Prologue: September of 1998
August isn't the kind of girl someone paid attention to. She never complained about that either. She liked being remembered as nothing. She always adored everything ugly and no one understood that about her. Her lips were an almost dead blue and her hair was a disgusting blonde with blood red streaks running down her scalp. The way she listened to dumb music like LCD Soundsystem and The Smiths always got under my skin. She never had anything good to say about anything or anyone. When she told me she wanted to murder the man who checked out her items at Walmart I never thought anything of it. When she told me she laughed when she ran over that puppy I thought it was a joke. I never saw the signs of her psychopathic tendencies. I never thought she would get this bad. To the point where I couldn't help her anymore. The way she pulled her hair out in her sleep. The way she sat on the diving board at midnight and sung so sorrowfully above the reflection of the moon. The way she always stood on the edge of skyscrapers until I pulled her back. I never saw this coming.
I would be an idiot if I scolded her for doing this to me. Even if I could I wouldn't. She would just give me that stupid glare, spit on me, and say, "You're an idiot anyway, Gray." Her way of loving someone is so different than yours and mine. She really drove me insane. Sorry, my bad. Drives. As in, still does. She still drives me insane.
Sometimes I'll walk down an aisle at a grocery store and hear her voice behind me. "You stupid fucking idiot, Gray. You are supposed to stay with me, remember? You said you would. You promised." All the hairs on the back of my neck arise in sync with each other. Those words, "you promised" always get me. I did promise her I would go where she goes. "I wouldn't ever leave you, August. Even if I wanted to." That was our thing. "Even if I wanted to." Sometimes I'll lay in bed and feel her lips on mine, sucking the blood from each sore I had bitten out of anxiousness. Sliding her tongue into my mouth like a knife. I'll open my eyes and swear I see her. "August?" I'll holler, grabbing the bedside table for my Ray Bans. By the time I got them on my face, blood pressure exasperating, and breath quickened, she's gone.
When I make my way to work there are moments when I have to rub my eyes because I'll convince myself I saw her down the street or in the passenger's seat holding my hand that is grasping the stick shift. As I listen to the mix tapes she made me for road trips I hear her voice. I replay the day I took her to the beach. She's sitting in the passenger's seat, running her fingers over my lips as I drive. Her bikini top was peeking out through her The Cure shirt that had about 4,000 holes in it. "Grayson, come on. This isn't shit music." I roll my eyes at her, biting the tip of her finger. She shoves her whole finger down my throat and I gag. She was always doing stupid shit like that. "You'll see one day." Was all she said.
August was never in love with me but we would talk about our future together. I planned on marrying her. She was the only girl crazy enough for me. Besides the fact that she was actually psychopathically delusional I never let that stop me from falling in love with her. Her stupid smile that only appeared when something bad happened to her. Her abrupt honesty that always hurt everyone's feelings. She always told me she hated me and that she wished she could kill me, but I know it just her showing me she loved me. Sometimes in her sleep she would cry and mutter "Don't leave me, Gray. Don't leave me." She never told me she loved me but it was enough to know that I had gotten farther than most men had with her. I knew deep in my heart that if I let her go no one else would love her. No one could have handled her like I did. As soon as she began to get bad I could have guaranteed that any other man would have dumped her right there. We were never dating but it didn't matter to me. I loved her.
I used to write little notes in her diary. "I hate you most." They would always read. She always said it was most powerful to hate someone so it really means something when she hates. "It's the strongest feeling a person can feel." She always said. So to show her I felt strongly towards her I would always tell her how much I "hated" her. However she felt loved was how I was willing to love her. She used to call that "bullshit love." To her "bullshit love" looked sweet. It looked like the kind of love you felt when you hated someone with all your heart and all that was left was love. Or something similar to love. She wasn't a huge believer of love or the whole idea of "I'll never let go, Jack" kind of love, but she sure believed in "bullshit love."
That's why I'm explaining all this to you. See, if I hadn't told you any of this and just gone right into what kind of a life August lived she would seem completely anal. More than she may already seem to you. If I had just jumped right into the way we hated each other with the utmost vibrant of hates you would have turned your nose to these words. You would have never saw her the way I saw her. Fell in love with her the way I did. As hard as I did. As frequently as I did.
Maybe her life will sound a little better than yours or mine.