The End Is Now

I remember you’d just gotten fired, but you had your buddy’s entrance card so you could sneak into the building and smuggle out your files. You took me with you, and we didn’t go to your sad, abandoned cubicle to collect what was left of your old life. You didn’t want to have sex on your boss’s couch or take a dump on his desk. You wanted to show me the roof, because you said it was the best view of the city and I seemed like someone who needed a good view.

I was a little afraid you were a person who needed a high place from which to jump.

I would like to remember the feel of your arms around me as we stood against the railing and watched the lights twinkle in the black, but I only remember that it felt like standing on the deck of a boat, watching fallen stars burn on a dark sea.

I thought, maybe him.

Maybe this.

Because that’s how you think when you’re the right amount of drunk, and hands and lips feel good, and someone is nice. Sometimes even when he’s not.

Someone is better than no one.

That’s what Isaac told me, because he doesn’t want me to leave like Theresa left, doesn’t want to have to make me leave. Would it be so bad to be with me? he asked, and he shouldn’t have, because it made him sound so young. He told me I could have a day to think about it, before I promise myself to him. He’s being generous, he says, because he likes me.

I always want to ask him whether he knows why his mother left him behind—whether he cares if she had a reason or not.

Not that having a reason is anything special. Everyone has a reason.

Would it be so bad? He won’t be thirteen forever, but he would be forever mine.

I thought I loved you all—even you, even for a night—and none of you saved me. Isaac saved me, so maybe he’s right that I should love him, that that’s how it should work.

He chose wisely this time, chose like he could see into me.

I am the girl who stays.

I am the girl who says yes, if you want.

Whatever you want.

As long as you don’t leave.

You didn’t have time to find that out about me, and you didn’t have time to test it. Or maybe you did. I can’t remember.

I might have told you the truth about me, all of me; you might have told me things you’d never told anyone, the secrets that made you who you were; we might have decided this night was the beginning of all things; you might have recited poetry and I might have recited the lyrics to all the C&C Music Factory songs I know, which is three, because we wanted to impress each other, and it might have worked; we might have done nothing more up there than kiss, like people in a boring movie, deciding, because Hollywood told us it was romantic, to take it slow, that why not, we had all the time in the world; we might have shaken the Earth. I don’t remember, like the next day I didn’t remember your name or where the office was, which was all fine, because I gave you my number; I thought I remembered that much, but then you never called, so one way or another, I was wrong.

I think you died when it first happened, went up in a blaze of light, fused with the thing that fell from the stars. I hope they’re right that it was beautiful.

Love,

the girl in the lime green miniskirt who wanted to see the sky

* * *

Dear John,

This is what I would have written, if I had written anything. Dear John, it’s better this way. Dear John, it’s now or later, and we’re both better off if it’s now. Dear John, you won’t believe me, but I’m doing you a favor. Dear John, it’s okay if you fucking hate me forever because I hate you too. You told me you would never leave me, and now you’re leaving, so don’t try to blame me for leaving first. Dear John, don’t die, and maybe someday I’ll come back.

You can see why I didn’t leave a note.