This is Not a Love Letter

by Kim Purcell

  Josh is sobbing so hard, he’s shaking, and Steph is there too, rubbing my back, and then we’re all crying together, clinging to one another like buoys in the middle of a rocky ocean, until the sobs turn to sniffs and then the only thing we can hear is our slow, steady breathing, inhaling and exhaling, together.

  the river

  The next day, Steph makes me go down to the river with her. I put up a fight, but she says it’s important. She has something to tell me, and we need to go there together. We have unfinished business down there, she says. I haven’t gone down there since your body showed up. I haven’t even left the house.

  We pass the dentist’s house and then slide down the slippery path toward the river. My shoe glides on a patch of mud, and I fling my hand out to grab on to a tree branch. Ahead, past the trampled grass and through the trees, I can see the river. I’m afraid. What does she have to tell me? Why here?

  I step carefully over the train tracks. A part of me still thinks they’re going to electrocute me, an old superstition from when I was a kid.

  “Remember Kidnapped Girl?” Steph stands on the tracks and then jumps in the middle. It reminds me of when she was a kid—she always did that and it freaked me out. She puts on her deep voice. “I’ll help you, little girl.”

  “That game was messed up.” We used to pretend to be tied up on the train tracks. One of us would go in the woods and then the other would scream for help on the tracks and “the bandit” in the woods would run out and say in a deep voice, “I’ll help you, little girl.”

  That was before we met real creeps, before we knew how awful people could be, before we knew about real danger.

  We walk across the long grass field, toward the river.

  “We’re going to be in trouble when we have kids,” she says.

  Not something I want to think about. I take big steps over the grass, scanning for snakes.

  “Speaking of which…”

  I whip my head to look at her. “You’re pregnant?”

  “No,” she says. “But this happened.” She lifts her left hand. There’s a big old diamond ring. Which, for some reason, I haven’t seen on her finger until now.

  “What the hell?” I grab her hand and stare at it like it’s not a hand, but a claw. “You’re engaged?”

  “Yep.” She grins. “It happened on graduation night.”

  “I’m so happy for you.” I wipe a tear running down my face. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Right?” She gazes at it, all lovesick.

  “You’re really getting married?”

  “Yep.”

  She always said she wanted babies when she was young. How can anyone be that certain they want to spend the rest of their life with anyone?

  “Aren’t you worried it’s too soon?” I say.

  “Nope.” Her face is glowing, all rosy cheeked and everything. “I love him. I mean, I know you think we just started going out, but we’ve known each other for, like, two years, since I started at the Steakhouse.”

  I throw my arms around her and give her a Steph-quality squeeze. I let go and stare into her face. She’s going to stay in this town. I’m going to leave.

  “You going to have babies right away?” I say.

  She shrugs. “Maybe.”

  “You’ll be a great mom.” Even though she’s crazy and she drinks too much and she likes to gamble, she’s the most loving person I know.

  I take in a deep breath and let it out; this is happy news. We keep walking all the way to the edge of the riverbank. I stare out at the swirling water.

  “You okay?” she says.

  I see your arm slide out of the river. “I keep seeing him, Steph,” I whisper.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I see his arm coming out of the water. Or I imagine him getting sucked under the rapids. At night, when I close my eyes, he’s in the water.”

  “You have to find a way to forget. I mean, it’ll get better, right?”

  You’re unforgettable. Good old Nat King Cole. Played him a lot this week. Unforgettable. That’s what you are. Unforgettable. Tho’ near or far. Like a song of love that clings to me, how the thought of you does things to me. Never before has someone been more.

  I nod, gulping. “Why did you want to come here?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess I thought it was important for you to remember the good times, that this town and even this river is, like, the place of our childhood. It’s not just a place where horrible stuff happens, you know?”

  I can see us as kids, right here on the riverbank. We are making up stories together. She was a river mermaid. I was a grand priestess. She was a bank robber. I was the mastermind. She was a fairy and I was a gnome. So many imaginary games.

  “I’m going to let my kids play down here too,” she says.

  “I can be their aunt.”

  She laughs. “You will definitely be their aunt.” She opens her bag and pulls out the vodka and orange juice. “Let’s drink to it.”

  We choke down the first vodka and orange juice fast, and then she pours another. “You still thinking about applying for that program?” she asks.

  “Yeah. Next year.”

  “I’m going to miss you.” She forces a smile. “You’re going off to get your degree and all. You’ll probably forget about me.”

  “Oh, Steph.” I press my head against hers. “I would never.”

  She lets out a sad laugh.

  “Tell me how he proposed,” I murmur.

  She goes off on this long detailed story about how he put it in the mud pie that she ordered at the end of her shift and the staff all circled around while he proposed.

  “Wasn’t the ring goopy?”

  “I just licked it off. Everyone clapped. It was super romantic.”

  I gulp down my sadness. “That’s cool.” Then I sit up and rummage around in my big black bag, which no longer has the gun, and I pull out my paper airplane, decorated with flowers. I know it was your thing, but it might be mine now. “Here—I made this.”

  Tears jump to her eyes. “Oh my god.” She bites her lip. “Like Chris.”

  Then she unfolds it. I look away. It’s hard to watch. She’s quiet as she reads. I just wrote her a bunch of things I was thankful about. She sniffs again. Wraps her arms around me, squeezes my guts out of me.

  She pours me another drink, then lifts her cup. “To adventure.” I bang my plastic cup against hers and gulp it back. I’m getting wasted, but I don’t care.

  Soon, we’re leaning our heads against the trunk of Mr. Tom, the cedar tree, moss and all. Steph isn’t even thinking about spiders in her hair. It’s splayed against the wood. She looks like a fairy creature.

  “You have the best hair,” I slur.

  “You have the best boobs,” she says, grinning at me.

  This has always been our thing—she has the hair, I have the boobs. “You want to do me?” I joke.

  She laughs and I snort. We have the same coarse sense of humor. Thank god. I mean, without her, I don’t know what I’d do.

  the next Saturday, Bear Lake

  I’m clinging to the tow rope behind Josh’s boat. My water skis are clattering on the surface of the water. I’m holding on and that’s a big step. My legs are shaky and my arms feel weak from lack of exercise, but for the first time in ages, I feel alive, really and truly alive.

  Josh made me come. Dragged me out of the house. Said it would be fun.

  The water is buzzing beneath me. The wind is blowing through my hair. The skin on my hands is burning. But it’s simple: all I need to think about is staying up on my skis and holding on.

  Then I see you. In the midst of all this forgetting, you follow me. In the quiet, glistening water, an arm reaches up. It distracts me. I hit a bump in the wake. I fly over the water in silence. I grapple with the air. Swing my legs forward. My skis land back on the water. I hold on, somehow.

  That Four Tops song you love plays in my brain: Sugar fly, honey bunch. You know t
hat I love you. I hear it loud and clear, like someone’s playing a record.

  Yes, I know it’s not sugar fly. It’s sugar pie. You told me that, laughing, and I still sing it my way anyhow. It should have been sugar fly. If I wrote that song, it would have been sugar fly.

  The trees whiz past. Josh is watching me from the boat. Probably expects me to bail. My arms and legs ache. Crazy what weeks of lying in bed can do to a body. But I don’t let go. I cling to the rope and gaze at the reflection of trees in the water.

  It’s so beautiful here. Maybe I can forget about you today. I don’t need to bring you everywhere I go. Maybe you’ll always be with me, making little appearances, but for now, it’s just going to be me, the trees, and the lake.

  a week later, the pool

  It’s my first day back lifeguarding. No phone on deck today. The smell of chlorine is oddly soothing. I’m scanning the pool efficiently, I think. Already had to bandage up a scraped knee. Didn’t pass out from the blood. I’m checking all yeses in the normal column.

  I’m trying not to think of you too much. Writing to you in my head might sometimes be okay, but not all the time. I need to be here, in real life. That’s harder than you might think, since you’re the dead person.

  When I walked onto the pool deck at the beginning of shift today, everybody greeted me back with hugs, even the cashier. Valerie said she’s proud of me and, “Nothing like getting right back up on the horse.”

  After your body showed up, Michael sent flowers. He’s here today. We haven’t really talked. He keeps giving me an M&M every time I bump him. These shy, sorry smiles. I guess we all make mistakes, right? Maybe the challenge is to keep forgiving.

  He’s on break now; Valerie is opposite me. I think she’s double scanning into my zones, but it’s okay. I’m not offended. I might do the same thing if I were in her shoes.

  “Hi,” a small voice says.

  I look down.

  It’s Talia. She grins up at me. Her two front teeth are growing in.

  “I like your bathing suit,” I say. It’s new, bright blue with black hearts.

  “I’m learning how to swim,” she says, proudly sticking out her chest. “My mom put me in lessons on Mondays.”

  I smile at her. “Yeah? Good for you.”

  Talia stands there and watches the pool with me for a minute, like she’s another lifeguard. “Well,” she says, rising up on her tiptoes and teeter-tottering there. “Thank you for saving my life.”

  It chokes me up. Almost can’t talk. Then I nod my head. “You’re welcome.”

  She skips off down the deck and even though we don’t let kids skip on the deck, I don’t tell her to walk.

  end of summer, a final campfire

  Josh heads off for college tomorrow, so he invited the whole gang over to his cabin. We’re all sitting around roasting marshmallows—Steph and all your friends, even Tamara. Shocker, right? Tim and Tamara are together, like, together-together. She’s a lot nicer now. And Raffa’s here too. She’s pressed up beside me on the low wood stump. Her skinny knees poking in the air. Laughing.

  We’ve been telling stories about you. Funny things you did. Sweet stuff you said to us. Raffa is turning her marshmallow stick slowly.

  “That’s got to be just about the most perfect marshmallow,” I say.

  “Chris taught me how to roast them.”

  “No way. When?” I’m asking because I taught you how to roast a marshmallow, out here, when we camped across the lake. We could have stayed at Josh’s cabin that time, but I wanted to wake up with you in the morning in a tent with the cold fresh morning air.

  “May? He made Mom get the fireplace cleaned out and then we went to the woods and found some sticks. He cut the ends into these little points and we roasted marshmallows in the house.” She glances at me, gives me a shy smile. “He told me you showed him how.”

  I laugh. But it hurts my chest. Maybe one day it won’t hurt. That’s what I’m hoping for.

  our spot

  I’m standing on the edge of the riverbank. Once again, I’m wearing only my pink underwear. Can you see me?

  I gaze across the dark water. It looks deceivingly peaceful. You can’t see the undertow from here, or the speed of the water. Can’t see more than a foot under.

  It’s a hot, beautiful day in September. No pulp-mill smell. A slow breeze is blowing through my hair. Is that you?

  I’ve got to say good-bye to you now. There’s no point writing this letter anymore, not in my head, and not on paper. Letters are for the living, and anyway, this isn’t a love letter. I made that clear from the beginning.

  I hear a caw and look up. There’s a crow on the branch above me. Maybe it’s Little Man. He can fly now, of course, but I can’t tell if it’s him or some other crow. I caw back at him and he looks down at me, cocks his head to one side. I want to think it’s him.

  Did you see Little Man that day you stood on this bank?

  You hid your sadness for so long. Now I remember the times when you thought I wasn’t watching you, when your eyes glazed over and the smile fell from your cheeks and your shoulders drooped and I’d say, “Chris?” You’d turn to me and you’d smile and pretend you were all good and I made myself pretend too.

  When I look across the water, standing in this spot where you stood, I can’t help but imagine that gigantic step you took into the cold water. Did you change your mind at the last minute? Is that why one foot landed by the edge of the water? And then, you couldn’t slow your forward trajectory? Maybe you tried to swim back, but it was too fast. The river is easy to underestimate, especially at that time of year. Did it thrust you toward the rapids? Did you choke? Did you struggle? Did you hit your head early or did you suffer?

  It didn’t have to end like this.

  When you were in the rapids, you must have had a moment of regret. Maybe you wanted to kiss my lips one last time. Maybe you thought of Raffa and her big, trusting eyes and how she adores you. Maybe you remembered your mom, how she’d pat you two times on your back to show she was proud. Or you thought about your dad sitting across from you, playing chess. Maybe you realized Josh was going to have to run alone now. And he does. But every time he runs, baby, you are still running next to him.

  Can you read my mind from the land of the dead? I don’t know how it works, but I sure hope so. I think you’ve been with me this whole time. If you have, you can see that I’ve missed you every day.

  We all want you back, but you’re gone forever. There’s no going back. Not for me, not for you.

  Tomorrow I’m leaving on a road trip. I’ve got my passport. There’s this volcano I’ve been wanting to see.

  Josh started college last week. When I get back, I’m going to apply for that conservation program. Maybe being a nature nerd is kind of a good thing nowadays.

  No matter what, baby, I promise you I’m going to make a difference, like you would have done if you’d stuck around. Man, I wish you had.

  Hoo boy. Deep breath.

  We all say good-bye to the people we love one day. I just wasn’t ready to say good-bye to you yet. But now I have to do it. That’s why I’m here.

  In a few seconds, I’m going to do one last brilliant dive through the air, into this cold water. Are you here? Can you see me?

  There are so many things I wish I’d done differently. But most of all, I wish I could have been here on this bank when you jumped in. I would’ve dove in after you and stopped you from swimming out. I would have pulled you back to the bank. I would have loved you back to life. But I wasn’t here. I couldn’t save you. So now, I need to choose to live or die.

  I choose to live.

  In loving memory of my friend, Al

  Author’s Note

  When I was eighteen years old, two weeks before my high school graduation, one of my closest friends disappeared while going for a run along the river. He was an African Canadian living in a mostly white mill town in Northern British Columbia. The seed for this story was planted i
n this experience. However, all of the characters and events in this story are entirely fictional, including Chris, his family, and all of his friends.

  But the emotions are real. Sometimes life can feel too painful. I have felt that way myself and I’m here to tell you that it does get better. Often it takes medicine and therapy to make it better. Sometimes brain chemicals go off. If your brain is telling you to hurt yourself or others, please, get the help of a professional. You can call the National Suicide Prevention Line: 1-800-273-TALK. It is anonymous and they can make a big difference.

  Acknowledgments

  I’m so grateful for my incredible literary agent, Sara Crowe at Pippin Properties, who saw the potential in this book and helped shape it into what it is today. Thank you also to my rock-star editor Laura Schreiber, who blew me away with her amazing feedback. Thanks to Hannah Allaman and Jody Corbett for your sharp edits, and to my publicist Cassie McGinty for all your work to bring this book into the world.

  Thank you to the advisors at Vermont College of Fine Arts, where I’ve been working on my MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults over the last two years. In particular, I want to thank my semester advisors: Kekla Magoon, Daniel José Older, Amanda Jenkins, and A. S. King. You made me a better writer, and taught me so much about writing, revision, and life. All these lessons have made a huge impact on my rewrites for this book, and I’m sure, my future books. Thanks also to my workshop advisors: Cynthia Leitich Smith, An Na, Nova Ren Suma, Mark Karlins, Tim Wynne-Jones, and Linda Urban. I’m grateful to my fellow VCFA writers, and the Tropebusters, for their enthusiastic support, and all the sparkly, zingy times.

  Thanks to my writer friends who read and critiqued this book: Amalie Howard, Jennifer Castle, Amy McNamara, Delina Codey, Anna Van Lenten, Galaxy Craze, Susanna Kohn, Justine Lambert, Adele Myers, Donnaldson Brown, Kris Percival, Susan Merson, Melissa Baumgart, Meg Cook, Jessie Janowitz, Tali Noimann, Jiton Davidson, Naadeyah Haseeb, and Alexei Auld. My writer relatives give me great feedback: thanks to Jake Purcell, Florine Gingerich, and Rachel Purcell.