Status: Complete
Memories
Dear Ryan,
Dear Ryan,
I know that I said I’d write you, but it’s been hard. It’s been months and I hoped to have forgotten about you by now, but it hasn’t happened. I have this ominous feeling that it never will.
The night you left, you were supposed to come see me. We were supposed to pop popcorn and watch movies, but you never showed. I wish you would have told me you weren’t coming. I wish you could have let me know that I’d never see you again. But instead, I waited. Waited until 9 o’clock, 10 o’clock, midnight. And you never showed up.
Waiting is a dangerous thing. When you’re waiting, you start to imagine things. Imagine what could possibly be taking so long. Imagine your boyfriend knocking on another girl’s door, popping popcorn with her, watching a movie with her. Her name was Sonia. One of your little followers that watched you swim. She was Latino like you, she understood your Spanish and your culture in a way I never could, and that scared me. I didn’t want to lose you, especially because of something I couldn’t change.
I questioned her the next day, assuming that you’d been with her when you were supposed to be with me.
And she’s the one that told me. She’s the one that let me know that while I was imagining you knocking on her door, you were running a red light to get to me faster. That while I was seeing you and her watching movies and popping popcorn, another car was crashing into yours. That while I was thinking you were cheating on me, you were screaming, burning alive trapped in your car, clutching that photo of me you kept hanging from your rear-view mirror.
Little pieces of paper litter my floor. Pieces I can’t bear to pick up, or look at, or think about. They’ve been there for months, since the night your left. Sometimes, I swear I can hear your voice coming out of the pile, a little bit of OCD seeping through as you tell me,
“Babe, come on. Don’t just leave that there. Ya know what, I’ll get it for you.”
But then your voice disappears. And I realize it’s just a pathetic figment of my imagination.
So it’s been hard to write. Because while you were dying trying to save our love, I was tearing apart our memories.
I know that I said I’d write you, but it’s been hard. It’s been months and I hoped to have forgotten about you by now, but it hasn’t happened. I have this ominous feeling that it never will.
The night you left, you were supposed to come see me. We were supposed to pop popcorn and watch movies, but you never showed. I wish you would have told me you weren’t coming. I wish you could have let me know that I’d never see you again. But instead, I waited. Waited until 9 o’clock, 10 o’clock, midnight. And you never showed up.
Waiting is a dangerous thing. When you’re waiting, you start to imagine things. Imagine what could possibly be taking so long. Imagine your boyfriend knocking on another girl’s door, popping popcorn with her, watching a movie with her. Her name was Sonia. One of your little followers that watched you swim. She was Latino like you, she understood your Spanish and your culture in a way I never could, and that scared me. I didn’t want to lose you, especially because of something I couldn’t change.
I questioned her the next day, assuming that you’d been with her when you were supposed to be with me.
And she’s the one that told me. She’s the one that let me know that while I was imagining you knocking on her door, you were running a red light to get to me faster. That while I was seeing you and her watching movies and popping popcorn, another car was crashing into yours. That while I was thinking you were cheating on me, you were screaming, burning alive trapped in your car, clutching that photo of me you kept hanging from your rear-view mirror.
Little pieces of paper litter my floor. Pieces I can’t bear to pick up, or look at, or think about. They’ve been there for months, since the night your left. Sometimes, I swear I can hear your voice coming out of the pile, a little bit of OCD seeping through as you tell me,
“Babe, come on. Don’t just leave that there. Ya know what, I’ll get it for you.”
But then your voice disappears. And I realize it’s just a pathetic figment of my imagination.
So it’s been hard to write. Because while you were dying trying to save our love, I was tearing apart our memories.