The brink of day began to retreat behind the mountain and over Boulder Lake. I sat loftily across from Brandy in a swinging chair on my upper deck, and cleaned my smudged glasses for a clearer view of her. We let the silence slice through the barrier between us and she abruptly stood, fixing her gaze on me suddenly.

“I know I haven’t been fair to you. I’ve been a crap friend.” Her eyes locked onto mine, I opened my mouth to retaliate, but the words lost me and I snapped it back shut. A lot of things haven’t been fair to me in this life. Friendships, family, romance — or lack thereof. The one thing I could rely on is the constant crashing current of change. I have rehearsed this conversation in my head a dozen times before; she cries that I move, and I reply with the ripe bitterness that has sat on my heart for months.

You moved away from me months ago. I lost you and no, I didn't get a date or a flight time, hell, I didn't even get a text. You lost the right to be sad about the sand slipping through an hourglass when you’re the one who flipped it.

But the taste of the words didn't sit right on my tongue. 

“You’ve been alright.” I finally replied. It was a fraction of what I felt, and I'm pretty sure I stole it from a book, but I can see the weight of my words sitting on her shoulders. 

“No I haven’t,” her eyes brimmed with tears like an open dam, “And I can’t complain about Donna spending all of her time with her boyfriend when I’ve been doing the same thing. I put him first, and I regret it now. Not for Serena, not Donna, Alyssa, my Mom or Dad. I regret it for you, I regret it, I regret it, and I always will.” 

The best thing I could offer was a bare smile that didn't reach my eyes. I've always wanted her to understand, but now that she does, what good does it do? Time has run thin and all I have is an apology. I watched the last light of the sunset glimmer behind her blonde waves and etch an orange glow on her skin. What good is a life littered with apologies and not experiences? 

I lit the joint again, deeply inhaling until it burned the bottom of my lungs and rushed to my head. Brandy redirected her gaze to the retreating sun behind my house. “I miss how it was. Last year, you know.” She said, reaching for the joint in my hands with the barest touch of her fingers against my skin. 

“We looked forward to this, now. After graduation, after we turn eighteen. But now that we’re here we’ve got no freaking idea what to do with ourselves. I miss wondering who we were going to be. I miss it.” She went on, carrying the conversation more to herself than to me. I tried to reply, but the words caught in my throat, they always did at times like this. When I’m alone in my head, words are coursing through my mind like a rapid river, like I can’t get them to stop violently flowing about everything. In moments where it counts, like this, all I can think about is getting another hit of that dang joint and vanishing into thin air. 

Brandy always knew how to tame her river. She always had the right words and knew how to shut them off when they got too loud. I was a shadow of her, she was the sun. She’d never see it, or understand it, but I know who she is. I’m probably the only one who does. Her passion mistranslated for anger, her beauty mistranslated to imperfection, her love misinterpreted to weakness. She was a storm, and I was a puddle. And I’d carry that knowledge to my dying day.

“I just feel so numb.” Her words cracked at the end, cracking her masquerade that so many fell for. She shook her head and broke out of her spell of sadness as it had never happened, abruptly joking about something insignificant.

That was how I remember us.

We didn’t dare to bring up that evening again; but I think of it everytime I hear a laugh that resembles her, or when someone offers me a lighter. 

Now I'm in Central Park, staring at a woman cradling a child in her arms — blonde waves perfectly imitating those of Brandy’s. I always thought she was perfectly named. The burning liquor that glided down your throat so breezily and made you puke your guts up after the morning light comes. 

It’s been a few years now. 

I don’t hear her laugh as often as it used to, ringing in my head like a dinner bell. Sometimes I thought she wasn’t real at all, that she served as a personification of my own personal karma. Loved once, forgotten infinitely. I clutched the small golden locket attached to my necklace.

“Take this. So you don’t forget me when you’re on some billboard and forget all about this crap-hole.” She grinned, clasping the gold chain around my neck, pulling me into a tight embrace.

“You’re going to do amazing things. Amazing,” Her voice quivered and she hastily pressed a kiss to my temple. “Right. Off with you now.” 

That's all I have left from her.

I heard she married her sweetheart, Finn Lockwood, a year after I left town. Whatever lover I was seeing then had certainly fled when I received the wedding invitation and burned it to ash in the middle of my shabby studio apartment in East Village. I couldn’t bear to keep her letters or little gifts she gave me when we were much closer — physically and soul-wise. But, for some reason, I couldn’t part with the fraction I had left of her that hung around my neck. 

A gust of wind blew my hair out of my face, whispering nothings in my ear as it danced through the parks’ trees. Loving someone is so raw, human. It drained me of every affection I had to offer and yet I would do it all again. I refuse to let my heart go bankrupt before I grow old. So tomorrow I will come to the park again, write another letter, and another — to another woman from a different life, and watch it burn, burn, burn to ash when our time is spent. 

Fin