“No,” I whispered. “I hate you.”
He closed his eyes and whispered, “Finally,” before falling backward off the bridge.
****
Pieces of my life were falling slowly, painfully. Falling like snow falls onto the ground. Frozen pieces dissolving into nothingness as the ground sucks in the water and the process repeats.
More snow falls.
More water soaks in.
And after the snow has fallen.
After the ground has drunk its fill.
All you’re left with is a beautiful landscape of white; the type of white that, as a little kid, you can’t wait to run out and play in.
I used to have that type of excitement. I used to imagine my life was like that, a fresh blanket of snow. I’d always been close to my mom, and whenever it snowed, she was always a fan of making me wait. She said that I needed to be patient, I needed to allow the rest of the world to see the beauty of the snow. So I’d wait, tap my foot, wait some more, complain, and finally, laughing, she’d let me run out into the white perfection.
One day, Mom stopped me. She pointed to the snow and said, “Honey, this is your life, a blank canvas. Follow your destiny and know that each step you take will be another footprint made in the snow, but make the footprints strong. You want them to lead somewhere. You want the footsteps to have meaning.”
I never thought much about her words — I was a kid. All I cared about were snow angels.
And as I grew, I lost interest in the snow. My interest was darkness, not white.
They let me go.
They let me run in the opposite direction.
Funny, because that’s how I found him. He promised to walk along with me in the dark, promised to entertain, promised to be by my side. And I trusted him. So when he told me to do things I knew I shouldn’t…
I did them.
When I wanted to run back to the snow, when I felt like reverting back to that same excitement of childhood, he’d show me one more thing that pulled me to the other side.
He pulled me.
He pushed.
Until I had nothing left.
And in the end, I ran away. I ran away from the dark and promised myself to start over.
Gabe helped with that — my best friend. I did everything in my power to help save him, because in the end, by saving him, I was saving me.
Unfortunately, the thing about running, the thing about trying to start over — eventually that hope is dashed by your past coming up to greet you like the fires of hell.
My past came knocking sooner than I could have imagined.
In the form of a ghost.
A person I had no idea existed.
A person who knew my shame.
A person I fell in love with.
My college professor.