Lauren sits in her apartment, boxes of pills scattered next to her on the kitchen table. It’s a trashy apartment, a housing project apartment. The furniture is from the seventies and mismatched, the kind of furniture that can be found on the side of the road, gross and tattered. Lauren looks tattered too, she’s been crying, the mascara she so diligently applied that morning running down her face, and she doesn’t wipe it away. The thick strip of blond roots running through her black hair has earned her the nickname “skunk” at the diner where she works. Buttons on her white button-up t-shirt are straining to stay closed, it's too tight and too small for her. Stretches of runs line her pantyhose until the denim mini skirt she is stuffed into hides them. She takes long nervous drags off a cigarette; an open bottle of vodka sits next to the bottles of pills lined along the table. This added to years of varied self-inflicted and outside abuses make her look much older than she really is. The sound of her neighbors fucking loudly next-door blasts through the thin paneling, and she doesn’t own a TV or radio that could mask the sound. Scribbling on a scrap of old yellowed notebook paper, she takes random pills and swigs of vodka as she writes.
Dear Lelainey,
I have something I can’t keep in any more. I have to tell you. It’s been eating at me for 12 years.
It was that first two week span we weren’t speaking, Mark had you brainwashed in his basement, and I gave you that first ultimatum. I felt so alone after that. You remember how horny of a kid I was? So I called Danny McSweeny, remember him? The Special Ed kid everyone made fun of in Jr High and who went into oblivion when we went to high school? I knew where he lived, I knew his parent’s names and I called him. I said Hey Danny, its Lauren remember me? Now this is before I was on meds, when I had those manic episodes. OK, I’m using that as an excuse, I knew what I was doing. So I say Danny, meet me back by the trees behind your house. I was excited because he didn’t sound so retarded. But he was still so scrawny, still didn’t look like he had hit puberty, except for all the acne on his face. He just followed me and did as I told him to do. It was harvest time, the middle of the night, well pretty late, at least 11. I remember the lightning bugs lighting up the field. It smelled like fall, how fall smelled around the fields and all the dust being blown up and that crisp fall air. Someone was burning leaves in the ditch by Danny’s house. I can’t smell burning leaves without thinking of that night. I can still hear the crunch and rustle of the corn stalks as we ran through the dry field. I don’t know why we were running. But we did, to the far end of the cornfield. I asked Danny if he thought I was pretty. He said I was gorgeous. I unhooked his belt buckle. I asked him if he knew what we were going to do. He said he was scared. I told him to shut up and lay on the ground. There was no way I was putting my ass in that dry dusty dirt. I swear to god he looked like a 10 year old. I started sucking his dick, making sure he was hard, and I got on top, told him to grab my tits, and I started fucking him in that cornfield. We heard a jingle and I told him to shut up. We stopped and I looked around. His dog, Jack had followed us. I didn’t want this sick disgusting dog watching us, and looking back I’m not sure why it mattered so much. I tried to ignore him but he started howling. I really just wanted to feel Danny cum inside me. I called him because I knew he wouldn’t have any STDs. Who knows why I ever got the crazy ideas I had back then. I kept riding him, and he did cum. I thought it didn’t feel like anything at all. I was really disappointed that I had just fucked this retarded kid in a field for no reason. Three months later, I had an abortion.
Even though we were friends again at that time I never told you. I never told anyone how it happened and the only person who knows I was pregnant was my grandma. I told her and she took me to some clinic in St. Louis. Remember that week I went on vacation with my grandma over Christmas break? That’s what we did. Some kind of vacation, huh? It wasn’t that big of a deal; I mean getting my wisdom teeth removed was more of an ordeal than that was. I really didn’t feel guilty about killing it. I mean the child of a retard and a psycho? It was better off dead. I only feel guilty for never telling you. I’ve always told you everything, you are the only person who I’ve been able to trust my whole life. I know this is going to sound so crazy, but even these past few years, when we weren’t talking, I still talked to you. Whenever I did something destructive, I thought of you watching over me, telling me not to, telling me to slow down, you trying to save me like you always did. Which is strange because I think sometimes you hurt yourself more than I did. But you always wanted the best for me.
I want to know how you are but I’m not going to ask you any questions because I know I’ll never hear the answers. My grandma still tells me news or gossip from back there, she told me you are a dentist now. She heard it at the hairdresser’s. I picture you in a house with a nice white picket fence; your dream guy, non-abusive, blond, blue eyed, and your twin boys running around looking exactly like you two. I think they are about 6 now. I’m sure they are beautiful. I know you are a great mom, despite all your selfish ways, I know you got over it. Of course I can’t really know any of this is true, but I believe it in my heart. I feel you are ok, good even.
She imagines Lelainy now, a beautiful mom, perfect and smart and capable and strong and nurturing. It was hope she hoped and prayed from the bottom of her heart--it was her dream for her. Neglecting any dreams she could have had for herself, she put all her energy into dreaming for Lelainey. That part of her consciousness she wouldn’t let through, no matter how hard it screamed, that part knew Lelainey needed her prayers no matter how high Lauren wanted to idolize her.
We always said we were soul mates, and I know we are. There’s this song, its called “In the Sun” by Joseph Arthur. More than anything right now, I want you to hear this song. Remember how we always made each other mix tapes? And then we’d write down all the reasons we wanted the other one to hear each song. I want to do that so bad, I have a whole list of songs in my head that I’ve wanted to play for you over the years. But I don’t have any more CDs, I pawned them all for money. I certainly don’t have any cassettes or any way to get the music to you. But this song, you’d love it. It’s about how I picture you in the sun, wondering what went wrong between us, our lives, why things had to be the way they were. And it talks about how God’s love is with you, and I want that for you because you always believed in God. You said he was protecting you and watching over you, and I always said it was bullshit. It is bullshit really, still, but I liked that you could believe it. I wished I could be that naïve. And then it says something about you showing me who I was and how you changed me and my life. If you can get that song, listen to it. Look up the lyrics like you like to do. If I could give you anything I’d give you that song.
I suppose you are wondering how I am, why I’m writing you, what I’m doing. I can’t tell you. I don’t want you to look down on me. I just know I’m reaching this breaking point. I thought maybe really talking to you on paper might help me clear my head. I’ve been in and out of shelters and homes and shitty cockroach apartments. I’m tired of hurting, of pain, of the stupid fake band aides I try to use to cover it all up. It didn’t work with us back then, and it’s not working now. I’m so tired of crying. I’m tired of having no one to cry on.
Remember that time we went riding in your big white rusted 65 Chevy? It was just that one afternoon because your mom was always over protective when it came to me, she accused me of being a bad influence on you, the one who taught you to lie, fuck, steal, and do drugs. Little did she know I was usually the one being influenced by you. And it was rarely ever just you and me; we were usually riding around with our various boyfriends. And then you totaled that beautiful old car a few months later. So really it was just this one afternoon that defined our entire friendship in my mind. You drove, calling off from your shitty waitressing job at Pizza Hut, I met you around the block from my house, my mom didn’t want me riding with you because she thought you had seizures after that day you faked one to get out of our English 101 midterm. I got in and I remember we embraced in a hug for what felt like hours. I never wanted to let go. You drove out into the country, telling stories about getting out of this place. I remember every song on the mix tape, and how we kept rewinding to hear Jimmy Eat World telling us that Angels would lead us in. I remember everything about that day, the snacks we bought at the gas station, to what we were wearing, to the smells inside that old Chevy, to how gray the world looked as we drove through town and out into the country. You were in your Twizlers and Dr Pepper phase, me in my Junior Mints and Pink Country Time Lemonade kick, and we split a bag of Funions. You were wearing that brown tank with the blue lace trim, the tiny hold cut on the side were you had carefully removed the sensor from your stolen shirt. So many of your cloths held that telling hole, I could never have that kind of courage, my mom was obsessive about doing my laundry—she probably smelled my underwear to see if I was fucking. We had on our army jackets, we wore them with pride, both the previous owners were dead, but neither had been killed in combat, instead, my mom’s only brother hit by a train at 22, and your uncle had been murdered over a lover’s quarrel halfway through freshman year of high school. The first murder in twenty-nine years in our town, and it had to be your uncle.
We came across a little dip in the road, an offshoot to a dead end, out in the middle of nowhere. A line of evergreen trees on one side, an abandoned old shed in front of us, a barren field to the left. I clearly remember how green it was in that spot, a contrast to the gray everywhere else, I know I noticed tiny little corn plants coming out of the field next to us. It didn’t make sense, it was too early for anything to be planted, but I swear there were little sprouts making their way into the crisp open air, out of the heavy dirt. I had lost my sense of direction we had turned so many times. Maybe that’s why I could never find that spot again, I went back to find it so many timed after you left.
Lauren stopped feverously writing and thought back to the day Lelainey left her. It was a memory she replayed more often than their scene in the Chevy, but she couldn’t bear to put it on the paper. She still couldn’t accept it as true, the most significant moment in her life where hopeful salvation was turned into yet another rejection. Lauren had given Lelainey a lot of ultimatums in their short friendship, because she wanted so much more for her best friend that what she saw her life turning into. Lelainey would fuck without a condom, she would steal, do drugs, and hard drugs given to her by dirty boys. Mark was one boy in particular that had a special hold over Lelainey. He brainwashed her, he made her do things she didn’t want to do, he threatened to kill her mother if she didn’t listen to him, and Mark had struck his own mom in the face with a hot frying pan, so they knew he was very capable of following through on his threats. He had been in and out of juvie, he was dirty and warped and was turning Lelainey into someone Lauren hated. Someone weak, someone small. She was no longer the strong confident girl Lauren had initially been drawn to, she was a disappointing mess. Lauren had had enough, and she decided that for the final time, Lelainey would have to choose between her sister, her soul mate, and the demons that she needed to let go of before they would kill her. A small gesture, but after reading the final heartfelt note from Lauren, passed in the hall between 2nd and 3rd period, Lelainey chose to eat lunch in the smoker’s bathroom with Mark, instead of with Lauren at their regular table. They never talked again after that small yet crushing move. The school year was almost over, and as much as they both wanted to reconcile, the damage was too far-gone, and Lauren couldn’t look her friend in the eye, as much as she still wanted her love and acceptance there was something in Laruen's pride that wouldn’t let her back in. The next year Lelainey’s mom enrolled her in a Baptist high school, and Lauren never saw her soul sister again.
We kept listening to the songs that told the stories of our short painful lives. I’ve never been more honest with anyone than I was with you that day. Not one car drove by, it was as if we were alone in the world, this Chevy our home, our conversation the music the only thing to fill our hungry souls. It all felt magical and real at the same time. We cried, told each other confessions, memories, deep dark secrets. That was the first time you told me what your grandpa did to you and your cousin Michael in that dark dingy basement. I told you about how I really did want to kill my dad, it would make everything easier and then I could run away with the money he had horded away. I felt at home in that moment, you became forever my sister, my soul mate. That was the happiest day of my life, and I want to thank you for that. Without that feeling of you knowing me, somewhere out there, I wouldn’t have lasted as long as I have. Ever since you left me I have been barely scraping through life, trying time and again to find someone to replace you, none of them ever measuring up, I just wanted to say thanks. I’m over being bitter and angry. I’m tired and I’ve reached a breaking point. Before I leave, I wanted you to know how much I love you, what you’ve meant in this short life that I’ve had. I miss you with all my heart. I’d say good luck but you’ve never needed it. I will end it with the goodbye I’ve never been able to tell you.
I guess that’s all. I hope you aren’t too shocked or hurt by all this. I just needed you to know. I miss you more than anything, you are more than my sister, you are my soul mate.
I’ve always loved you,
Lauren.
LeLainey instantly recognized the scratchy handwriting on the envelope addressed to her, the postmark from Chicago. Only Lauren had held on to the same sloppy third grade print handwriting, never mastering cursive, stuck in sloppy scrawl. Only her words showed her age. LeLainey had moved on from Lauren, but the intense memory of someone who had loved her so unconditionally had always stuck with her. But she tried not to dwell on memories of their friendship; guilt would rise up if she thought about her too much. LeLainey never liked to stay too long with her guilt, because if she had the feeling would have quickly engulfed her to the point of making her unable to live the life she wanted. LeLainey used a lot of people in her life and she rarely felt bad about it. Lauren was one she regretted.
