“I will. I don’t even want to see them again. I only want to see Ally or Jess. No one else.” I’m sure everyone knows I overdosed, and I feel like an idiot now. I want different friends. And if I can’t get different friends, I’d rather stay alone.
“I want you to take lessons or something. Maybe dance, or piano? You used to be good with music.”
“Mom. We don’t have a piano.”
She laughs. For the first time, I notice wrinkles around her eyes. “Well, something. The flute? That’s light. Anyway, you know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” I agree. I feel like something just happened between us. Like I’ve barrelled through some kind of blockade. Like I’ve reached out to her extended hand and let her pull me over to the other side. Her side.
Sixty
Freestyle says that to become someone new, the old person in you must first die. You have to fully let that person go. He tells me I need new friends, a new school, and a whole new way to have fun. “Believe me, kid, I’ve tried many, many times to start a new life. But it don’t last if you don’t kill that old you first. It’s just too tempting to fall back.”
I don’t think it will be that hard for me to do. I already have a new school. It’s not like any of my friends are that special to me, except for Ally and Jess. And it’s not like I do anything interesting in my life, other than party at random apartments with strangers. So it’s no great loss. But I know for sure there is one person I have to get out of my life forever before I can move on.
Michael,
It’s crazy to be in love with someone so much that you lose yourself. The more lost you feel, the more desperately you love. There’s no stopping it. Except this … there comes a moment when ou begin to hate yourself for being so pathetic. And then, it’s not like the love is gone, it’s just that you can’t reach it in your heart anymore. And that once-unstoppable love stops right away. Just like that. Gone. And all you’re left with is embarrassment and shame for the pitiful person you have become.
I let you go, Michael. You are free.
And so am I.
M.
I take the letter to Michael’s apartment building and go up on the roof where we used to hang out at night, smoking cigarettes and sometimes listening to music. So many summer nights, us up there, away from everything, like we were the only people in the whole city. Now it’s so friggin’ cold I can even see the air coming out of my nose when I breathe, like I’m some kind of dragon. I light a joint and sit on the roof ledge by the stairwell door, taking shelter from the freezing wind.
It’s dark. Late. About eleven o’clock. The city is resting quietly below, under a light, new snowfall.
His building is close to the airport, so all the roofs have red lights flashing and pulsing up long antennas. Michael used to say they were urban shooting stars and that meant you could make a hundred wishes a night if you wanted to. I look at them now without interest. I’m so tired of wishes.
A plane jets by overheard, shaking the air. I can smell the gas vapours.
With frozen fingers, I take the letter out of my pocket. I can’t decide if I should burn it or tear it into little pieces or just crumple it into a ball and let it fly away in the wind. I sit there a while longer and smoke another joint. I make myself go over, for the last time, all our experiences together. I think of Michael’s face and his hands and his voice and the way he looked at me and his kindness … and I so don’t want to let it all go. My tears are so heavy and slow I wonder if it’s possible they can freeze on my cheeks.
After some time, my bum turns numb from sitting so long on the cold concrete ledge. Then Ally calls.
“Yo. Mel. You wanna come over?”
“Where?”
“Just chillin’ at Devon’s with Jess. Watching a flick. Nothing big. But we have juice.”
I actually think about it for a second. It’s a while that I’ve been out of the hospital now. I’d love a few drinks. And it is Friday night. I shouldn’t go. What about all that time and