Useless Dresses

His eyes flooded with tears, his face distorted with pain.

Rich seemed to fly down the hill, because he was toe-to-toe with me before I could blink. He clutched my right arm with both his large hands, and squeezed and shook until I nearly crashed into the pond.

Then he sank down to his knees.

I just stood there, doing nothing. I let him cry. I thought he was a lousy person and I hated him. But Rich was in pain. He needed someone to cry on, even a hypocritical someone.

I felt a pang of guilt as I remembered my outburst. It had only been minutes ago, but it seemed so far away now. Like I had dreamt it.

After a while, Rich sat Indian-style beside me, his eyelids swollen and red and drooping with exhaustion. I took this as an invitation to sit next to him.

“My mom is dying,” He said. “The doctors say she doesn’t have much longer.”

He’s breaking up again, so I keep quiet.

“You know the best part of it? No one is sad about it. Everyone’s so fucking happy,” he spit this last word, as though it tasted bitter on his tongue. “No one even stops to realize that she won’t be here next year. Or maybe she won’t be here next month. Hell, she could die right now while I’m out here wasting my time with you.”

I remained silent, staring at the water and the way the stars reflected the smallest dots of light into the air.

“I killed Milly’s brother…”

“No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no?’ You said it yourself. You told me. I killed him. You told me.”

Rich began to shake again, and I fought the urge to scoot away a few feet.

“I lied. I told you, I’m a liar. You made a mistake. You didn’t kill him, though. You aren’t like me. You didn’t—”

“Maybe I’m lying, too.”

“You’re not lying.”

“How would you know?”

“Because you’re good.”

He didn’t have anything to say to that, and we again sat in silence until the cold began numbing my lips and I had to speak to warm them.

“Here.” I tipped the sagging cardboard over and took out the letter, gently this time. “I was going to destroy this. It’s already destroyed my life, and as long as it exists…” I stopped, afraid to give away too much. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea anymore. I don’t know why. So you keep it.”

Rich eyed the folded paper, then took it from my hands.

“Keep it safe for me and maybe one day I’ll want it back. Or maybe, when I’m dead, you can read it to my sister.”

Rich twirled the paper through his fingers several times before asking, “What does it say?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never read it.”

He started to say something, to object to whatever it was I was doing, but I clapped my lips over his mouth and held them there until I was satisfied with it.

“Rich,” I said lowly, our faces only an inch apart. “We can’t all sit around moping because death’s around the corner. No one can be happy that way. Death is inevitable for everyone—we have to be sad for a while and mourn and then move on. But if we start mourning someone’s death before they die, what will the last months of that person’s life be to us?”

His answer was quick and confident, and absolutely surprising.

“Death.”

“Cherish the time you have left with your mom. You don’t know when she’s going to disappear from your life, so don’t waste it being sad for her.”

“I don’t know if I can be happy.”

“If I can be happy, so can you.”

After that, we sat. Just sat together, watching the water. We were both thinking—just thinking. About the past, about the present. And now, I was thinking about the future. I was finally comforted by the fact that I wouldn’t be going through this alone, as selfish as that sounds. Rich would lose his mother. I’d already lost mine, though under different circumstances. Rich’s mother didn’t get a choice. My problems couldn’t compare. Still, I was comforted.

“So what’s in the box?” I heard Rich ask after most of the suburban bedrooms had gone dark. I shot up from the ground, the box in hand. Rich had tucked my mother’s letter in his coat pocket.

“Some things we’re gonna burn,” I grinned, flinging the box open for the first time in way too long. I had already taken the tape off earlier. I didn’t bother looking in the box. I already knew its contents all too well.

And all I wanted to do was burn them.

“Are you sure, Kate? These look expensive.”

“Yup,” I said. Then I took out my lighter, and prayed these things were flammable.

“This is dangerous; we could set something big on fire.”

“You’re not one for warnings,” I said, sparking a flame.

“Well…”

“I’ll never be able to move on if these still exist. They’ve been mocking me for years, Rich, years. They’re the reason...the reason for a lot of things. Or part of the reason.”

Rich still didn’t know anything about me, so he wouldn’t understand my words. But I didn’t think much of it. And with that, I lowered the small flame into the box, and watched satin and silk catch instant fire.

I waited until the flame began to move outside the box before kicking it into the pond.

“Rich?” I glanced behind to see he was still watching the flaming box. “Let’s go home.”

With the moon high in the sky, Rich and I walked away from the box of burning dresses.