Thaw me up

You can’t thaw me down to that place you live. You can’t crack me open and split me apart. You won’t have what you think is left of me. I am me. And you are…

Nothing.

I live here. Floating in the rimy, forbidding—-

—-frozen prison I now know as my home.

You took me away. Yo-you took me away from him.

My teeth are chattering. My bones are rumbling and my tongue feels like a hard stone in my mouth.

I try to break—-

Out.

I —I can’t.

And I hear his terribly romantic and (funnily bad)voice singing—

🎶 it onnnly takesss a momenttt 🎼

I can’t remember his name.

I only remember

You.

You.(your hard, glassy stare and cold laugh)

You called me (from birth through after death)ugly-stupid-worthless-arrogant-foolish—and that it

Was

my fault you hated me. You chose to be a mother. You didn’t choose me.

I heard a crackle from the frozen sheet above me.

A glistening, hot green light tore through the cracklings of glass-like water—-tore through me. It told me that I could send a message. But I couldn’t remember his name. Just yours.

But, like just you, I’m

I’m in it for the long thaw—I mean

Long haul.

I tried to remember his name by remembering his words.

“He couldn’t stop talking about where they go—-you know, the birds or some shit—-when the pond freezes over. That cab driver didn’t care. He’d rather listen to—what’s something dumb?” He’d laugh. I laughed too—

“Uh… you!” I teased and he rolled his eyes. “What’s the book called? The last time I even picked up a damn book was high school! And that was to look like I was reading!” I answered, and he’d look at me with the most adorkable look. Brown eyes wide. Lips pursed. Omg. I wanted to kis—-

“Trouble-maker!”

“My moms won’t like it. I’ll get in so much troubl-” I started to say. He leaned in and kissed my cheek.

That was when I wrapped my arms around him—-

And I kissed him like it was my last moment on earth.

The memories faded from me—-and now all I feel is the cold. The coldest—most beautiful state of nothing—-without oxygen. Without dreams.

The strange, green light pierces me again.

My mo—-

My mother. That’s who you are.

The green light helped me see you again.

Names are only part of my memory—-but faces, I can’t seem to find them in my heart anymore. The cold has wiped them out. Like a eraser to a chalk board.

And a sledge hammer to a wall. The other walls in my mind are shadows and half pictures only. The rest of my house is made up of fractured, screaming darkness.

I started to remember everything again. Even his name.

“You trouble-maker!” My mother screamed at me, throwing the book at me. It hits my head and falls to the floor so I pick it up, ignoring the sting of pain on my forehead. Then, I see it as I open the back of the book.

It’s that damned book he loved so much—-and begged me to read(he gave it to me)Catcher in the Rye.

He made me fall in love with that damned book, too.

“What the hell is this?! A love letter? From that stupid NICK friend!!”

I opened the book. My eyes widened. I had read his book(I know it wasn’t really his book—he had just talked about it so much, I loved to think of the book that way), just had not seen the handwritten note!

And…Yes. There it was. I didn’t even see it. I was so stupid. She was right. I was stupid.

Johnny, I fell in love with you the day I saw you and I was so afraid to tell you. When we kissed I knew it was meant to be but we aren’t talk

The book was ripped by my mother and I couldn’t read the rest.

“You can’t choose to be this way! You can’t!” She was crying and screaming and knocking my stuff everywhere.

Next thing I knew—-I was lying on the floor.

You can’t thaw me down to that place you live. You can’t crack me open and split me apart. You won’t have what you think is left of me. I am me. And you are…

Nothing.

You may think you have won, but you didn’t. You may think you erased me. You erased me plenty enough before you killed me. Before you stuffed me in your car and drove me in the frozen pond. You erased me with every single icy look, every single embrace you denied me, every single word you could’ve said to fix my broken heart—-you erased me plenty good. Way before.

And that will haunt you more than my death.

But the green light doesn’t want me to send you a message.

It’s for him.

The dark chasm that has held me down for so long—-burying me and drowning my tears and my heart—-has now lifted me with the help of the green energy lights.

The snow slices red.

Forming the sign for infinity.

I see the symbol on the snow next to the pond. And I remember the feeling. I finally, truly remember his name. It’s Nick.

Nick.

Always reading, Nick.(even at the beach on vacation, you nerd!)

Nick was the absolute love of my life.

He had that infinity sign tattooed on his wrist. So did I.

A strong wind picked up—-and blew the snowy red sign away. I was confused, but I realized the sign wasn’t for Nick,

It was for me.

Then, the green lights send the real sign.

The glowing green lights spread to the skies above the now broken apart frozen pond—-sending everyone to see it.

Cracked open.

I evaporate, ascend and levitate

And unbroken, untethered and green—-

I float into the spaces between the sun and the moon and stars hearing that song Nick sang to me so long ago.

Warm.

(don’t worry, they do find someplace to go when it’s cold, Nick. they do. Those damned birds or ducks or geese or whatever Holden was worried about—they always find a better, warmer place when the pond freezes over. I did too.)