Letter 03
Dear Hide,
I'm sure you saw me making cookies with Carla, and I ended up wearing the apron you made..It broke my heart when I saw it, when the glitter from your name tried to run away..
I almost imagined that it was running to find you.
Hide, I want to believe you're still out there. You didn't die, you couldn't have. I wish, just for a split second, you could respond to me. Why the hell did you even do it?
I just want to cry, and I know..This is the third letter in one day...I'm sorry.
But...
This is the first time I had enough courage to try to contact you..
I won't stop, I promise..
Chapter 03- Our Favorite Winter Treat
"East! Carla!" My fathers voice echoed throughout the house as he shut the door with his feet and dropped the keys onto the floor. I watched him smile, pick up the keys, and place his bags onto the counter.
"Did you and Carla make cookies?" My father asked me, as I slowly stood up from the couch and walked over to him.
I nodded, taking two from the cooling plate. I handed one to my father and took a big bite out of the other cookie. He took a small bite out of his cookie and smiled at me.
"You really are an amazing cook, son."
I smiled, turning away from my father with blushed cheeks.
"Daddy!!!"
Carla came running down the hall, right into fathers arms. He swallowed his cookie bite and swung Carla around in his arms.
"Princess! How was school today?"
He placed her onto the floor and tapped her button nose. "It was fun! Amber and I make blanket forts during recess!"
My father chuckled, ruffling her hair and turning back to me. "I heard about your day too, East.."
My eyes slowly met his, which were angry and full of punishment. "Breaking down in front of crowds of people is not acceptable."
I sighed, looking away from him and taking another bite of my cookie.
"East, you don't understand how much these universities watch. Seeing a breakdown like that could affect your entrance into a reputable school."
"I know, I know.." I said in annoyance, as I began to walk away. That sounded so fake, any university who wouldn't want to take me in just because of an overload of human emotions after the death of someone close to me, doesn't deserve me at their university.
"Don't you walk away from me. This conversation isn't over, East."
I turned back to my father and stared at him. "Okay, talk then.."
He cocked his eyebrows and curled his hands into fist as he stared at me. "You know well that your mother is asleep, keep your voice down.."
I rolled my eyes at him, "I'm not the one getting loud over a mental breakdown. These things happen, Dad!"
My father was silent for a second, looking away from me and his fist slowly uncurling.
He took a deep breath and walked over to me.
Tears formed in the corners of my eyes as I looked down at the floor and shut them. My father wrapped his arms around me and smiled.
"East, I know you're hurting.."
Tears built up behind my eyes, I did everything I could to not cry into his shoulder. My body began to shake and my breath felt heavy.
I began to think about Hide, think about all the good times we had together. I could smell the cookies Carla and I had made earlier, which didn't help.
"Why don't we get our favorite winter treat," Father said, letting go of the hug and smiling.
"Ice cream?" I asked, as my father nodded slowly. "Ice cream."
"Ice cream! Ice cream! Ice cream!!" Carla said excitedly as she skipped around the house. My father turned away from me and helped Carla put on her coat.
I walked upstairs and grabbed my sweater. Pulling it over my head, my hair flopped out of it and curved around the top of my head. I stared at myself in the mirror, fixing it and sighing.
I looked so depressed. So scared.
I didn't want to be depressed, or scared. In fact, I wasn't scared before Hide died. I wasn't afraid of what was going to happen to me. But yet, without him, I'm scared to death..
The car ride to the ice cream shop was pretty quiet, other than hearing the slightest bit of music from Carla's headphones. I sat in the passengers seat, my elbow on the window and my eyes staring out into the world.
It was full of color, physically, but mentally all my memories with Hide faded to black and white.
"East.." I turned to my father, whose eyes were fixated on the road. "Yes?" I asked, swallowing hard and running my hands through my hair. My father sighed and glanced over at me.
"Do you think you'll try out for the wrestle bots team this semester?" He asked me, as I shrugged.
Wrestle bots was a robotics competition that my school participated in. Freshman year of high school, Hide and I joined this robotics team. We were the only freshman's on the whole team, who ended up leading our team to nationals, and placing second against over a hundred different schools.
"Maybe, maybe not..This year I heard it was suppose to be tough..."
I lied.
I hadn't heard anything about wrestle bots yet, the sign ups weren't till after exams. But that wasn't the reason why I said I might not do it...Wrestle bots was something Hide and I did together. It was our thing, every year we have improved our winning robot, without Hide there would feel wrong.
My father took a deep breath, and didn't ask any more questions. He was silent for a couple minutes, then spoke again.
"I know you're devastated, East...But please do considered going back to doing things you love..."
He said, quietly. It was like something in him was telling him to keep it down, not to raise his voice or try to be stronger than me.
I nodded silently, turning back to the window and watching the world fly by me.
Covered in a blanket of snow, the world did look like it was truly fading into nothingness.
When my father pulled into a spot at the ice cream shop, I opened the car door and stood outside for a second. When the cold hit my nose again, it felt like a brand new feeling for a moment. Like it was the first snowflake to ever fall onto the earth.
Carla climbed out of the car and ran to the door. "East...You'll freeze if you're out here too long, you should come inside.."
I turned around, snapping out of my gaze into the snowy road, and followed the rest of the family into the ice cream shop.
There weren't many people in the ice cream shop today, since the ground was covered in ice and it was more than dangerous to be on the road at such a later hour.
"Nice to actually get some business! Hello!! What would you like today, sir?" The woman behind the counter was a bubbly little girl with beautiful blonde curls and bright blue eyes. She looked ecstatic to be there tonight..At some small town ice cream shop where she was probably getting minimum wage.
My family got the same thing every time we got ice cream. My father would get coffee ice cream, Carla would get strawberry ice cream and I would get vanilla.
The same old story, we'd sit at the same booth with the ripped red, leather seats. It was nature to go to the place we started at, to not go to a different table, because we didn't like change. It's human nature to do what you're comfortable with.
I was having to break human nature.
I'm not comfortable doing things without Hide. I'm not comfortable moving on without Hide. I'm not comfortable with Hide begin gone forever. I never will be comfortable with that.
"Hey East, isn't that Anna?
My heart began to race and I began to feel light headed as I turned around to see the one and only person I didn't have enough courage to ever talk to ever again.
My father didn't know I broke up with Anna today, all he was told was that another classmate and I began yelling at each other.
My eyes were stuck on her, and I guess her mother noticed because she walked up to our table and smiled at us. "You're that darling boy, East Deg-ge-en" She struggled to say our last name, making my father chuckle.
"Degenero.." My father said, sliding over in his side of the booth and inviting Anna's mother to sit with us. Her mother looked a little startled by his eager offer, but agreed and sat down beside him with a big smile. "Thank you so much for inviting Anna and I to sit at your table!
Anna finished paying for her ice cream and walked over to us. By then, all the seats were taken up and Anna couldn't take a seat. She tried to look at me, but when our eyes met, she turned away from me.
I stood up, and turned to Anna. "You can take my seat, it's pretty hot in here. I'm gonna go take a breather outside, if that's alright.."
My father didn't stop me as I walked away from the booth and outside into the snow. Ice cream still in hand, I took a seat on the icy steps and pulled my jacket closer to my shaking body. Another bite of the vanilla ice cream brought me back to the first time Hide and I came here.
It was grade 5, one of the many nights Hide was staying over during the week. My family loved him, my mother enjoyed his company as much as I did. She'd bring us out for ice cream anytime Hide was with us, and this was a new place we decided to try.
I even remember how it smelled the first time we went inside. At the time, a small boy was working there, he had to be only 16 or 17 years old at the time. Working for a small ice cream shop in the middle of nowhere, serving a soon to be depressed kid, and soon to be dead kid.
I took a deep breath, staring out at the road, listening to the cars that zoomed by. I tried to catch a glimpse of the people inside the cars, trying to see if maybe it was anyone I knew.
I heard the ice cream store door open, so I slid a little towards the railing to the whoever was leaving out. "Hey.."
It was Anna. I could tell by her voice, although it wasn't full of confidence and happiness like it usually was. I took another deep breath, ignoring her. She stepped to my side, so I could barely see her, and pointed to the icy ground beside me.
"Mind if I sit with you..?"
I shrugged my shoulders at her, taking another bite of my ice cream and staring out at the cars. She took a heavy breath and placed her cup of ice cream onto the ground.
"I know what happened today was wrong," She began to speak, her voice was cracking already. She took her hands from her lap and wiped away tears that already began to slide down her face.
"I had never seen that side of you, East..I don't know if I'm scared because I never want to see that side of you again..Or I'm scared because that side of you looked like it hadn't com out in years.."
Her words made me think for a second, as I took another breath and set down my ice cream onto the ground. Anna had all right to be scared of me for what happened today, I had never showed that breaking down side of myself to anyone except Hide..
"I want you to, at least, not be torn apart..." She said quietly, looking up to me. I turned to her, and looked at her with wide, open eyes.
"I don't know what you're trying to do, Anna. But you're not going to win me back, you told me my best friend was awful, that they didn't matter.." I said, my voice rough, raspy, and breaking just like hers.
"This isn't about getting you back!" Anna stood up and got in front of me, "This is about making sure that you don't go down the same road as Hide!! I can't risk someone else killing themselves!" She paused,
"Especially someone like you.."
"Anna, I'm not that-" She cut me off, as she began to speak. "You're funny, you're smart, you're cute, and you've got such a good attitude all the time. All you do is build people up, not tear them down..." Her voice began to crack as she held my shoulders, moved my hair from my eyes and stared at them.. "I want to be like you.."
She took a deep breath, "Everyone wants to be like you!!"
Tears flowed down her cheeks and onto the snowy ground beneath our feet, as she spoke. "Everyone hates what happened because we never realized how much one person could impact our lives. Seeing how much one person could impact another has opened out eyes to loving everyone around us! We all just want you to be happy again.."
She dropped her gaze and cried, letting her tears fall to the ground as she held my shoulders. Her body was shaking, both from the tears and the cold. I shook Anna's arms off me, took off my jacket and wrapped it around her.
I wrapped my arms around her as well, rocking side to side, letting Anna cry into my chest. She quietly cried, and I smiled, "Its okay, let it all out.." I paused, as she only sobbed quietly.
"I know you're holding back some ugly sobs...Go ahead, no one will see your makeup run.."
And there it was. The biggest, angriest, loudest sob I had ever heard from any human being in my entire life. It had screaming, uncontrollable tears, and heavy breathing. I pet Anna's hair down her neck and squeezed her shoulders every few seconds.
It was one of the few things I learned helped calm her.
She sobbed into my chest, trying to spit out words, "East, w-we a-all" She could barely push out a sentence before sniffling, then sobbing again.
We stood outside like that for a good ten minutes, her in my arms as she sobbed into my chest. She began to calm down and looked at me with puffy red eyes.
"Please.." She reached down to my hands that were by my side and grabbed onto my fingers. I had forgotten how tiny her fingers were, they wrapped around my fingers. She looked up at me and spoke, "Promise me I'm not holding the hand of a soon to be suicide victim.."
I gave her a small smile and patted her on the head with my free hand. "I promise.."
I placed my hands onto her cheeks, her red, frozen cheeks and smiled big. "You should get inside, it's really cold out here, you could get sick..." Anna sighed, sniffling, and giving me a small smile. "You're the one who doesn't have a jacket..."
I rolled my eyes playfully at her and nodded. "Well I guess you got me there.."
I walked up the steps of the ice cream shop, about to walk into the shop, when I felt Anna tug on the end of my shirt. I turned around to look at her, her lips quivering. "Do you..." She paused, nervously pulling her arms inwards and stuttering.
"Do you think we can be...friends..?"
I turned my whole body around and smiled at her. "Yeah,"
The light that sparked within her when she heard me say yes, was like none other I had ever seen before. It wasn't very noticeable earlier, but Anna had seemed to fade of happiness and color...But there, right there...Its like it all came back with that one word.
It's like all that anxiety and depression she had all of today just disappeared because now she knew she could rely even a little on me being there for her. I knew that feeling, I knew how great it was to finally reconnect with someone who you missed, even if its only been a day...It feels like an eternity after even a few minutes.
I pulled Anna into one more hug, and proudly, we walked back into that ice cream store.
Even though there was mascara running down Anna's face, and my arms had begun to turn a new shade of frozen purple, we didn't care. Neither of our parents questioned us, and after everything that's happened today...I'm glad they didn't.
Maybe Anna has woken up. Maybe she truly believe what she said was wrong, maybe she really does want to be there for me.
I know I'll always be there for her.
{Word count: 2884}
{First completed: January 25th, 2018}
{Last revised: October 31st, 2018}
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