Dear Olive

Dear Olive,
I don’t want to write this letter.
I don’t want to tell you that I’m leaving you.
I don’t want to tell you that I can’t love you anymore.
I have to though, because you changed. You killed the girl that I loved and became someone else. How could you not discuss it with me, before making a decision that would affect us both so much?
You promised me that you wouldn’t do it. You swore that even if we were the last two ordinary people on earth, you wouldn’t become like them. I feel like an idiot for believing you.
You chose a new life over me and I hope that it makes you happy. I am going to miss the girl that you used to be.. I will mourn her loss every second of every hour of every single day.

-Charlie

My hand was shaking when I scrawled my name across the bottom of the letter. I thought about using my laptop for another draft, but I wanted her to see the messy penmanship. I wanted Olive to notice the bleeding ink where my tears had fallen.

I wanted her to know how much she hurt me.

Olive had given into the pressure. Just like most of society, she had chosen to be reborn. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen the truth with my own eyes.

At school she had approached me and I hardly recognized her. When her lips parted for a smile, I saw a row of perfect white teeth. The little gap that I loved wasn't there.

Neither was her curly brown hair. It had been a glorious tangled mess, but now it hung straight down her back. The change that I noticed the most though were Olive's freckles.

She had thousands of them all over her body. As I looked at her I realized that every single one of them was missing. Her skin was as smooth and pale as a porcelain doll.

Olive looked like a retouched version of the girl that she was before. Every little “flaw” that made her unique in a sea of perfect faces had been erased. She didn’t seem upset about it though.

She latched onto my hand and said, “Charles how are you? As you can see I am so much better.”

Olive went on to tell me how wonderful it felt to be brand new. She insisted she was now the best version of herself. She said that I would love the change as well.

As Olive spoke to me, I noticed that she kept calling me Charles. I had know her since we were eight years old. She had never once called me that.

I think that was when I knew that she was gone.

Olive was the girl that I loved more then anything on the entire planet. I knew her better than anyone else. The person that spoke to me in the hallway of our high school was not her.

Well, physically and technically she was. The change had made both her body and soul unrecognizable though. So what did technicalities matter?

I looked down again at the letter that I wrote. I wanted to tear it up, light it on fire, and set the smoke alarms off. I wanted every word I put down to be a lie.

Couldn't it all just be a bad dream that I was going to wake up from?

That evening, I walked to Olive’s house. The slate gray sky drizzled above as I opened her mail box. I slipped a small envelope inside of it and moved to walk away.

Then the door opened and she stood there. Olive looked out into the rain at me. When she recognized who I was, she ran out to meet me.

"Charles, I wasn’t expecting you!," Olive said loudly.” Please come in. Daddy will be so pleased to see you. We can have dinner and…”

“Shut up,” I whispered.

She didn’t seem to hear me though and rambled on,” We could have a fire. It’s really cold, don’t you think? You’re jacket looks soaked. Did you walk here?”

“Just shut up!” I shouted louder and her perfect smile froze. “I don’t want to remember you this way. Jesus, Olive… Just go back inside and close the door.”

I felt a bubble of rage rising up inside of me. I wanted to pick up the flower pot by my feet and hurl it at Olive’s pretty face. I wanted to break her in the same way that I was breaking.

Instead I ran away from her. I ran as fast as he could to escape the girl standing there in the rain. Whoever she was, I did not want to know her.