What do I tell you about your
daughter? Where do I even begin? Seeing you was very hard
for me. After we spoke, and I was introduced to everyone as her
friend, I was speechless. After that long hug, held on so long
because of our shared grief, I went back downstairs, snuck into a
bathroom, and promptly threw up. You were the last person I
expected to see in there that day.
I still dream about her.
In fact, oddly enough, recently I'd had a series of dreams where
Amber and I are laying on my bed in silence. After she died and
the towers fell I was numb for a very long time. That next
summer, as anniversaries of important events began to trickle in, I
started dreaming about her almost every night. Each morning, when
I woke up panic striken and crying, I wanted to carve my wrists up
until there was nothing to carve anymore. Dreaming of a future
together, a future where she'd been there all along. A future
where we were in love. The little piece of my heart left broke and I checked out for a long time.
I
will never care for anyone else the way I did for her. Everyone
since is just a shallow replacement. That summer when we became
intimate, I was so scared and wanted perfection. We kissed one
time before, five years before, but it never went anywhere. She
had this way of keeping events very singular and not accrumental.
It was her way; she never let on how she really felt.
I
avoided Amber and lost track of her before she died. My own
hangups about idealizing love and intimacy made me run. It had to
be just right.
I can never describe how sorry I am that I wasn't there for her.
I
have this other world in my head where we are free. No one can
break us apart or stop us. We conquered this world's evildoers
and escaped their War On whatever it is this week.