One Last Thing ✅

five things

The envelope is still on my bed.

Of course it is.

It's like that time I smashed a gigantic centipede in the bathroom one morning and was too grossed out to clean it up so I left it there all day, hoping it would just disappear while I was at school. Yeah, it didn't. Its broken body and disgusting guts were still lying there when I got home. Putting off the cleanup process didn't make it any less gross.

I force myself to breathe.

It can't hurt you, stupid. It's just a letter.

It takes all my strength to walk over to the bed. For a moment, I stand there and stare at her handwriting. My name and address are written in strange, loopy cursive. I think of the hands that formed those letters. The hands that once held me, fed me, clothed me.

The hands that held me underwater until Grams rushed in.

Don't think. Just get it over with.

I count to three and pick up the envelope by the corner, barely even touching the paper. Then I hustle over to my closet and drop to my knees. Shoved in the far corner, beneath a pile of sweaters, is an old shoebox. I push the sweaters aside and remove the top of the shoebox.

Inside, there is a pile of unopened letters, all encased in the same hideous blue stationery. I drop the most recent one on top and then replace the top of the box. Quickly, I push it to the back of my closet and throw the sweaters over it. When I get to my feet, I slam the closet door shut.

Only then do I start to feel better.

Only then can I breathe.

My phone rings inside my backpack, a slightly muffled version of Ani Difranco's "Two Little Girls."

Riley.

Shit.

I was supposed to call her.

After retrieving my phone, I fall onto my bed and pull my quilt around me. It's made of all these cool retro concert t-shirts I've collected over the years: Bush, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Liz Phair. It is, quite literally, my security blanket.

"Hey," I say. "Sorry I forgot to call. Grams was pissed I was late, and I had to do the whole dinner thing. So what's up?"

Riley is quiet for a minute, but I can hear her sniffling.

"Riley?"

More sniffling.

"I think they're really doing it this time."

I fiddle with a loose thread. "You mean...?"

"Divorce. I think it's for real. He found her American Express bill while I was at school. She texted me, all incoherent and random letters and numbers and shit."

"Where is she?" I ask.

"Curled up in bed with a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates."

"And your dad?"

"Where else?"

Riley's always complaining about the hours her father spends at the police station. She hates it when I point out if he didn't put in that kind of time, he'd never have been made chief and wouldn't be able to afford her mother's expensive purse habit. Which, he still can't, really. Riley always argues that her mother wouldn't need those things if her father were at home more. I guess it's a Catch 22. Or I don't know. I didn't really read that book when it was assigned sophomore year.

"Look," I say gently. "Don't take this the wrong way, but they have a fight like this almost every month. Why are you so sure they're going to split up this time?"

"My dad," Riley whispers. "He called a little bit ago. Apologized for working so late. Wanted to make a date with me this weekend to go get ice cream or something."

"Why is that a bad thing?" I ask, puzzled. Shouldn't Riley be ecstatic that her father wants to spend time with her?

"Don't you see what's happening?" Riley demands. "It's a set up. He's going to take me to Coldstone and order my favorite, and I'll never be able to eat Birthday Cake Remix again because I'll always associate it with the day my father broke the news he's divorcing my mother."

I rub my quilt against my cheek, squeezing my eyes closed and trying to forget the thing that's hidden beneath my mattress. The only thing that can give me real comfort after this crappy day.

 "I think you're jumping to conclusions. He probably just feels guilty for working so much lately."

"Do you really think so?"

Hell, I don't know, I think to myself. Who knows anything? "Sure."

Riley takes a deep, wavering breath. "Okay. Thanks."

We are both quiet for a while, but it's not that awkward silence where you don't know what to say. It's just us acknowledging the other one is there, in the world, and even though we aren't together, we really are.

"How are you doing?" Riley finally asks.

"I'm okay," I whisper.

"No, you're not," Riley persists. "It was like a thousand degrees out today and you were wearing long sleeves. You did it again, didn't you?"

My silence betrays me.

"Lil, you're scaring the shit out of me with this cutting stuff."

I tell her what I always do: "It's no big deal. It's like... biting my fingernails or something. I don't go very deep. Just a scratch, basically."

"Uh huh," she says, not sounding convinced. "I don't like it. People don't accidentally bite their thumbnail too hard and bleed to death."

I roll my eyes.

"Promise me, Lil. Promise me you'll try to stop."

"Sure," I lie, for the millionth time today. "I'll try."

"No, I mean it."

"Okay."

More silence.

I'm about to say something really real, something like I got a letter today... but then Riley says, "Shit, I think my mom's calling for me."

Relief.

"Good luck," I tell her.

"Thanks," she says. "You too."

I wrap myself up more tightly in the quilt.

Don't think about it, I tell myself when the knife pops into my head. Just don't.

I stare at my phone, wondering if Jared will call.

Minutes pass, and the phone remains silent.

I grab my remote control and push a button. The old black and white television flickers on. I hit PLAY and The Wizard of Oz fills the screen. The movie starts right where I left it, the part where Dorothy takes the ruby red shoes off the witch and the striped legs shrivel up.

Of course, on my television, the shoes aren't ruby at all. Not red like the blood that rises up when I drag steel across my arm. These shoes are drab and colorless, like the life of a girl no one ever really wanted, not even her mother. Despite my brain saying no, I feel my hand stretching down to find the thing I've hidden under my mattress.