I met this girl. She was at the bar of my hotel. She worked there actually. She came to sit next to me after her shift. The first thing she said to me was that she thought I was the saddest girl ever to hold a martini. The first thing I said or snarled was that quoting a mediocre movie wasn't the best way to impress a girl. Yet somehow I ended up walking down those small streets with her towards small and discrete neighborhoods way past midnight. I don't know why I followed her, but something about her compelled me. Something about her tired traits and easy yet strained smile told me that there was so much more to her story. There was something about the way she strode down the ancient paved streets that made we want to tell her mine. So I did. In the obscurity of the night and in a city that I did not know, I told this nameless and unknown girl everything. From the start to the end.
I told her about how I had the best father in the world but that I barely got to share anything with him. I told her about the mother who once loved me but stopped once she discovered who I really was and how much I reminded her of dad. I told her how the alikeness with my father was more a bad thing than a good thing. I told her about the sister that stepped sixteen years too late in my life. But above all I told her about you. Every single detail, every singly moment I had the luck to share with you I told her about. In the middle of the deserted Grande Place, I told her about the girl that made me feel again. About the girl that showed me what care truly was and taught me the beauty of the unconditional love she had for me. And I told her about how I fucked it all up. Not once did she interrupt me while my endless musings. She just sat there beside me on the paved and cold ground and listened carefully to the troubled girl she had just met. And she reminded me of you. Of all the times you just sat there and listened to me, not bothering to interrupt me. Even if it was you who needed to be listened at. Even if it was you that deserved the undivided attention. You were always so willingly there to listen to me without asking a single thing in return. Without once getting aggravated and demanding the attention you earned.
She reminded me even more of you when she invited me into her place. Into that miniscule studio of hers that was situated above a sleazy nightclub. She reminded me of you when I saw her check on her sleeping three year old son, only to head to bed because she had to leave for class in less than two hours. She reminded me of you because the problems she had seemed so much bigger than mine. Because the situation she was in was worth complaining about so much more than mine. But she put it all behind her to listen to me. To be there for me even if she didn't know my name and I didn't know hers. I had to prod the problems out of her the next day, because it did not seem fair that I was always the one who was unrightfully complaining to those who had every right to actually do so but didn't.
She talked about her problems eventually. Although for her they weren't problems. She called it life with its many unexpected turns. She called it the blessing that gave her the one person who would always love her for who she was.
Her whole story and the easy acceptance of it rendered me speechless.
Being pregnant at sixteen and shunned from the family, because their religion and culture condemned it. Because the face of their family was more important than their single pregnant teenage daughter. Moving from one friends' place to the other, living day by day wondering what the next may bring. Attending college by day, working at the hotel by night, being a full-time mother and somehow still finding the time to listen to the spoiled brat with her self-inflicted pain.
She reminded me so much of you because that girl was you, Spencer. In another lifetime, in another city, in another world, that could've been you. Wherever you are in whatever form you may come in, you'll always somehow be there for me. We'll always meet because I'll be searching and you'll patiently wait there for me to find you. You'll always help me even if you don't register it, even if you think that you're just being your natural self. And you'll never ask for anything in return because that's just who you are. But it's time for me that I finally step up and undo this unjustified routine. It's time for me to listen to your own setbacks, to your version of your life. It's time for me to be there for you and take care of you. To let you know that it's okay to cry and complain and ask for help without feeling weak. Dunya (the girl) told me that if you don't know exactly where to go, you might not find a single thing. I want you to know where you're heading. I want you to be able to search for me and find me there waiting for you. I want you to be able to count on me and trust me again. Because I know where I'm going and I know what I'm going to find. Who I'm going to find. I want the same for you.
I want us to be okay again. Above all, I want you to be okay again Spence. Because I don't think I'll ever forgive myself if you don't.
When you're ready, search for me.
Don't hesitate.
All my love,
Ashley.
I gently put the letter back down next to me and take a deep breath as I let my body sink into my soft mattress. I think back about the day's events and how it all started with those miscalculated words I read this morning. I think about the closeness I let Ashley get in after I was anticipating another low blow from her. I process the actions I took after I thought she might've betrayed me once more. After fearing that I had lost her to some girl in some bar in some city. But I chose to ignore that all and preferred to not hurt her and give her a chance to begin the long process of the healing of my heart. And then I think about what I would've done if I had read the whole letter at once. If I fell for her mournful eyes after thinking the worst, how would have I acted if I knew what she really meant? What she really promised. The effect she has on me seems to be even greater than before she left. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder and I think that I finally understand the meaning of it all. After five months without her presence and me being left in the coldest and scariest place I've ever been in, the name Ashley Davies and all of her surrounding memories were starting to take the shape of a myth. As if nothing ever happened. And all that took place between us was one big daydream while a scorchingly hot afternoon in Mr. Johnson's class.
Sometimes, I wake up and I wish that it truly wasn't real. Because even though Ashley made me feel more alive than I've ever felt, even though she unshackled the genuine me and even though she made me feel loved and cherished like no one ever could, she also made me feel a pain I've never suffered before. A pain that goes deeper than the one caused by the sudden loss of a sibling. A pain that makes you feel so ashamed and guilty. So guilty that you couldn't even bring yourself to attend their funeral and honor them one last time. To say your final goodbye to them and start cherishing the moments you shared. But life's defined by stages and by missing one of them, I missed my chance to end my grieving. I missed my chance to end this continues hurt and pain that does not want to leave my soul. I missed my chance to be Spencer Carlin, because the one person that needed to be by my side to drag me out of it bailed on me. The one person that could erase my pain with solely her presence, increased it by her absence. Silent tears cascade down my flushed cheeks for minutes before I even register it. The tears that refused to let themselves out during a time in which even the most detached person could not help but weep in their sleep. Tears that where inexistent when my dearest brother died, because I was too dead to be human. Tears that flowed so easily when I opened that little package she left me behind.
The gates are opened and the sobs only increase as the time goes by. I try my hardest to keep the sobbing to a minimum, not wanting anyone to hear my sorrow. Not wanting to make them relive the stage of grief that they somewhat successfully passed. I say somewhat because I know that the brave front they're putting up is largely only done for me. In attempt to help me go through with it all. They're trying to take in her place, her responsibility but the effect can never be the same. She's the only person who can make me go through with this is all and they know it. And so does she.
In between the sobbing and the painful reminiscing, my phone has found its way in my hand and my fingers have dialed a number that I haven't used in months but that I could never forget. In this haze of complete incoherence and irrationality I find my phone shakily pressed to my ear and my heart beat increasing which each dial tone.
"Hello?" A groggy voice answers and I wonder just how late it really is. I firmly close my eyes in a last attempt to end these tears but to no avail. "Hello? Is anyone there?" She sleepily asks again. Her voice only makes the lump in my throat grow in size and the quiet and muffled whimpering inevitably begins to increase in sound. "Spencer?" She suddenly asks me alarmed and every single trace of sleep leaves her voice. "Spencer what's wrong?" She asks me hurriedly after I fail to answer her. I can hear her getting out of her bed and I can already see the image of her standing up in her too small shorts and cut off tank top. I can picture her hastily putting her crumpled jeans on with her phone still pressed to her ear, only to frantically start searching for her car keys.
"Spencer, please talk to me." She silently supplicates, "Tell me what's wrong."
I internally (sadly) scoff at what she says because where do I start? How do I begin telling her about all that's been going wrong for these last few months. I don't have letters I can write everything in, I don't have a person I can freely confide in. Not anymore. All I have are inner struggles and silent battles that you can only take notice of through these stubborn tears.
"Where are you? I'll be there in a few minutes." She says urgently as I hear her shuffling her way through a door. "No." I silently whimper, finally overcoming my crying a bit. "I just – " I pause and inhale deeply in attempt to lessen the tremble of my voice. Trying to sound not so broken as I completely am. "You just what?" She asks me quietly. "I just want to sleep." I whisper through my phone, eyes still firmly shut and tears slowly dropping on the front of my shirt. I shift myself until I'm fully lying down again, cocooning myself in this cold bed of mine.
"I just need to hear you."
I need to search for you.
"I just … I just need you to be there."
I need to find you.
"I'm here Spence. I'm right there with you."
I need to find you waiting for me.
"I always will." She assures me quietly. No words are exchanged after that and the only sounds I hear are from a laid-on-mattress I've come to know so well and that I miss so greatly. A mattress that I envy because it is filled with her omnipresent scent and molded by her warm body. It doesn't take long before my closed eyelids have become a direct consequence of the soothing breathing on the other line instead of my insistent weeping. And it's that same breathing that cradles me away from the reality and into a world in which loved ones did not leave and in which we did not suffer. With the phone loosely in my hand and closely to my ear, I follow her into a place in which we can just be.