Letter Four

Hello, August 23rd

I feel like I'm losing control. Or, I guess I did in my last letter. I was angry and I think I wanted you to be angry, too, and I know how to do that. I've known you for so long, so of course I know I can make you angry with just a few words. I felt a venomous kind of hate while I was writing that last letter and even while I was mailing it. But, once I got home I knew it was a mistake. I wanted to take it back, like a little kid who's made a choice they thought would bring them happiness only to realize they've made things so much worse. I know you had nothing to do with why I was so angry, and I still shoved it all in your face to deal with. I know why I was so angry, and I handled it like the spoiled little child I am.

I finally said it last week that's why. One of my coworkers asked about you and I said the words, "I broke up with her." She was some kind of shocked. If you want to know a secret, I'll tell you why she was so shocked.

I had been asking how her husband had proposed to her before I went on sick leave. I was going to pop the question and she wondered if I had been sick enough to set that back.

I guess I was.

Maybe this isn't news to you. Maybe Annie and Peter have already told you, maybe not. But, that's why I was so mad. It's no excuse, I know, but that's how it is, how it was. I know it's probably me being selfish again, but I kind of wanted you to know.

Should I not have told you? I just thought suddenly that you needed to know I was serious about you. I've always been serious about you.

Honestly, I'll die serious about you, I hope that's okay.

Shit.

None of it's okay and it's my fault.

When I woke up in the hospital you kept telling me I was okay and that it wasn't my fault; but that nurse, her eyes kept telling me it was my fault.

My Angel, please, tell me how to stop. Give me the right answer because you always know the right thing to do.

When was the last time I asked for your help? Have I ever asked for your help?

It's not that I didn't need you, I did, I've always just been such a coward and I wanted you to think I was strong. Dependable.

But, I'm scared. I'm scared so I got angry and I pushed you away. I'm a coward so I'll keep pushing you away.

I changed my telephone number and I'll be moving in a couple weeks.

Please, forgive me for being so weak, I'll never be able to say sorry enough times.

Through all of that I know you never stopped loving me, I'm not sure I deserved that, but, and I know it doesn't show, it helped me more than you'll ever know.

Do you remember when I broke my leg after falling off that stone wall? You carried me home, crying on your back even though I kept saying I was fine. If this were only like that.

-Ravi

The ink on the letter was smeared in areas. She could clearly see where his tears had landed.

She had managed to keep her own tears from joining his on the already wrinkled page.

She couldn't think of a single time he had asked her or anyone else for help. It was always like that, even when he broke his leg.

They had been playing on an old stone wall that stood roughly five/five and a half feet tall. She had been walking in front of him, carefully stepping on the crumbling wall, her arms held out beside her trying to keep her balance. She had heard a grinding noise that gave her goosebumps and sent chills from the nape of her neck to the middle of her back and down both arms; the same way nails on a chalk board do. There had also been the smallest whimper just audible over the grinding then a horrendous 'thunk!' that sounded heavy and solid.

She had looked down to see Ravi staring up at her, tears streaming down his face while his hands hovered in the air over his calf.

She rushed to climb down the wall, sliding down on her belly to let her feet dangle as close to the ground as she could get them before dropping clumsily down next to Ravi.

He really had insisted he was fine, batting her hands away as he painstakingly got to his feet. He had managed to take a few steps before falling down in a curled heap.

She was crying, too, at this point, she was scared and she didn't know what to do. She wished someone else were here, her parents or his. They would have taken charge and everything would be fine.

Instead, she stood over him as they both cried. The middle of his leg had a slightly warped look and she could have sworn she could hear grinding when he had been trying to walk. No, that had to have been her imagination. She was a very imaginative little girl, all her teachers said so.

She's not sure how long they stayed there, but the next thing she remembers is carrying him on her back. It felt like he weighed as much as a house. Her legs trembled with every step and her lungs burnt with icy fire from every ragged breath she sucked in.

Somehow they made it to Ravi's backyard where his mother was weeding her small vegetable patch. As soon as she saw an adult she fell forward as Ravi's mom jumped to her feet fast enough to send loose dirt flying into the air.

She had easily swooped up both children like bags of flour, one tucked under each arm, and yelled for Ravi's dad to "open the damn door, now!" She would always remember that verbatim since it had been the first and last time either of them had heard Ravi's mother use a swear word.

They had all gone to the E.R. where Ravi had been taken for X-rays and she had been checked out as well. Just to be safe.

Ravi's dad had called both of her parents at work to let them know what was going on, but she couldn't remember seeing them until dinnertime.

Even now Ravi still limped when the weather turned bad.

Had he ever asked her for help? What a stupid question. Of course he hadn't asked for her help, that stubborn mule would go out of his way so that he wouldn't ask for her help. Had he ever asked someone else for help, though?

Not her, not their friends, not even their teachers in school.

She put the letter down roughly in her lap, then drummed her fingers frantically against the arms of her chair.

How can you help someone who doesn't ask for help? Even if you know they need help, you can't force someone to accept something they didn't ask for. No matter how badly you want to.

She just suddenly had the strongest urge to call her Mother up and demand an answer. Reading Ravi's letters made her feel like a child again; helpless and in need of Mommy's help.

Perhaps, if her Mother were still alive she would actually call her and have her help. Wasn't it a mothers job to fix her childs' problems?

Her Father? Surely it was a fathers job as well.

But, no. He had changed since Mom had died. She couldn't burden him. She hadn't actually gotten around to telling her Dad she and Ravi had broken up.

"He's changed his telephone number," She muttered to the empty room.

She scanned the letter again, "I changed my telephone number and I'll be moving in a couple weeks."

She glanced at the date, August 23rd, then up at her calendar hanging on the wall. September 6th.

Oh. She was missing a letter. She counted the letters; four opened, one unopened. Five letters. So, today. There had been no letter today. She thought back to getting off work, coming to her door and collecting the mail. She hadn't actually thought of it at the time but it was the first time in a month that a letter from Ravi wasn't mixed in with all her other Wednesday mail.

Why hadn't a letter come this week? Lost in the mail? Or, was this letter, the only one still in an unopened envelope, the end? A final good-bye.

Was she actually ready to really say good-bye?

Still, her hands shook for some reason as she ripped the last envelope open.