Hannah,
Do you remember the last thing you said to me? You told me to be strong. I don’t remember why I’d been crying. I don’t remember why you needed to loan me your bravery. I don’t remember so very much about that moment, but I’ve come to replay it over and over like a scratchy 8-track in my room.
I torture myself with the letters you used to send me. I’ve read them north of twenty times, pouring over the details. I keep trying to find some semblance of hope, some belief that you can still give me advice even now. But things have changed so much between us.
It’s been raining for a couple days now. I think of you whenever it does. I think of the cars slipping into each other. I think of cars crashing into me. I think about what it would be like to die. I really want to see you again, Hannah. I want to talk to you and hear your voice. I want to remember what it’s like to be in your arms. But I don’t want to die. Despite everything I’ve said to you, I don’t want to die.
You’re the only person I’m really honest with. And I know that’s awful and depressing and a million other things; but at least I still can be.Honest, I mean. I’ve been watching a show where ghosts walk freely. They walk and talk and act just the same. And I think about you a lot when they come back. But that’s not how I’d want to see you, not under such awful circumstances. When I find you again. I want to tell you about a very long life. I want to tell you about my adventures, though I’ve yet to have them. And I want to tell you that I was strong. For every second I was given, with and without you, I want to be able to tell you that I was strong in every way of the word.
Someone I know says that I haven’t been very honest. He says that I am not real; that I’m as fictional as this friendship that I’ve kept up. And I guess he’s right. I don’t know why I can’t seem to tell the truth. Maybe I’m pathological. Maybe I’m afraid. But I was honest once. And so I’m going to do it again. As a promise to you, I am going to be strong; I’m going to be completely sincere; I’m going to tell you everything, from the very beginning. And from now on, I will try my very best to be truthful—to everyone. So I will tell you about the scars. And maybe, someday, they won’t be so hard to show.
To start with, I should write that my parents were very unhappy with each other—I think they were searching for very different things. My father, a Korean adoptee, had always wanted a family; something he could, with utter certainty, call his very own. My mother, a serial monogamist, had planned to move to Florida with my grandmother; she died before the trip began.
My parents met at work. My father says my mother was “a bombshell”, even now. They dated for six months. He proposed with a pearl necklace, one she still keeps in a jewelry box by her bed. They had my sister in ‘89, but they fought constantly. My father had a violent temper and my mother has always possessed the most awful penchant of knowing exactly the most hurtful thing to say. They broke up. They got back together.
Supposedly, my father didn’t want me. But my mother had always wanted her kids to have siblings as she’d been an only child. I think somewhere, something in her believed that we’d be alright as long as we’d have each other: “built in best friends”. When I was six months old, they split up over that awful incident concerning my sister. They were separated until I was five, when my father decided he wanted to see us again.
My mother thought he’d concocted some silly scheme, that there’d been some hidden motive in wanting to suddenly see his daughters, so she’d forced us all into group therapy sessions with Dr. Bill Bradley. Honestly, I don’t remember what was said, but I remember the lobby; our doctor had phenomenal toys in his waiting room. Lauren used to build with me, one ear to our games and one pressed to the door.
My father was granted visitation; he visited once every month or two, always appearing with strange gifts, never knowing what to say, what to give. For a very long time, he became a recurring star, never a lead role in my life. For a very long time, I was never sure if we were fans. So I didn’t talk about it. I never told any of my friends about my daddy issues; about anything of any importance.
Kristen, who was my first real best friend, lived down the street. My other friend, Danika and I used to bully her until she stood up to us. I think that was the first day anyone had told me I’d done something wrong. My mother used to baby me because I was deformed in the eyes—one moves slower than the other. Because of that, and the world’s most insensitive optometrist, I had to wear an eye patch around our house for three years.
It was during or shortly after this period, that the death of my grandfather took place. I was seven, and he had Alzheimer’s. He would forget things, silly things at first. Had he put sugar in his coffee? Had he changed the temperature of the water in the shower? When had he told that story? I’d disliked the man so very, very much. I think because I’d been so used to my mother’s affections; it bothered me when they’d suddenly migrated to this man, this strange man, who didn’t act the way I thought he ought.
He had a heart attack, the third or fourth in his life and was put in the hospital where he later died from pneumonia—from the negligence of his 24-hournurse. My mother blamed me. She said he’d known that I’d been bitter toward him; he’d known, he’d always known. And she told me that he gave up because of me. Things were very different from then on.
We’d always kept birds in our house, among a million other animals. We kept this set of love birds for half a second. My mother had found them in the booth of a flea market some Sunday and brought them home. I killed them, Hannah. I let them starve to death, as negligent as my grandfather’s nurse . My mom made me bury them in the backyard of our old house. She didn’t look at me the same from then on; she hasn’t looked at me the same since I was seven.
A few years later, she was diagnosed with Hepatitis B. She’d worked in a doctor’s office when she was younger, before the medical world became thoroughly meticulous about the needles they’d kept. She started on experimental treatments. Something sprang from those pills, Hannah, something crawled in and whispered the most awful things.
She came into my our room one night. She was sick. She was a monster. She thought we’d tried to trick her, my sister and I. That Lauren had somehow done something to the light switches, some rewiring, that was making her see shadows. But it was me, she said, the little murderer who had come up with the whole scheme. My sister was smart enough to do it, but she wasn’t sick enough. No one was sick enough to do what I’d done.
The next morning, she called her doctor to stop taking medication. Motorola, who she’d worked for, refused to pay the cost of her hospital bills and she was laid off along with thousands of other ill co-workers. She started drinking “again”. Up until that point, we’d never known there’d been a problem. From then on, she didn’t work for months at a time and when she did, they were spotty telemarketing positions that didn’t pay the bills. Lauren started working when she turned sixteen at the craft store off Ray. I was thirteen when my older sister became my sole provider.
After six months without a job and without a word from me, my mother made her first attempt at suicide. She held a kitchen knife in one hand and me in the other. She’d asked if that was what I wanted; if I wanted her dead. I spoke again; she stumbled back to her room. I cut myself for the first time that night. Later, I became friends with another cutter and moved in to her room. We wore black every day and watched gory movies every night. I think we had a fascination with blood. I think we fed on each other’s depression.
She stayed with me until eighth grade, when I’d grown attached to one of the boys in my year. Things changed; I changed. He hated glasses, so I didn’t wear them. He wasn’t in any of my classes, so I switched out. He liked popular girls, so I become one. We’d barely spoken and when we finally did, it was out of some semblance of pity. After, he changed schools and I retreated into the safety of my sister’s shadow; I hid with you in the theatre.
We lived with a meth addict and her daughter during my freshman year. She and my mother had met on the bus. My mother lost her license after several DUI’s. She lost her car to a tow truck sometime after. So we all lived in a three bedroom home. My sister and I camped out in the house’s living room and listened to the 5 a.m. fights between mother and daughter before school. I ran away. I buried myself in the cage upstairs. And you talked me out of darkness. You coerced me back into existence.
After you graduated, I had to step out of that shelter. Months later, I met someone. He was working on the same production; he was on stage and I hid off of it. He used the word “perfect” when he talked about me. I’ve never understood that, but I’ve never understood anything between us. When we dated, years later, he never used the word again. We hardly used any words.
I spoke, instead, to someone I’d just met. A boy too young and too honest for me. We talked on the phone every night when he’d called after my “life story”. We exchanged secrets as easily as cards in a children’s game. He became the only one to know everything. That changed when we’d made our silly admissions, when he changed his mind. We went from being best friends to strangers within thirty-six hours.
I called my father and ran away from home. One of my friends, heavily embedded in her church, found a branch nearby. Slowly, I delved into this new religion, into being “saved”. I don’t think I’ve ever felt worse, though. One of the girls and I covered up for each other; kept secrets we knew we shouldn’t have. But I was still sick. I cut more than ever, I seduced boys I wasn’t interested in, I fantasized about one of my best friends.
And then you left me. You left everyone. I could barely hear Lauren over the phone when she told me. I called Marcus first. I cried for days straight. And then I molded you into my flesh; I made you into my newest scar. I forced you into, again, taking care of me. I fucked it up. I fucked everything up.
I don’t think there’s ever been a time since we met that you haven’t kept me sane. Even as my sister’s friend, I felt you were innately different; I couldn’t fathom losing that. I couldn’t imagine having nothing to believe in, even when I was studying God. I needed you. I still do. And I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry I’ve turned you into one of these stories. But I can’t let you go.
I can be honest, Hannah, but I can’t be selfless. I’ve let you become one of those wandering ghosts, haven’t I? But what would you say to me, now that you know what I’ve become? Would you still haunt me? Or would you move on? Would you think the afterlife better than this scary story I’ve offered?
Be strong, you told me to be strong. So I guess I have to ask you to do the same. I have to ask you to believe in me. I need to know that someone does. I need to know that I’m not who my mother says I am. That my father, that anyone, wants me. I need to be validated. And I know that you’re gone and that I make myself exceedingly hard to care for, but I have to ask you to try. I need you to be strong, Hannah. Enough to forgive me. Enough to look at me the way you used to. Enough to be the one person who knows everything. Please.
Please be strong, Hannah. Be strong and I promise to be honest. Or, at least, I promise to try.
Lindsay
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December/14/2011
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