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It wasn’t fair of her. I knew he didn’t want me. She didn’t know how badly that hurt. I hated her. I could feel the tears burning in the back of my eyes, but I couldn’t let myself cry in front of her. I couldn’t.
So I said, “Don’t you think it’s a little lame that you still hang out at the high school?”
Her face turned red and she said, “I’ll kick your little ass. I’ll kick your ass so hard, no one will recognize your pretty little face.”
I had to think fast. My body felt swervy and my brain was co
So I said, “Why don’t we play a game instead?” I pushed past her and walked out into the street. I called back to her. “It’s called the dead game. Whoever lasts the longest when a car comes wins.”
I lay down and closed my eyes. I heard a car coming from a ways away. I heard it getting closer, though it was not that close yet. I could last much longer.
I heard her say to her friends, “Oh my god. This girl’s a total freak. Let’s get out of here.” And I knew then that I’d won. I knew that she was scared of me now, instead of the other way around.
I heard the car getting closer. And then I heard Sky’s voice out of nowhere. “Laurel! What the fuck are you doing?!” he was shouting.
I rolled out of the way in time and I ran and I ran, and I remembered the night I got good at the game. May had always been the best, the bravest. Carl was almost as good as she was, but not quite. And Mark was just behind him. I had been last. As soon as I’d hear a car turn down the block, I’d want to run. I’d try to wait an extra second, but when I got up and pulled the blindfold off, I’d see the car was still so many houses away and feel stupid that I thought it was about to hit me. I knew that Mark would never love me because I was afraid, and they could all see that. I thought if only I could be fearless like May. If only I could be flushed and daring and beautiful in the twilight like she was. I thought if I wasn’t such a wimp, then it would all be different. He might love me back.
Then something changed. It was after May started taking me out with her to the movies. We were playing the game, and I lay down for my turn. I felt a new kind of quiet. Like nothing could touch me. Waiting, just waiting for the car to come. And when I heard it turn down the block, I wasn’t scared of anything. I could hear exactly where it was. I didn’t need my eyes. I could see the street, the car traveling. It was in front of the Fergusons’. The Padillas’, the Blairs’, the Wunders’—I knew just how close and just how far. It came in front of Carl and Mark’s. I heard May screaming, “Laurel! Get out of the way!” But I didn’t need to go yet. I waited one last second. Then I rolled and ran and saw the car whizzing right by. When I walked up to the sidewalk, May said, “Laurel! What’s wrong with you?!” She looked really scared. The way I was always scared for her. I thought Mark would be proud. I thought we’d high-five. But he was white as a ghost. May hugged me.
She said, “Don’t ever do that again!”
“But I won, right?”
May said, breathlessly, “Yeah. You won.”
After that, I don’t think we ever played again. And after that, I knew that Mark would definitely never love me. I’d changed.
I heard Sky’s voice, echoing after me. What the fuck are you doing? I just kept ru
Luckily for me, Aunt Amy was late to pick me up, so by the time I ran back to the parking lot, she wasn’t there yet. Sky and Francesca and those other girls were gone. Aunt Amy felt bad for being late, so she asked me if I wanted to get fries. I did. And then I wished I could go home, home where Mom would be making enchiladas for di
Yours,
Laurel
Dear Kurt,
You had a daughter, and now you’ll never get to know her. You won’t see what she’s going to be when she grows up. You won’t be there to make di
Do you know what she’ll have instead of her father? Your suicide note. Did you think of that when you wrote it, that those words would shadow her whole life?
You wrote that you have a daughter, full of love and joy, kissing every person she meets because everyone is good and will do her no harm. You said that terrified you, because you couldn’t stand the thought of her growing up and becoming like you were.
But did you think about the fact that when you wrote those words, when you took your life, you stole the i
I don’t know why I’ve written you all these letters. I thought you got it. But you just left, too. Like everyone does.
I walked into May’s room tonight, once Dad was asleep, and I tore your poster off the wall. I tore it to shreds and I threw it out. And I sobbed until I couldn’t sob anymore. And now, that particular poster is gone forever. And I’m sorry.
It can’t be undone. We can’t put it back, and we can’t bring you back to life, and I hate that. And I hate you for it, too. There, I said it, I do. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wonder if your daughter has forgiven you, because I don’t know if I could.
The truth is, I don’t know how to forgive my sister. I don’t know how to forgive her, because I don’t deserve to be angry at her. And I’m afraid that if I am, I will lose her forever.
Yours anyway,
Laurel
Dear Heath Ledger,
The Dark Knight was on TV tonight. I watched it with Dad. One thing that we can still do together is watch movies. Those and baseball, but the season doesn’t start again for another few weeks. When the movie ended and the credits came on, Dad said, “The world has changed, hasn’t it?” before he got up to go to bed. That sentence seemed to carry the weight of everything we can’t talk about.
Dad used to be happy. A man with a family. Superheroes used to be indestructible. They didn’t lose the loves of their lives, or let good people die, or give up on their morals, or have to grieve. And storybook villains used to be simply evil. Not humans twisted into something terrifying. But The Dark Knight is like a grown-up version of a superhero story. Batman is broken, too—he loses the woman he loves, and he has to frame himself for murder in order to save hope for the city. You play the Joker, the evil figure, and you are brilliant at it.
The movie scared me, to tell the truth. You scared me. I want to say what I could take from it, but I can’t. All there is is this deep-in-my-stomach feeling of terror, and this fear that there is no really happy ending anymore.