were hollow, and it was mutually understood. Swaggering as usual, he made it to her house on Christmas, and they sat in front of the dying embers, as the room slowly grew darker, and the frost crawled up the windows.
The next night, she tagged along with a group of kids she didn't know to a park to go sledding, because what else was there to do? She was loyal to Wisconsin, especially in winter. She giggled through the dark tunnel to the park, and when she came out the other end he was standing there. There, tall as ever. She took him and they ran the edge of the park. They yelled at each other and she hit him with her small fists and he shook her more then was probably necessary. She could tell the tears were close behind, and she pulled down her hat to cover her eyes. Not many people saw her crying. Not even him. But he knew that the tears would turn to ice, and drew her in closer to his kaki coat.
The police came, and they ran further into the park. Their friends shouts, begging them to return, disappeared into the icy river. Desperate, their friends tried to drag them out, to bring them home before the police entered the park, but they were rooted to the spot. When they decided it was time to leave, they walked hand in hand through the tunnel.
She mumbled: “Come find me. Do you promise?”
“I promise”
And he did. They kissed for the last time and he got into the purple Jeep.
The next morning she woke up in her best friends bed with the sun glaring through the window. Her friend pulled up next to her and rubbed her back.
Vomiting was not unpleasant. Her friend followed her and held her hair back. A tall glass of water was produced, the only thing that entered her body for the whole day.
***
“No last semester was just bad for me,” he tossed out, peering up at her from his dorm room bed many may miles away, through a computer screen.
“Nooo, second semester senior year is supposed to be the best part of high school”
“Well, I was just fucked up a lot. On a lot of drugs. And drunk all the time”
She wished she could hear him, but they had already stopped communicating.
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