Weary Little Star

Dear Levi,

I saw Santana tonight at church, but I didn’t see you. I even looked, though I kept telling myself to stop. You weren’t in your normal spot. It kind of scared me, the feeling of losing you in the crowd… losing you for good into this vast country, this vast life. I was so sick and I kept coughing and had a blanket wrapped around me, but I didn’t know where you were and it bothered me more. I wish I could have just seen a glimpse of your sweet face. I am glad I at least saw your car, to know you are okay enough to be in church. Where did you go?

This week has been so hard, being sick, the kind of sickness that just continues on and on and never seems to end. I just want to feel better, and yet my mind can’t convince my body for follow the plan. I think I miss you even more this week, being so ill, than when I was stronger physically.

Remember the story about the baked potato you once told me? You showed me on google maps the route you would run around your little town, and how your coach wouldn’t let you run on the track because you ran so much he was afraid it would be bad for you. So you ran around the town, and when you got home, you would eat a baked potato.

I don’t know why, but that story was in my head this week. Maybe because there was a baked potato bar at the OU game get together the Crossbearers class had on Saturday. Or maybe because I’ve set out a schedule to start running. But all I know is, there are big tears spurting in my eyes when I think about the way you would say potato, with your funny little lisp that I could never quite figure out if it was just an accent or just the way you pronounce your words. And all I can think is the profile picture you used to have on FB in your maroon running clothes, the look of potential in your beautiful brown eyes, the way the sunlight caught your hair. And I miss you so badly, it’s like the pain cuts deeper and deeper into my chest. How deep can it go?

I haven’t heard from GiGi in two months. Like Davina, I am afraid that she has given up on me. It makes me so sad, I was crying in the shower thinking about her and all the people I’ve lost. All because of the stupid choices I made. All because of how I treated you. I lost it all. I lost everything that mattered, everyone that mattered, all I dreamed of.

Will I never get a second chance? Is there no such thing in life as second chances?

I know I don’t deserve one. I can’t even fathom what that would even feel like. After church tonight, I drove through the darkness and could barely even breathe. It was like the weight of the greif, of the hopelessness, was crushing my chest, my lungs. Like if I flinched, I would just break down and never recover.

I drove to South Grand Boulevarde, to that miserable little park, and looked out over the field again, at the glower Devon Tower that I hate. And I prayed… I prayed for you, for your mom and Forrest and sissy, for GiGi, I payed… I cried a little, but the pain was too sharp, too scary to really break down. I was afraid I would never be able to get back up again.

Am I crazy? Sometimes I wonder. Why else would a girl be sitting in a car in the dark in a park on the south side of Oklahoma City recalling a night over ten months before, a boy she knew for just a few brief months, and a love that was written off? You moved on so easily. Why can’t I? Why is it my soul is so restless and wandering through the darkness of night, searching for peace, unable to find it?

It was a small comfort to be at the park, to remember, but not very much. Mostly, I just wanted somewhere quiet to pray. And in that place, where my last and maybe greatest failure is memorialized in the silence of endless time… I just wanted to pray. To pray, and pray, and beg God to change me.

Have I really changed? I’ve been trying so hard. So hard, Levi. What good is the effort? I don’t know how to judge the change because I don’t see any results. All I see is that fact that you don’t love me, still, don’t want me, still, and don’t think of me, anymore. All I know is that a year has almost passed and nothing has changed. Not one thing.

Why, God? What am I doing wrong? What am I supposed to do?

I want to give up. I’m not going to lie. As I sit here, sick to the bones, weary to my soul, coughing and tears streaming and throat burning, I just want to go outside into the darkness and find a body of water to lie down and disappear into the depths. I just want to see the liquid close over my head and say goodnight to the world. I just want to find that little bliss of heaven, that peace that doesn’t ever end. I am so, so, so weary.

But I can’t give up. If I give up, who ever won’t? And you deserve me to keep trying. You deserve more than me giving up because it’s been so long, so hard, so lonesome, so silent. You deserve better. I’m just so afraid you’ll never care. What if you never, ever care? Never notice? What if one day you really do slip away into the crowd and I never see you again? What if you keep me blocked on Facebook forever? What if there is no such thing as second chances? What if?

In that case… I just want to lie down tonight and sleep with the memories. Of the boy who ran, of the boy who lived off baked potatoes in a family that didn’t take care of him, of a boy who inspired me, who touched my heart, who made me realize how precious and utterly priceless he was. A boy who I can never forget, never get over. And I will just lay down tonight and cry and kick myself for losing him, for treating him like I did, for every single mistake that haunts my mind each hour. I will just lay down tonight, and pretend. Pretend it never happened. Or pretend I died that night he walked away, that I’m not really living through this torture. And just reminisce of the stories he told me, of the lisp in his words as he spoke them, and the precious soul of whom he revealed.

I miss you, Levi. I miss you more and more each day.

God, please bring him back. Please give me a second chance. Please.

Your star,

Your broken, weary, lonely little star,

Rigel