To the One Who Sent the Text

Creative Nonfiction

I’d like to say the day was cloudy. Overcast and gloomy, the scent of rain on the air. Or I’d say the sun shone so brilliantly that it burned every cloud in the atmosphere. That the day was a glorious reminder of the good in the world. Both would be a lie. I don’t remember the weather of the day.

What I do remember is a traffic jam that doesn’t exist anymore. No longer three converging roads that always caused accidents. No longer an endless stream of cars from every direction, refusing to stop. They replaced it with a traffic circle. Have you seen it? Have you been there? I try to avoid going that way myself.

I stood on the edge of a sidewalk. My toes hung from the edge. My heels almost bounced. I think a car slowed. Almost stopped. I didn’t move and they continued to drive. No one else bothered. I remember waiting until I knew no stop was coming. My heels bounced up, my toes dipped. I saw the wheels and knew they would hit and roll, they’d screech the brakes. The next set of tires would hit before they even had a chance to swerve. Maybe even the next. Then

A buzz in my pocket. A lit screen. A single text asking how I was. Was it a break up? I remember one from around then. A bad day? Merely a friend checking in? I hadn’t said goodbye. I hadn’t written a letter. I hadn’t told anyone I’d left the house. I just stood, precariously balanced on a curb and thought “a text is a good goodbye.”

I told you I was fine. Asked after you. My eyes lifted back to the tires in front of me. Saw the pattern repeat. One. Two. Maybe three before a stop. A knee began to bend and then

Buzz.

“No you’re not. What’s wrong?”

I don’t actually remember collapsing. Just the screeching cries that raked my throat. The tears that finally blurred the never-ending parade of rubber. The audible crack I heard from my sternum, followed by a dam break of feeling. I was consumed. I sat and bawled and I rocked on a curb and no one stopped. Not in their cars. Not passing behind me on the sidewalk. No more texts came through. I don’t think I ever even responded.

I might have sat there for hours. I might have sat there for seconds. When I was done, the dam shored itself back up. Everything sealed away behind the numbness that made the ending of things easier. I turned and walked the 10 minutes home. Just 10 minutes. And no one even knew I was gone. That I could have been gone. That I tried to be gone.

That memory stays hidden from me. I know it happened. I can replay it if I wish. I don’t. So sometimes it replays itself. I think it shows me that it was a moment of notice from someone who couldn’t even see me, that saved me.

I’m sorry to realize this in the end. I never got your answer. How are you?