Page 120 - KCN 2020

Have everything packed – take what you need, and
Box of Grief
my best friend still be alive and healthy?
leave what you don’t behind.
sheets stripped; the shelves now empty and naked in the corner. be the one moving away right now to go to college. I’m a
My best friend died because of me. I should not
The whole room is bare. Each wall barren; the bed-
thief. A fraud.
A room that once held so much now holds nothing.
A coward because I cannot move on, because I
Amy Cheong Zhaoyi Except for this box in front of me. It’s the last thing I cannot accept it. It’s been more than a year now – and I am
need to go through before the car leaves, and I don’t think I want still wishing it were her moving miles away to her dream
to. school. Not me – it never was supposed to be me.
Nevertheless, I need to accept it. My eyes ache – I have cried them so bloodshot
and red and sore – but when I open them, I see it lying
Trembling, my fingers pry off the lid of the box, then beside my feet. The envelope, my name written on the
turn it over to dump its contents onto the empty desk in the front with her intricate cursive handwriting.
room. I see the photograph first, framed, but its glass cracked.
I see myself, my chubby face grinning wide, braces showing. It was her last gift to me – my birthday present.
I never dared to open it. I do not deserve the love that
Then I see my best friend smiling as wide as I was, she put into it. However, the moment that I lay my gaze
eyes sparkling with their usual mischievous glint. She was so upon it, the screaming stops. Everything goes silent – and
beautiful. Kind. Smart – she knew exactly which top-notch uni- the voice urges me to open the envelope.
versity she was going to apply to. She was so loved: captain of
the track team, student body president, valedictorian. She had So I do. Carefully, I peel off the seal, opening it
everything within her reach, all she had to do was grab it. to reveal a birthday card and what appears to be a plane
ticket. The inside of the card reads, still in her handwrit-
Something else catches my eye – yellowing paper, look- ing: “All I want is for you to follow your dreams.” On the
ing crisp and old, each corner dog-eared. I know what it is – and expired plane ticket, the destination shows that the plane
I do not think I am ready to face it. A little voice in me nags, we was heading to the nearest airport to her dream school –
need to move on, face the truth. the same airport I am leaving for.
The words on it seem to have faded but how could I She had always known that it was my dream
forget this? Words stare at me. Each letter glaring at me, shout- school, too.
ing silently and viciously.
I am not a thief. I am not a fraud. Her dreams – they
Murderer. Thief. Fraud. were mine, too.
Even my best attempts at ignoring it were to no avail. And, to prove, mostly to myself, that I am not
a coward – I start packing everything into the box. I put
MURDER. THIEF. FRAUD. COWARD! the trophies we had won, the expired plane ticket and the
card, and lastly, the photograph all into the box it came
A scream escapes me. Tears run down my face. from.
Coward. Coward. Coward! I snatch the paper off the desk and
scream – so hard and raw that my voice goes hoarse. “Are you ready to go?” My mother asks, peeking
into my room. I nod. She points to the box in my lap. “Are
Certificate of Death. My tears wet the edges of the you keeping that or throwing it away?”
death certificate of my best friend, the one her mother had sent
to me so angrily as she said, “You killed my daughter!” I can I stare down at it for a moment before I say,
still recall how broken she looked. “It’s not worth keeping, anyway.” My mother nods know-
ingly. After we say our silent goodbyes to the room, my
All because of me. mother pushes my wheelchair out of the room.
Had I not been drunk that night – my birthday celebra- We leave every bad memory behind.
tion – would we still have gotten into the car accident? Would
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