One day—the heat is hot enough to shatter rocks—I go to meet her as usual. I stay until nightfall at our special place, but Cynthia never appears.
For two weeks I wait in vain for my friend to arrive. I search everywhere for her—even loitering about the busy hotel her family is staying at to catch a glimpse of the girl in black. When I build up enough courage to walk in and ask, the receptionist tells me that Cynthia and her parents had long left.
When my mother comes home to collect her paperwork and catches me weeping at night, I lie and tell her that I have a stomachache, although no bouts of indigestion hurt as much as my friend's absence.
"There are pain relievers in the medicine cabinet," my mother says before taking her leave. She appears disgusted by my display of weakness.
As I cry myself to sleep the pain in my heart can be felt in my kidneys.
The twilight of summer soon draws near. A month has passed since Cynthia's disappearance when I begin noticing that I am slowly, surely forgetting her. When I realize that I am truly losing her, I stop going out and confine myself in my room.
In the company of my crumbling memories, I beg them to stay. I violently reach out to seize them, to shove them back into my head. Yet they elude me like fog, leaving behind only a pain that serves to remind me that I have broken my promise, that I am incapable of remembering the only friend I have ever had.
Wallowing in the sea of self-punishment, my illness manifests into a monster intent to take my life.
At dawn, I wake up with a metallic taste gathering along my teeth. My mouth has the consistency of the debris found beneath the refrigerator: slippery and moldy. A humid belch signals what is to come. I scramble to the washroom and, falling to my knees before the toilet, I vomit so hard that I wretch the toilet seat from its hinges.
Realizing that my parents might return at any time, I drag myself to the mirror, pick up a brush, and try to untangle the mess of hair that clings to my wet forehead. The brush keeps slipping from my hands. I lack the strength to hold it.
The illness persists for some time. Frequent nosebleeds trigger fevers that shimmer like scales caught in sunlight. While summer lives out its numbered days right outside my window, I bury my shivering self in my blankets, roasting alive while sweat crystalizes on my skin.
In the height of my fever, I feel myself sinking under the ocean's surface. My body feels like it is disappearing at the edges, like a shoreline evaporating under the tide.
Wishing to smother the pounding thrumming between my ears, I drown the contents of an entire bottle of acetaminophen tablets and push the pillow into my face. Alas, I succumb to drowsiness, an uneasy slumber blanketing my ears and eyes.