(November 14, 1992, in Missouri)
I’d been writing more letters to Alaric for the past few months. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to send them since I didn’t know his address, but something about writing the words Dear Alaric made me feel a tad bit better about my life.
There were just so many what ifs. What if I had never decided to go to Krems an der Donau when I stared at that tourist map back at the café? What if I hadn’t taken the left turn in Krems an der Donau where I saw him? What if Raya had never sent me to Austria in the first place? What if Marcel had never brought me to that café my first night in Vienna where I first saw him playing on the streets? What if…?
Dear Alaric,
I’ve stopped fighting my inner demons. We’re on the same side now. But…the universe still confuses me. It brought you into my life, but then took you out instantly. I keep telling myself to never love “maybe” and “supposed to” because they never love you back.
I dropped my pen when I heard Raya open my bedroom door.
“Yes?” I asked.
“Can you run down to the grocery store? I would do it myself, but I’m way too tired and we ran out of milk,” Raya said, holding her enormous stomach.
“No problem,” I said and headed out.
As I walked over towards the milk section at the farmer’s market, I couldn’t help but overhear this loud girl talking to her friend.
In a town like this, you didn’t get a lot of good options on who to hook up with or who to date, but gossip seemed like it was spreading faster than love.
When I first heard her saying how Jacob made out with her, I believed that she was talking about another Jacob. Until she started describing her Jacob as tall, skinny, and brown-haired with big feet.
I wanted to ask her more about this guy called Jacob, but all she was describing was how he couldn’t stop kissing her.
After listening for a few minutes, I finally convinced myself that they got the wrong Jacob because the one that I knew was gay. Jacob was a common name and it was possible that there could be another walking around town that was tall and skinny with brown hair and big feet.
When I got back home, Raya was having one of her emotional moments due to her pregnancy when she just sits there and cries for about ten minutes or so. After that, she’s usually back to normal, all giddy and ready to get on with the day. I remember when she first did it, I freaked out and didn’t know how to respond. But as the weeks passed and each time she kept doing it, it just got old. Don’t call me cold-hearted; it was just considered “normal” since her hormones were all over the place. I tried helping her many times, but each time she told me to go away. One time, she even threw a roll of newspaper at me.
“Raya, I got the groceries,” I said and placed them on the kitchen counter. She nodded and flicked her hands a couple of times, telling me to leave her alone. So I did. Well, I sort of did. I usually just sat there behind something so that she couldn’t see me and I would keep an eye on her. A lot of things could happen in ten minutes when she was emotional. Most of the time she just sat there, but once, she started walking around with the kitchen knife with a horrified expression to kill. After that, I just watched in case she went crazy again.
I noticed Raya had left a stack of my letters on the kitchen counter like usual. I hardly got letters. Most were from the school about conferences or some lame event that they wanted me to attend; school spirit, right?
I hastily flipped through them and then realized two of them were from colleges that I sent my applications to.
I sort of already knew what they were going to reveal, but I still had that tiny hope that what was written on them would prove me wrong, and I was hanging on to that tiny hope for dear life.
I sent half of my applications to colleges near or in this town and the other half to colleges that were on the other side of the state for scholarships. It was important to get out of this town, but I wasn’t going to leave this town broke.
I wasn’t hoping to get into some fancy college with the sucky GPA and scores that I had, but I at least wanted to get into a college far from this town.
The two letters I held in my hand both came from colleges on the other side of the state. I told myself to not get my hopes up, and then I made myself open the letters before waiting another second.
My eyes scanned through the first sentence of each letter, and I knew that this wasn’t such a surprise. My heart stopped beating and life turned back to normal. Boring, lifeless, hopeless.
I tore up the two letters and threw them in the trash can without looking back.