I Love You, I'm Sorry

It really isn’t all that hard to open the window if you jimmy it at the right angle. Scales of paint have crumbled off over time, leaving a gap between the frame and sill that small fingers can slip between. I check my shoulder before leveraging my weight upwards; the rest of them are in the living room, and sometimes sound carries strangely in the old house. It’s quiet, though, except for the faint sound of the television playing. I turn back and shove the window up quickly, a jagged movement that leaves plaster under my nails. I find myself staring at the white dust against the faint pink of my skin and feel suddenly that I’ve been here before, in this moment. White against pink. Abruptly, it is horribly hot in the room and my fingers scrabble to free my hair from my collar, pushing frantically against the rough buttons. A flush rises up my neck, and I gasp once. The air feels thin and gritty against my throat, and I barely stifle the urge to cough as I look down at the floor, trying to force the feeling away. A cool breeze from outside blows through the gap I’ve made, and I glance up to inhale. I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the dark glass and stop for a moment to look at the girl staring back. The sharp edges and crooked lines I feel inside are drawn against the glass in the shape of a humpbacked creature, my red-rimmed eyes only revealed as shadows.

Then the television sound cuts off behind me and I quickly shake myself into action. The cooler next to the stove makes a handy step so I can haphazardly pull myself over the ledge, ducking my head to avoid the hard window rim. My boots hit the wall on the way out, but the grass is cold and comforting below, and I shut the window behind me to block any sound I make on landing. Only dim light shines out over the lawn, so I am able to crouch against the dark wall without fear of being seen.

The stars are bright tonight. The twinkling lights seem sharp and very real when the sky is clear. I try not to remember a time when those lights were dim and far away, but it comes to me anyway. I only remember the stars because I was looking up at the time, searching for a face in a window. The sky was dark and full of smoke that billowed from all sides of the building I stood in front of. Except, there was light, I guess, made by the flames. I was even smaller then, and I felt it acutely when my eyes scanned the scene and the bright flares seared into my gaze like sunspots.

Where is she? I can’t see her. I spin around, picking through the throng of faces around me, but hers is missing. ‘Cara!!” I yell, but my words are swallowed by the commotion. Men on ladders are spraying water against the walls, sirens are wailing, and people are all talking at the same time. Why aren’t they talking about her? Why aren’t they looking for her? I try to run towards the building, but an arm holds me back. I twist sharply against the grip, glaring up at the officer restraining me. ‘She’s in there! You have to go get her!”

The officer takes on a calm tone that does the opposite of calming me down–why is he being so fake when there is such a real person in danger? ‘We’re making sure everyone is safe, everything is under control.” My gaze flicks back and forth between the raging fire and his expressionless face. “IN WHAT WAY IS THIS UNDER CONTROL?!” I wrench my arm away and keep moving towards the entrance. Voices rise behind me but they’re just background compared to the ones in my head. She was asleep, they say. Why didn’t you wake her up? Why didn’t she wake up? My memory of the past hour has become somewhat muddled, but I know I had a choice and I made the wrong one. When we fell asleep on our cots last night, she was holding my hand across the gap. I wouldn’t have gone to sleep otherwise, and she knew that. She knew lots of things about me, like how I liked my hair done, which color dresses were my favorite, the teachers I hated. She hated them too, even if it was only because I did. We had just been playing in the courtyard that afternoon; chess for an hour because she was trying to learn, and then tag for the rest of the break–I liked to play tag and she knew that. I guess she didn’t know some things about me, too, like how I was going to leave her when the fire started.

Enough. God knows I’ve replayed that scene more than enough times in my head. Enough times to know I can’t change it.

Without checking to see if there is any movement in the house behind me, I stand and creep across the lawn. It’s a normal Tuesday night for everyone else, so the town is quiet and the streets are mostly empty. I can see the circle of light illuminating the pavement in front of the house; I can see my shadow in it when I push the gate open. A year ago, I would have smiled when I saw that light–it would have been a great stage for the shadow puppet shows we used to put on against our wall at night. A year ago, I would have come to this house with her. We would have walked in together for the first time and pronounced it our house, just like we’d decided a long time ago. We weren’t going to leave unless we left together. I guess I broke that promise, too.

Now, I leave the house behind without a thought–it’s not our house and it definitely isn’t mine. The family inside isn’t mine either, not if she isn’t here to be part of it with me. I decide then that I don’t like the house, and it’s too old, and too dusty, and doesn’t smell right. She wouldn’t have liked it either, even if it was only because I didn’t.

I know where I’m going by heart, which means I’ve been there too many times. That’s what they would say, anyway, so they don’t have to know. It’s weird walking on streets that are normally so full of people. Like I’m the only one here, the only one left. Most homes I pass only have one or two lights on, as if the house itself is slowly shutting its eyes. The street is dark where it’s usually bright. The sound of my shoes against the pavement is loud where it’s usually soft. The air is thin where it’s usually thick. The world is small where it’s usually big–I am small. That’s how I like it to be when I go to see her. So it can seem as if we’re the same again; as if I never grew up when she didn’t get to.

The entrance to the building is so full of smoke that I can’t even see the staircase. It doesn’t matter, because I’m going in no matter what’s in the way. I know people are running after me, so I don’t have long to get inside. I take a deep breath and immediately choke on the cloying air–or absence of it–surrounding me. It takes a minute until I stop coughing, a minute for my eyes to start watering. “Cara!” I yell into the gray darkness. I don’t know where the staircase is. How am I supposed to find our room if I don’t know where the staircase is?! “Cara!” my scream ends harshly as the words scrape my throat. I hear nothing. Then the people outside scream my name in a twisted sort of call and response. Stop! I want to say, I’m not the one you need to find! I know she’s in here somewhere, because I left her in here and she hasn’t come out. It’s a weird thing, memory, because I can recite our exact conversation during lunch a week ago, but I can’t remember whether she was awake when I left. I don’t know why I didn’t wake her up. I’m stumbling now as the smoke starts clogging my senses, but I think I’m still yelling for her. What if the door is blocked and she can’t get out? What if she’s hurt, or sick, or scared, or crying? Strangely, I keep remembering when I broke my finger a month ago and she wrote my schoolwork so I wouldn’t have to. I think I forgot to say thank you.

After two right turns down side streets, I end up at my destination. There are no lights here at night, but I brought a flashlight in my back pocket, so I turn it on in order to climb the gates. The grass is just as soft here, but I watch the ground in front of me carefully so I don’t trip on the stones.

I’m crawling now–crawling and sobbing and coughing. There’s white ash caked under my fingernails. My skin is pink from the heat. I don’t think I can find her. I think she might be gone.

I find hers where it always is, on the line closest to the entrance. It’s new. The stone is clean and the etchings are still sharp. I kneel on the ground in front of it, not caring that the nighttime dew is soaking into my trousers.

The people behind me are catching up now, hands on my shoulders and lifting under my legs. I can’t see because there’s dust in my eyes. It hurts. I don’t care. I shift suddenly and start kicking out against whoever is picking me up–’Stop! I can’t leave without her!’ My words aren’t coming out like they should, and I don’t think they understand me. ‘I can’t leave without her! I promised!’ But I am leaving. Like I left her sleeping. I feel myself being carried through the door back outside, heat shifting to cold. I say in my mind, or aloud, or both: ‘Why isn’t she okay? Why isn’t she here? Why am I here? No one needs me. She is the one who everyone needs–she is the one who I need!’ She was the best of both of us.

The stone reads: Cara Whittaker, taken too soon.

I say, I love you, I’m sorry.