Useless Dresses

I’m done being lonely.

Not because I moved here, or because I’m trying to be a good girl for my family and my school. But, after tonight, I can’t imagine loneliness like I used to.

“Hey, Rich?” I pulled a few strands of orange hair from my face. The air was chilly, but the wind died down this afternoon and had yet to come back, leaving the night calm and quiet.

Rich was off in dreamland as we walked across the snow-covered golf course, and responded only with a low “Hmm.”

“Do you remember that paper you wrote, about if you were a blind person?”

“Yea, of course.”

“I don’t think a blind person would have been offended.”

“How could they read it, anyway?” Rich laughed, though it came out in a forced sort of way. He was distracted and I knew he didn’t want to talk, but I kept on anyways.

“That’s what I mean. They could hear about it, touch the paper, ponder the ideas, have someone read it to them. But they’ll experience it the way it’s meant to be experienced, will they? Because you wrote it. And when someone writes something, it’s meant to be read. Listening to it, thinking about it—well, that’s a different experience. How could they go back to it later? Ideas would be all messed up.”

Rich stayed silent for a long while, and I’d begun to think he ignored me when he stopped in his tracks and kicked some snow into the air.

“If you feel that way, why haven’t you read this letter?” He pulled it out of his pocket, more carefully than I’d ever bothered to handle it.

I looked down at my feet, sliding snow onto my shoes then kicking it off again.

“I’m scared, I guess,” I admitted. “Maybe I wish I was blind.”

Rich pushed the letter toward me. “You said you might want it back some day, but I get the feeling you won’t ever want it back. You aren’t blind…” He bit his lower lip and looked up at the stars. “You aren’t blind, and you were meant to read it.”

I stared at the little folded sheet of notebook paper, and it stared right back at me. It taunted me, asking me to read it but at the same time refusing to let me open it. Like it had been doing since the first day I found the stupid letter under my pillow.

Eventually I snatched the letter from Rich’s outstretched hands, tore it open and stared at its contents, unblinking. It was like I’d done hundreds of times before. Snuck into the closet and opened the letter, only to make up words on paper because it was much too dark to see anything.

“Here.” Rich pushed another object toward me. A lighter.

“What’s this for?” I asked dumbly.

“You can’t possibly read it like that.”

My fingers fumbled with the lighter. When I finally got a flame to spark, I held it up to the paper but directed my gaze to Rich, who was shivering despite the stagnant air.

“You can go home. I’ll give you’re lighter back at school.”

But he stayed, pretending not to notice and instead sliding his foot across the snow.

“Rich.”

“I feel like I should stay. Make sure you get home alright.”

“My house is only a few streets over. Don’t worry about me. Go.” I didn’t want an audience.

He left, walking much too slowly until his back disappeared into the night. I turned my attention back to the letter and glared through the firelight to words scribbled in pencil, slanted awkwardly and signed at the bottom with Mom.

The letter took me two minutes to read. Maybe not even that. I didn’t reread it. I pushed the lighter onto the paper’s center and let it burn from all directions, until only a corner was left. I left it in the snow and walked home.

I felt almost high walking down the streets that night. Streetlamps dotted some places in the sidewalk, but it was often still too dark to see much of anything. I thought in the darkness, and made some promises.

I would talk to Emily. Maybe give her some closure. Apologize to her, even though I owe her so much more.

I would talk to Denny, too. He deserves to know. Maybe he’ll forgive me from keeping it from him. Maybe I’ll be able to call him Dad again.

I would take Bobby for ice cream, because I’d been promising to for days. I would make him happy. I would try to make things right.

I would be the best friend a human being could be to Milly. Because she’s different, people don’t like her. They think she’s obnoxious and just plain weird. And she is all those things. And that’s why I love her.

I would help Richie get through his mother’s death. We have something in common. We’re each other’s anchors. And Richie, he’s the only person who would understand my pain.

I would stop being lonely. I would be happy. In school, at home, in the future—I would just be happy! It’s time to let go of my MIA mother. Time to forgive myself. Time to realize that I made mistakes, but her mistake was leaving. Her mistake was pushing a life on me that made me miserable. I only wish I’d told her my problems before she left.

I eyed my home down the street, grinning widely at the sight of it. I felt happier than I’d ever remembered feeling, in my whole life. Tomorrow would be a new day. I rushed to cross the street, darkness falling solidly on the night air as I ran out of the streetlamp’s perimeter.

A screech pierced through the silent night air. Headlights flashed, loud music blasted. I looked up in time to see the car as it flew toward me.