letters to zach, part 1

12. january 12th.

do you know what i hate? i hate that i keep wondering if you cared about me or loved me. i keep doubting the truth in your words, saying i love you so many times to me 11 days ago. i guess the reason that is on my mind - as guilty as i feel about thinking about it - is because a part of me still has not accepted that you are gone. i still think, a part of me, at least, really thinks i’m just a girl in love with a guy unrequitedly, and he’s just not texting her back. i still feel like you’re here.

and im grappling with the heartbreak of loving you with all of my heart and the heartbreak of losing you with all of my heart.

13. january 13th.

i was feeling really good this morning. i got ready and got in the camry and i wasn’t instantly sobbing at the thought that you were the last person besides me to drive it, just 12 days ago. and then i saw the car in front of me wasn’t slowing down. it really wasn’t slowing down, and it was about to go through the stoplight. i tried to brake but it was too late. a crash and my car spun to the side and my heartbeat was slow and pounded too hard. i was shaking. i was okay. i had survived. how unfair that people like me can survive when others don’t. they call it survivor’s guilt, but it’s also survivor’s anger. anger that someone couldn’t have saved you the way someone just saved me. i survived and i was inexplicably thankful and angry too. angry at how perilous and delicate and fragile human life really is. how quickly it can end. just like that. a minute ago i was humming a song and looking at the sunshine. and now my car is mangled and my door is broken and my favorite childhood car is wrecked. so, i guess anything can disappear in an instant after existing perfectly fine for years. not just the human life.

but i was okay. not a scratch on my body. just the last place i have that still has your spirit lingering in its memory.

14. january 14th.

i actually got to know my roommates. they still look at me like a disheveled ghost of a girl, which, to be fair, is how i feel. they are blown away by the turmoil i have gone through in the last 13 days. but i’m still here. and i go to classes. and i have been writing music. and my roommates are very kind.

15. january 15th.

every time my phone buzzes i think its going to say your name and i’ll get the same rush of joy i got every single time i saw your name on my phone in the past. i can’t believe that version of life existed. the one where you would text me, and it was your fingers typing and your thoughts written into the letters on my screen and i would blush and squeal and dance and bury my face into my pillows. i was so happy to exist in your world. to be known by you and to know you. i was so happy i was worth a fragment of your life, to be on your mind even for an instance of your time on earth.