Her screams pierced through the night while I was slowly made my way towards her. From time, there would be pauses of silence, only to hear a fragile, shuddering gasp in a distance–perhaps swallowing another sob–before her anguished cries continued once again. The grass, whom stretched in an endless field of eternal nothingness, enveloped my ankles as they dragged me down, begging for me to not take the next step. And yet I trudged through, lifelessly drawn to her wails of bittersweet taste. Within the streams of moonlight, the spotlight made her seem like a goddess who fell form heaven, where her silhouette traced her flailing arms, thrashing body, and outstretched hands, groping for what one could of mistakened for the stars.
As I got closer, I saw that her left foot had already disappeared. Her right foot was dissolving into shimmering particles of dust, each capturing the iridescent rays of the lunar orb as they weightlessly drifted upward. Along the quiet breeze, they swirled in a delicate slow motion against one another in a hypnotic dance, forming a beacon of a galaxy that even the night seemed to hold its breath. It was almost beautiful.
Once I arrived, I finally lowered myself to sit on my heels and rested my hands on my knees. Her screams numbed against the wind despite still deafening, but gradually each began weakening before the previous, eventually softening to a muffled cry. Her body gave up on struggling, and instead laid flat atop the emerald blades, arms by her side. It wasn’t until after a long time that amidst her chokes, I noticed her lips forming a soft, trembling, murmur.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Shhh, I soothe her.
Everything is going to be okay.
Her eyes were fixated straight up at the sky, swollen red, unblinking. They held a haunting emptiness, telling me she wasn’t truly looking at the stars, her galaxy, or registering where she even was. She gazed beyond, far away where I couldn’t reach her anymore. She whispered, more to herself, “Don’t go…please, don’t go…I can’t go… please, why are you hurting yourself like this?”
I lazily give her a smile even though she wasn’t looking at me.
You won’t be hurt anymore.
She shook her head and closed her eyes, but they suddenly shot open and blazed straight through me. “You idiot!”, she screams. Tears welled up her eyes. “Don’t you get it? If I’m gone, then you’ll be gone too. Your soul, your dreams, everything single goddamn thing you’ve ever lived for yourself. You’ll become as useless as a piece of clay for people to mold and shape however they want.”
I remembered her eyes used to be so wild, so bright. Brown I think, was the color. The exact same as mine, except that her brown didn’t need sunlight to glow. It didn’t need anyone to bring out the its ferocity. She was an animal: free.
They never loved me, for my dreams, I gritted.
“But I did.” Her voice cracks. “We did.”
I stayed silent, feeling the vines of regret creep all over me. I realized my knuckles had turned white as I was gripping tightly to my knees, and as I attempted to relax them they were shaking.
“We could’ve been so happy.”
The word “happy” twists in my heart. The emotion that I’ve wanted so long to feel. The emotion that I thought I felt during each of my parents “We’re so proud” and “I love you”, an emotion imbued with so much, too much love that I thought I deserved. And even though that happiness felt so off, I thought that’s what made it beautiful: it was the happiness others had for you, not for yourself. It was their smile that made you think, Wow, I did that.
But they didn’t love me. They loved her. They loved the girl who always came home with soaring 100’s, the girl who’d beat herself up if it was anything less, the girl who was caught in an obsessive cycle to be perfect, perfect, perfect, to make her parents’ immigration worth it, to be the American dream, to make them proud.
And so it was her fault she was in the situation she is now. Torn between her true self and who she “should” become. It was too late. Time ran out. If only she had realized this sooner, if she weren’t in such a trance of the illusion that this would be her identity, maybe her parents would’ve accepted her.
Maybe she would’ve accepted herself.
But she was going to fix it. She was going to end it once and for all. Because if they didn’t accept who she was going to be, if she would feel heartbroken if she gave up everything she had started, then what was the point living this fantasy?
The dust had reached her neck.
I’m sorry.
No tears. Don’t look back.
She leans in and kisses her on the forehead.
Thus with a kiss I die.
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