Love Letters to the Dead

“I didn’t know you played soccer,” I whispered. “Are all of those trophies yours?”

“Yeah,” he said, shifting, like he didn’t want to be there. “That was my past life.”

Then he took my hand and pulled me through the maze back to his bedroom. I wanted to know more, but he started kissing me. He started kissing me hard, and hungry, and for some reason it scared me. But I tried to go with it. Because I was in his house. Because I could feel the moths that needed a light beating hard, and I wanted to keep glowing for him.

Soon he had my shirt off, and he had his hands up my skirt, and everything felt confusing. I wanted him to love me. I wanted to be a light. So I told my brain to be quiet. I told my brain to just go somewhere else. And I went. I went somewhere I didn’t mean to go. I went back to May, when we were kids.

I remembered the night I asked her, “If we are fairies, why can’t we fly?”

I was scared that somehow the seventh generation inheritance missed me. That I wasn’t a real fairy and she’d find out. More than anything, I didn’t want her to be disappointed in me.

“Only the oldest child inherits the flight gene,” she told me. “But that doesn’t mean you aren’t a fairy.”

“But you can fly?” I asked hopefully.

“Yeah,” she said.

I was so excited. “Can I see you?”

“No one can see my wings, or it breaks them.”

“Oh,” I said, trying not to show her I was devastated. “When do you use them then?”

“At night. When I know everyone is sleeping and no one can see me.”

“Can I just see you once?”

“You don’t want my wings to break, do you?”

“No,” I said.

But still, I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t help how badly I wanted to see her wings. If I saw them, I would know for sure I was part of the magic.

Some nights, I used to beg her to let me sleep in the top bunk with her. I’d climb up the ladder and curl in next to her. After she fell asleep, I’d stare up at the ceiling, looking for patterns in the splotches of paint—a dragon, and the cave he’d set fire to by accident, trapped in his own flames. The princess who would come to rescue him. I’d tell myself stories and try to keep my eyes open all night, so that if May went out on a flight, I wouldn’t miss it. I thought that maybe if I just saw by accident, it wouldn’t count. But eventually, sleep would take over. I’d open my eyes again at dawn, and she would be turning under the blankets.

“Did you fly tonight?” I’d whisper.

“Mmm-hmm,” she’d murmur.

And I’d imagine her adventures.

I was staring up at Sky’s ceiling now, trying to find pictures in the walls the way I used to do, when he asked me, “Laurel?”

I tried to shake myself out of it. “Yeah?”

“Where did you go?”

“Nowhere. I’m here.”

“You left me.”

“No, I … I didn’t mean to…” I started crying. I couldn’t help it.

“Laurel, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” I said, trying to wipe the tears away.

I had that same feeling that I did when I was a kid. She was a real fairy, and I was faking it. I knew that eventually, Sky would find out.

“You can’t always do this,” he said. “You can’t just disappear on me.”

“I’m sorry.”

I pulled him closer and tried to keep kissing. Sky’s hands were hot on me. I wanted to like it, but the world was spi

“We don’t have to have sex if you don’t want to,” Sky said.

“Okay.”

“But you have to talk to me.”

“I—I don’t know what to say.” I wondered again how he knew May. I couldn’t help it anymore. After a moment, I asked, “Sky? What was your old school?”

“Sandia.”

My heart stopped for a beat, or maybe three. It was true. “So you went with May.”

“Yeah,” he said.

I imagined him seeing her, turning a corner in the hallway. She would be wearing her pink sweater, cut to show her collarbone, her hair flowing behind her. She would have taken his breath away. I wonder if when he sees me coming around a corner, sometimes he thinks for a moment he sees her there.

“I bet everyone loved her,” I said.

Sky was quiet.

“Right?” I asked softly.

“Yeah,” he said. “Do you want me to take you home?”

“All right,” I said. “I guess.”

So we drove in his truck, the quiet of the night stifling us. I wished that I wouldn’t have been weird. I wished that I hadn’t broken the spell. I was scared, and there was nothing to stop it.

We pulled up in front of my house.

“Good night,” Sky said. “Get some sleep.”

And I snuck back into our house full of shadows.

Yours,

Laurel

Dear Kurt,

I have this picture of you in my locker, with Courtney and baby Frances. You are holding her in your arms, peering down at her. Courtney is leaning over your shoulder, looking, too. Her shirt is cut to show her stomach, which has FAMILY VALUES written on it in black scratchy letters. It would almost be ironic, but it’s real at the same time, because you are there, Kurt and Courtney, with your baby girl. Your family got broken when you were a kid, but then you made your own. And at the same time, you became a father, in a way, to all of us. I know you didn’t want that. But you couldn’t help it. You didn’t want to be the spokesperson of a generation. But you couldn’t help singing.

I don’t know anyone who has a perfect family to start with. And I think that’s why we make up our own. Regular weirdos together. I feel that way about my friends.

Yesterday was the last day of school before Christmas break. We all met in the alley after school to celebrate. I made everyone clove oranges, which are oranges with cloves pressed into the skin and ribbons attached to make them into ornaments. I felt like making them because May and I always did at Christmastime. I put Kristen’s cloves in so that they spelled NYC, which is where she wants to go to college. Tristan’s said Slash.

For vacation, Tristan and Kristen are going to Hawaii with her family. They’ve been dating since the begi

Tristan smokes pot a lot and didn’t take the right tests, and he likes shop and art the most of his classes. But more than that, even, he likes rock music and playing guitar. I think he really wants to be a musician, but not just because he wants to be famous. He wants to be one because of what Slash said, about how being a rock star is the intersection between who you are and who you want to be. He plays guitar so well, you wouldn’t believe it. But he doesn’t have a band. And he doesn’t try really hard to get one. He mostly plays alone in his room instead. That’s what Kristen says. I think he does this for the same reason Ha

Kristen is different. She studies all the time, and she got a 2180 on her SAT. She’s always talking about going to Columbia. She flips through magazines and cuts out pictures of people who look like they’d live in New York or other cities where things happen. She lets me and Natalie and Ha