We were beloved and so we remain. We linger as memories of paradise lost. We make peace with our deaths because others cannot. We take back our bodies and reclaim our voices. Hear us.
His memories of me are nebulous: an aureate splash of sweet-scented hair, the dip of a white shoulder beneath a black velvet dress, a soft voice singing an old rhyme about birds in a tree. But I was more than a sum of these half-remembered parts, I was a woman who laughed and cried and swore and sneezed like any other. I sang in the shower and in the car. When no one was looking I took the stairs two at a time. Vanilla was my favourite flavour, sea-green my favourite colour, white roses my favourite flower. I was real. I am real. But to him I'm a ghost moving slowly through the carnival of nightmares surrounding him. He hears a voice that is mine and not mine whispering the promise I made him on the last night of the world: "It will not be long, love, 'til our wedding day."
We struck a deal early on: I would teach him to dance and he would teach me to sing. When we were walking down the street and he put an easy arm around my shoulders, I felt so safe and happy. Invincible. Whether our nights were taken up with talking or lovemaking never seemed to matter, we were one and that was all we needed to know. When he was in the room, everything else went away. There was only Eric.
Now he stretches his hands out towards a memory of me, bloodstained fingers finding nothing but shadows. I want to take him in my arms and feel his warmth as I never will again. He punishes himself with tortured images and if I could, I would smash them all and hurl them into the darkness. Eric, my love, this was my death and it is past. You cannot take back the violation and destruction of my body any more than I can take back what happened to yours. Until you return to me I must mourn your loss. I must watch you kneel before a broken window embracing a reflection of myself. I must wait and let you profane our love and worship a ghost, because that is what it will take. What you are doing doesn't make our love any deeper or more real, but it is the only way back to me that you can find. So I wait. I love you.
We were beloved and so we remain. We linger as memories of paradise lost. We make peace with our deaths because others cannot. We take back our bodies and reclaim our voices. Hear us.
I knew it was bad to cry but I was so scared and you were crying too. Then the gun went bang and everything hurt. I felt like I was flying but stuck in the same place at the same time. It was dark and I was still scared and I couldn't hear you anymore. Then the bird talked to me. It said that everything was okay now and it brought me here and said that I was to wait here until you came and found me. I don't know how long I've been waiting but it feels like a long time. I guess I should be scared that you haven't come yet, but I'm not. My chest doesn't hurt anymore and I don't think there anything to be scared of now. But I'm gonna wait for you, as long as it takes.
I forgot to tell you about it, but at school that day we had to talk about the best day of our lives. My favourite day was when we went up the coast to the funfair and went on five rides and ate hotdogs and it was so cold we could see each other's breath like smoke hanging in the air. I could see other kids looking at us and you were the coolest dad there - none of the other dads had motorbikes.
I remember that time when I was five and I fell off the swing in the playground and you had to come and take me to the doctor. I was scared because Mario Hernandez told me that the doctor would have to cut my leg off. You said you'd never let anything happen to me and I felt better and said I would never let anything hurt you either. You laughed at that and I wasn't sure why.
But I broke that promise when I heard the noise and saw those people doing that bad thing. That's why I was scared, because I thought you were mad at me and that's why you weren't here. But the bird says that you're not mad at me, you're mad at the people who hurt us and you're sad because you broke the promise too. And because you're a grown-up you feel like it's your fault. It says that you have to fix everything up so you can come and get me and we can go home. And I do want to go home now, but not until you're here. I'll wait like the bird told me to. I love you, Dad.
We were beloved and so we remain. We linger as memories of paradise lost. We make peace with our deaths because others cannot. We take back our bodies and reclaim our voices. Hear us.
They made the statue of me look like an angel and even now that strikes me as strange. Because I'm way too angry to be an angel. Angry at what's been done to me, and angry at what's been done to you. They've reduced me to what suits them: a silent picture of a smiling girl, an voiceless cipher. And I was so much more than that. I discovered the truth about my father and it hurt me so much that I almost couldn't breathe. But I went to that goddamn awful club because I had to see it for myself. I had a camera, I was going to take pictures of them. And when they grabbed me and whispered their sick words in my ear, I was too scared to think anything except "Alex, I'm so glad you let me go - otherwise this would be happening to both of us." So you see? I knew that I was going to die and although the very idea made me want to throw up or faint, I was still thinking about you.
You always felt like you had to prove yourself worthy of me and that was never true. I didn't care that you didn't have money or a nice car or that you weren't going to get to study at Harvard or Princeton or whatever. You were worthy because you were you. You were Alex who loved bad martial arts films like me and could make me laugh so hard that my eyes watered and looked at me as though I was the only thing in life that mattered.
You told Erin that I fought for life, and that's true. But I was also fighting for you, because I knew what would happen to you when I was gone. And it did happen and we were helpless to stop it. Nothing can be recompense enough for what they did to us and until you're with me again, nothing will take this fury away. But it's a fury you share and it was able to take you back. You're spurred on in your unravelling of this sick conspiracy by a smiling Lauren in a faded photograph, and a laughing Lauren rejoicing in her mad monkey love. But I'm still here, the All-Lauren and although you're so lost you don't realise it, I've been with you every step of the way. Every time you use the knife that destroyed us both, you bring us a little closer together again. Maybe our being together will take this hurt away, maybe it won't. But know this and never forget: I meant what I said that day. I'm all yours, Alex. Forever.
Value us for what we meant. Honour us for who we were. We were beloved and so we remain. We linger as memories of paradise lost. We make peace with our deaths because others cannot. We take back our bodies and reclaim our voices. Hear us.