Letting Go

Letting Go

By Jenica Amalita

DAY 1

There is a girl. There always is. In every story, standing afar. And she looks at you, in passing, of course, and she either smiles or she doesn’t, before turning back to her life. But that look is enough. You’ve fallen for her. Suddenly, you find the strength to set everything right in your life. Suddenly, you find yourself feeling big enough to take on the world but too insignificant to matter. Suddenly, your life wants to pick itself off the road it stumbled and crashed into, and spruce itself up so she enters it. And, when she does—because that is how the story is supposed to go—even though that’s where the reader stops reading, that’s where the character starts living.

But my life isn’t a story. And these random scribbles are not chapters. That’s why I’ve titled them ‘Day.’ And that’s why the days won’t make sense. Because I’ll only come here when I need to. I don’t even know why I decided to try this. I should stop being friends with Tim. Therapists are weird. Well, I’ve begun. I might as well go on.

I met my girl. The one I would want to meet if my life were a story. She didn’t look at me. She smiled, but not at me, at the dog I was walking, Ms. James’ little pug, and she walked on. And I saw her, and I knew, and somehow, I think, my heart broke a little because I would never be able to speak to her.

DAY 6

I know it was stupid, but I had to try. So I went again. And there she was. Walking with a guy. A stupid guy, holding her hand and smiling sweetly at her. I simply stood there, and let her walk past me again. And I cursed myself, berated myself completely. And then, I came back home to write this down.

DAY 7

I shouldn’t have allowed myself to think. Because when I think, I remember. And when I remember, that’s when the nightmares come back. Imagine you’re stuck to the ground. You try to lift your leg, move your foot, but no, you’re just stuck firm. And you feel the ground shaking a little, and you hear these rhythmic beats becoming louder, and you look, and you see a horse coming toward you, faster, faster, until it’s onto you, crashing upon you, and you fall. Its hooves throw you to the ground, and somewhere in the midst of this, you feel fear, anger, frustration, a mingling of hope and terror, and then... Black. You see blackness. You feel it. You blink, there’s a shaft of light finding its way into your eyes. But your blurred vision fails to take you back to the light, and so you’re stuck in the black.

Now, imagine that happening in reverse. That. That is what I think a nightmare is. A desperate attempt to want to go back to before disaster struck. To reverse the tides of time and try to escape. To before the fire broke out. Before my parents died. Before their screams stole my voice. Before their death stole my life.

I wish I could sleep.

DAY 30

You know what’s weird? I’m not writing every day on purpose. So when you flip through this book, the way you’re doing now, you’ll find empty pages, and before you think this is a bad thing, I want you to know it’s not. Maybe it isn’t a good thing either, but I only write when I lose my voice. So if I haven’t written, you know I’ve made it through the day. Not that you’ll care.

I met Aunt Jess today. She asked me if I was ready for a relationship yet. I told her I was planning on buying a dog. To keep Spot, you know, the pug, company when I take him on a walk. The whole time I was there, she pestered me to get over it. It? The fire? My life? I got mad and left.

As I was walking back, I remembered Tania, my first girlfriend. And my first love. I was always popular in school. I studied well, and was well-behaved, Aunt Jess made sure of that. Thanks to my “special situation,” all my teachers treated me nicely. I hated them. Their pity. Their condescension. Them. Well, I started thinking about how much I hated school and I calmed down. Problem solved.

DAY 35

Tim tricked me. He told me we were going to hang out together. But no, he tricked me into a blind, double date. It was awful. This girl, Nicole something, she was great. She’s a lawyer, takes time off for community service every month, has two siblings, her parents moved to Spain a year ago. They want her to join them there, but she prefers the chaos here. All I could think of was: she’s nice, really nice, and I can’t fall in love with her. I would like to, oh I would love to fall in love with her, but I would also die of anger, and bitterness, and fear and everything else that is wrong with me and this world.

When she smiled at me as she passed a tissue with her phone number on it, all I could think of was the time I realized I loved Tania and ran all the way to her house at three in the morning, ran because I would have crashed my car with all that nervousness. I rang the bell, and knocked on the door frantically, excitedly. Tania’s mom opened the door after a while and, grinning like an idiot, I ran up the stairs just as her father appeared at his bedroom door, screaming profanities at me. She was standing there, outside of her bedroom, sleepy-faced, annoyed, “The hell is wrong with you Sam? Why’d you wake us all up now?” I pulled her in my arms and kissed her like she was the earth, the sky, the day, and the night. I kissed her, and then I opened my mouth to speak. I thought I’d be romantic and began telling her how she made me feel.

But she looked at me, confused, and finally said, “Sam, why are you mouthing your words? Speak up. I can’t even make out what you’re saying.” Her mother and father came up and when they saw me “attempting” to speak, their initial annoyance turned into concern. “You having a stroke, son?” I was asked before being whisked away to the doctor. I was given a clean bill of health, and the matter was violently shoved under the rug as a moment of madness. Until the next time we met. And the words wouldn’t come. No matter how much I tried. All I was left with was the echo of a scream in my ears.

No one knows whether Tania left me or I left her.

DAY 58

Spot was acting weird. I had a bad day at work today. I was asked to fire someone, and I hate when that happens. I imagine I’m the one getting fired and feel queasy.

Spot made it worse. Maybe it’s cause Ms. James fought with her sister. The whole neighborhood heard it. And Spot, well, he’s a sensitive dog. Anyway, we were walking. At least I was. Spot was all snuggled up in my arms.  

I saw her again. The heroine of my story. Her chestnut brown hair fell in straight lines, covering her shoulders. Her dark brown, almond-shaped eyes with their little creases, her small nose, her lips, red with matte, her beauty spilling out of her face. I don’t know how to describe dresses, but it was white, sleeveless, form-fitting, and ended a little above her knees. I couldn’t give you the material or the cut. All I know is that Tim is a bad influence on me. I walked up to her and decided to ask her for the time. Oh, yes, she was wearing a watch too. 

I don’t know. Maybe I was expecting a miracle. She would turn, see me, hear me, and the story would end; my life would begin, the nightmares would have finally succeeded in setting my life right. Maybe, I was just expecting to be loved, to be able to love. 

She walked past me. I looked down at Spot. He looked at me curiously and barked. I understood. My voice had left me again. I let her go. The same way I let the story go.

DAY 71

I’ve been told by almost everyone around me that writing will help me let go. It’ll give voice to what’s taken hold of me, and allow me to take hold of it. It’s true. It lets the thoughts out. But you see, I don’t want that. I want to hide the thoughts because they hurt me when they come out. They spill out and cover everything with their blackness. That’s why I always hid them. And that’s why I’ve decided I’m always going to hide them.

Heads up, you won’t find any filled-in pages anymore. You can stop reading now.