18 Nov Correspondence, By Gwendolen Hickey
24th March
Dear Charlie,
I miss you. I know you’ve been busy, but your last letter was two months ago, and I’m going crazy.
I can’t stand being without you. The longer I’m stuck here, the more I want to tear across the page and scrape ink into the parchment and maybe also the walls. I want to open my mouth as wide as I can, dig my teeth into the paper and tear a bite right out of it. I want to tell you it was the dog’s fault, but we don’t have a dog. Maybe we can get a dog one day.
Why haven’t you written back lately? I know it’s just a couple more months, but sometimes I get scared. Sometimes I worry that you’ll end up crashing your old Camry into a telephone pole or a tree and the branches will go right through the windshield. I worry that it’ll be quick, but not quick enough. That before you bleed out you’ll think of me, and know I’ll still be here, but at least for you it’ll be over soon. Your face feels sticky and you feel so warm, it feels like I’m holding you, and you let yourself fall asleep next to me. You know that I’ll think it’s my fault for not coming with you, that I should’ve been there. You know that when I get the call, I won’t leave the house for months. You hope that I’ll find love again, even though you know I’ll never want to move on.
I don’t have to worry about that, right?
Maybe you’re reading this now and you’re laughing because I’m catastrophizing like I always do. You’re sitting there, finishing a bite of your ham and cheese sandwich, killing yourself laughing. I miss your laugh.
I want to be mad, but you know I can’t stay mad at you. But you also know how much I worry. You wouldn’t keep me waiting this long, would you? You’re probably on your way to the post office right now. You’ll tell them that clearly there must have been some kind of mistake and your letters haven’t been getting through and they’ll sort it all out and I’ll wake up to a stuffed mailbox in a couple of days.
Unless you stopped writing. Maybe work isn’t going well, and you can’t bear to tell me that you hate it there, that it was all a mistake. Maybe you’ve discovered that vodka keeps you just as warm as a smile does, and maybe you haven’t even realised that you’ve stopped writing me back. You’re sitting on the couch, and bottle after bottle your vision gets blurrier and blurrier, and you feel so, so warm, and you think I’m holding you. It’s been a long day and you’ve earned a nap, you think. You’ll try to lean into me and I won’t be there, but you’ll be too far gone to realise.
But that’s crazy. I’m sure the post office has just made some mistakes, and come summer you’ll show up with a stupid grin on your face and make some joke about how I’ve been surprisingly quiet these past few months, and you’ll think you’re hilarious and we’ll both laugh and it’ll be like you never even left.
Please come home soon. I can’t take being here without you. It makes me want to tear all my hair out. I just want to curl up in a ball in my bed and scream until my throat ruptures and my ears bleed. I want to lie there until I can’t tell where the sheets end and I begin. I need to see you. I want to take the pocket knife you gave me and drive it into the bedframe. I want to drive my fist through the wall, to drive myself insane and my nails into my palms and all 6 hours to see you. I don’t want to miss you anymore. I want to see the headlights of your Camry light up the front curtains, so I can tear them down to see your car pull in. I want to smash through the front door and tear my skin on splintered wood. I’ll set the frame on fire so there’s nothing in your way. We’ll collapse into each other and fall onto the couch, and everything around us will get blurrier and blurrier, and my hands feel sticky and I feel so, so, so warm, and you’re holding me, and we’re falling asleep, and I won’t have to miss you ever again. That’s what I want. I want to see you again.
Please write back soon.
With all the love in my heart,
Avery