Love Letters to Write Before I Die

There was just something about crying that made her eyelids heavy.

Haley didn’t know what to think. She heard stories about infidelity among married couples all the time at school that it was almost depressing. But after hearing those stories, she would think things like “thank god my parents are happily married.”

No child would want to think that their parents were unfaithful. And maybe because that thought was programmed in her head, finding out the truth was like being hit by a truck. She felt barely alive at first and she was still reeling from the hit of the first truck before another one decided to run her over. You’d think she would definitely be dead but there she was, alive. Barely. Stuck with the broken bones, bleeding limbs, pulled muscles and probably a couple of exploded organs.

The biggest pain of all to her then was thinking. She wished her brain exploded but it was intact, her mind vomiting out strings of negativity so that she could feel like shit.

And there was Nathan. She wanted to be alone. She just wanted to curl underneath the bed and rot. But she didn’t have the heart to throw him out, considering where she was. And because of his family’s hospitality, she had a place to stay for a couple of hours. She wanted to stay at Dan but the thought of telling him about his parents cheating somehow embarrassed the hell out of her. Was it something that she did that drove them apart? People told her that she could be annoying at times. Was that it? What the hell could drive them apart?! Why didn’t she see it? Why was she so absorbed trying to fix other people’s problems while her own parents’ marriage was falling apart that horribly?

“Haley.”

She was breathing heavily, her vision was clouded by tears that refused to fall. She just realized that she literally screamed her thoughts out to nobody in particular. She thought that screaming was supposed to help release the tight tension that was eating up her heart but the initial shock of finding her mom and dad in such a position won’t go away. It frightened her. What was going to happen after this? Should she go back home? She didn’t want to intrude on anyone’s evening. Sophia Scott, Nathan’s mother came into the room and talked to her a bit earlier and she burst out sobbing because she felt as if his mother was being awfully nice to her.

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Scott said. “Nathan’s friends are welcomed to stay anytime. And you’ve been through a lot today, dear. Let me get you a hot cup of cocoa.”

Nathan was leaning against the doorframe. He heard her screams. Her heart beat against her chest rapidly and blood was rushing to her cheeks. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at him. She couldn’t bear to see the pity in his eyes.

“It’s not your fault,” said Nathan.

She rested her head on the cushioned headboard, feeling the softness easing her headache. She had been in that position for a while now. Just sitting there, crying. And if she ran out of tears and her eyes were getting tired, she’d take a 5-minute nap. And every time she woke up, she wished everything would go back to normal.

“You don’t know that.”

“It’s not. They love you, any moron can see that. So realistically speaking, it’s not your fault.”

Realistic. Somehow, hearing it from a pessimistic-ish guy like him, it made her feel a tad better.

But she didn’t want to talk about her parents. It didn’t help her. Just thinking about it made her feel even more like crap.

“Moron is one of my favorite negative words,” she whispered. Nathan seemed to be taken aback for a moment before going over to sit right next to her.

“Once, I have this phase of calling everyone I hate ‘pompous’, even if they aren’t. Don’t ask me why, it was a weird moment for me too.”

Haley smiled. “Pompous sounds cute. It rhymes with bulbous.”

Nathan laughed. “What?”

“What?” Haley replied. “Bulbous sounds cute too.”

“Nothing, I just remembered once, in our school cafeteria, there was this nerdy looking dude over at the next table. A girl passed the table and he said to his friends that she had a bulbous ass. I wasn’t even sure if it was a compliment or what, but the girl heard it and things got messy after that.”

Haley chortled and wondered if she looked ridiculous. She was a pile of miserable mess with her messy hair, pasty complexion and tear-stained cheeks. She rubbed her eyes as for the first time that night, she felt something other than depression and anger.

Nathan’s fingers grasped her wrist and pulled away her hand from her eyes. His thumb went over her cheeks, wiping the tears away and he said, “I won’t promise you anything. I’m not the kind of person who likes to give false hope to people. It’s a shit situation. But like you said, there’s always a silver lining, right?”

Haley chuckled bitterly. “Gosh, do I sound like that all the time?”

“Unbelievably, persistently optimistic? Pretty much.”

“Sorry.”

“It doesn’t bother me much now,” he said, grinning.

His thumb slowly went down to her lips, his gaze fixated on her.

“Nathan, what are you doing?” she whispered, looking at him nervously but it was as if he filtered out her voice.

He moved in closer and Haley found out that she was actually anticipating it.

A shrill beeping sound suddenly came from his watch and it was as if the both of them snapped. She saw the cloudiness in his eyes went away to be replaced by something that resembled panic and guilt. He glanced at his watch and got up.

“I’ve to go take my meds.”

Haley cleared her throat and nodded.

Great, she thought sarcastically.

She never felt so confused and miserable in her life.