Her hands trembled so violently she jostled the phone. Readjusting her grip, she swallowed. Blinked. Cleared her voice.
“Maybe I feel too much. Do I? I think I do. I think I loved you too much. Certainly more than you deserved. So I’m going to stop that. I’m just going to stop feeling. I gave you thirteen years, and what did I ask for in return? Fidelity? I wish you would’ve told me that was too much to ask. Maybe you didn’t know. But you should have. You’re a fucking doctor. All that schooling to learn how to heal people, and in the end, you hurt the person who loved you the most. Well, you can just fuck right off. You did your thing, and now I’m going to finally do something for me. I’ll see you in hell.”
Numb, she stopped the recording. She was spent. Empty. There was nothing left.
She had no living family. No one to mourn her death.
Except him.
He would watch the video after she was gone, and maybe it would wreck him so completely he would eventually follow her off the bridge. It was the cruelest, most selfish thing she could do. The person she was before would’ve never been so vindictive.
But that person was already dead.
She opened her email to forward the video to him. By the time he received it, she would be at the bottom of the river.
The tightness in her chest choked her breaths. Her eyes were so hot and swollen it was like looking through ripped scabs. She rubbed her lashes and squinted at the screen.
A new email had popped up. Weird. It wasn’t in her inbox but in the unknown account she’d logged into weeks ago.
Her finger hovered over it.
No. Forget it. She should just send the video and be done with this.
But that account… Why was it receiving an email now? It had never been used. No incoming or outgoing messages ever.
A month ago, she bought a jacket at a thrift store in El Paso. In the pocket, she’d found the email address and password scribbled on a scrap of paper. At the time, the romantic in her had been drawn to the username.
Tommysgirl.
Someone had created it a few months before she’d acquired the jacket. They seemed to have forgotten about the account.
She’d forgotten about it, too.
“It’s not important. Just delete the account and erase everything.”
She didn’t want anyone thinking she’d been having an affair with a guy named Tommy.
As she switched to the account to remove it, her attention snagged on the subject line of the message.
I need you.
Three words, so simple and ambiguous, yet they sneaked beneath her desolation and shone a blinding light on the most broken parts of her.
She desperately needed to be needed.
The fog in her head lifted as she quickly opened the message and read the first line.
I know you’re dead, but you’re still my girl. I need you.
Her gaze skipped to the bottom of the letter and landed on the signature.
Tommy.
Who was he? Who was Tommy’s girl?
Her heart hammered as she absorbed the rest of the email.
I’ve been avoiding this email account. I mean, I created it and gave it to you the day I lost you. It’s like I knew I would need to write this letter to your ghost.
Maybe that’s fucked-up, but I need you to hear me. I don’t think I can keep going if you’re not out there, somewhere in the ether, listening.
They said you died in that car accident, but your spirit is too bright, too big, to just vanish. You always smiled at me like you were part of a better world, so I think that’s why you left. You were destined for something greater.
I wish you could tell me where you went. Is it nice? Are you alone?
It’s dark here. Everything feels haunted. All I see is shadows, the ones you left behind. They’re in the hallways at school, on the trails we walked between our houses, and in the rocks we climbed in the desert.
Your ghost belongs to me. It’s the only thing I got to keep. All your possessions were snatched up by extended family and sold off. But your ghost is mine. Except I can’t wrap my arms around it. I don’t know how to hold it and kiss it.
I miss your lips.
I just want to be with you.
You were supposed to grow up and become the strong woman you were meant to be. I couldn’t wait for you to grow up with me.
How could you leave me here to live without you? I want to be mad at you, but I miss you too much. I miss you.
I just…miss you.
It’s not fair what happened to you and your family. Or what’s happened to me. I guess I can be angry about it forever, or I can just try to…be.