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
