It’s strange how you think you know someone, but then they do something so incredibly bizarre, leaving you stunned, pondering whether you ever knew them at all. That’s how I feel about India Lovette. We were as close as two girls could be: going to each other’s houses on a nearly daily basis, telling each other exactly how we were feeling right when we were feeling it, sharing secrets we thought we’d never let another soul on earth now about. But clearly I didn’t know her at all, because she ran away the night of her sixteenth birthday. All she left behind was a brief note. I’m sorry everyone, but I’ve had enough and I’m leaving. You don’t understand the hell I’ve been put through and I can’t stay here anymore. Don’t come after me, you won’t find me; I’m going to make sure of that. Goodbye, India. Her parents sent out searches on a daily basis; they tried her cell every few minutes, hoping that eventually she’s give in and pick up; they used every system of trying to track her down that existed, but she was gone. Years passed. I never knew why. I knew no more than the people that didn’t know anything about India except her name. And that hurt, because that meant I was no more important than any of them, and wasn’t worthy enough to know anything more.
I tried to move on, to live my life without her, but it was impossible to go on without her by my side. Going to the mall was never the same without her criticism of my love for girly stores and strong perfumes. Checking out the boys at the pool was never the same without her little groan of pleasure in my ear when a boy had rock-hard abs. Football games were never the same without India marching up to people we didn’t know and meeting new friends. School was never the same without India texting me during second period, reminding me not to look at Mr. Wilson’s nose hair. Saturday nights were never the same without her throwing popcorn at me while we watched scary movies and snuck out to parties. Talking about my feelings was never the same without her because without India, nobody understood. I lost myself without India there. Without her, there was no one to push me outside of my comfort zone. Without her, I became once again, the lonely wallflower. Nothing was the same without India Lovette there.
I grieved over India’s disappearance for a long while, but then the grief turned to anger and hatred towards her for abandoning me when I never did a single thing to wrong her. I hated her for lying to me about everything she ever felt. I hated her for not explaining to me why she had to leave. I hated her for leaving me alone in the world, because she was the only person whom I felt connected to. I hated her for making me feel like I was a terrible person, causing her to run away when I didn’t do anything. I hated her for not inviting me to run away with her; I would’ve loved to run away from everything with her by my side. And above all I hated India Lovette because I loved her and she was gone.
It’s been two and a half years since her disappearance. Everything has changed in her absence: I surround myself with girly girls who never do anything risky, I hardly ever go out, and I have stopped sharing my deepest feelings with anyone, not even my boyfriend, Silas, who is India’s ex that she broke up with by running away. It seems like a b**** move, stealing her boyfriend, but she obviously didn’t care about him since she ran away from him, just like she didn’t care about me. We were in the same boat, affected in the same way by her running away. We were the only people who understood each other. We didn’t mean to fall in love, but it happened, and in the depression I developed from her running away, he was the only happiness in my life. And after all the sadness and anger India caused me by running away, I felt I deserved the happiness Silas brought me. After so much hurt and grief, to allow oneself happiness is one of the most gratifying feelings in the world.
Tomorrow was graduation day. The day I’ve spent four years preparing for, actually the day I’ve spent my whole life preparing for, it was finally here. Growing up has been the big goal of life since I was born. To be an adult has been the mission since I could walk, and at long last, it was here, right in front of my face. Adulthood was a day away from me and I could hardly believe it. I felt as though my entire life has gone by far too quickly and I was barely given any time at all to enjoy my childhood. My life seemed to be divided by three sections: the first part full of loneliness and suffering, the second full of excitement and joy, and the third consisting primarily of loss and abandonment. Each one had a lengthy reign, and each one changed me as a person completely.
Throughout my entire life, I had to deal with watching my parents get into very loud and very violent fights on a fairly regular basis. This started when I was around five or six and continued until seventh grade when they got a divorce. Watching the two people I loved more than anything fighting over the dumbest things hurt in that way where the only way to make yourself feel better is to ignore it, live in your own world, block it out, and move on from it. This fighting forced me to develop emotional strength of someone much older than the kindergartner that I was at the time. In addition to the hardships I faced at home, I dealt with a looming sense of loneliness wherever I was. I didn’t have any friends at school, only the teachers seemed to like me. I hated going to swim team because there were two girls that always made fun of how skinny I was, so I made up excuses for not going. My youth group for church was a safe place at first until my father told me about how God didn’t care about our family, that’s why it was so messed up, and so I lost my faith in addition to everything else in my life.
My life didn’t turn around until seventh grade. At the beginning of that school year, my parents got a divorce, which hurt a lot at first, but after a few months I realized how much safer my home life was without them fighting all the time. And though this helped immensely, my life didn’t finish its complete 180 until the second semester began and India Lovette moved to Bakerfield, Pennsylvania. Meeting India was the one thing that started giving purpose and happiness to my life. She was my first best friend, and she was the best best friend. The next few years with her in my life brought me more happiness than I could have ever imagined experiencing. I was at the peak of my character, myself as a person, and most importantly, my life. I was high off of our friendship, and I felt like I was never coming down. But then, like everything good in life, it had to come to an end. India ran away, and I felt the overwhelming loss of her in my life. Her absence changed me, and I haven’t yet decided for better or for worse. It made me stronger, but it also hurt me, in a way that can never be repaired. It was the same kind of hurt I felt when I was younger and watched my parents fighting. The pain never goes away. Overtime, you come to find a sense of acceptance of the pain and you get used to it, making it hurt a little less, but the emotional toll it left on you will always remain. The scars in your soul never disappear completely; they can only fade, just like scars on your body.
It was as if I was a flower. At first I was a small little seedling, closed up, unwelcoming and unbeautiful. For the longest time I stayed like that, but then sunshine came to me in the form of India Lovette, and I opened up to let myself see the light. I blossomed when I had India there. She showed me how much better life was when you opened up a little bit, and let yourself see the good in the world. I became the most beautiful blossom when I had India around. But when my sunshine disappeared, it was cold and dark once again. I closed myself off to the world; it was as if winter had come to my life. I had gone from a beautiful flower to a shriveled up, dying bud. But, out of nowhere, then Silas showed up and seemed to be the water, giving me life. He showed me that even though life was hard without the sunshine there, it was still possible to make it through. He helped me bloom a little bit again. While I didn’t open up like I did when India was in my life, he did help me share some of my feelings. The impact losing the sunshine had on me kept me from ever opening up to blossom the same way again, but Silas was able to assist me in making my life bearable even with the loss of the sunshine. He held my hand and we went through the dark together, giving each other our own little light. While the sun may have been gone, we were still able to survive.
I know that I never would have opened up to Silas if I hadn’t known for a fact that he felt the exact same way that I did. I had a hard time trusting people that would say “I’m so sorry, that must be hard, but I’m here for you.” I felt that if people didn’t understand where I was coming from, then they wouldn’t understand how I really feel, and they just wouldn’t get it. I didn’t want people around me that would pretend to understand me. I wanted people who were real. Silas was as real as can be. We cried together over India being gone. We both could talk about how much it hurt that she left us. We understood how the other felt about the whole ordeal because we knew that we were impacted in the same way. At the beginning, we were each other’s best friends, each other’s shoulder to cry on, and each other’s place to let out all of our emotions. But at some point, the strong friendship and emotional connection turned into love. The deep talks turned into flirting, the crying turned into kissing, and the sadness turned into a hatred of her. It was this hatred that kept us from feeling guilty about being together. She ran away; she obviously didn’t care about us. So why should we worry about moving on from our grief alone when we could be together and finally be happy again?
India’s running away ended up being the thing that forced me to be incredibly mature so young. To deal with the loss of the only person in the world that you trust is something that you can’t handle through the eyes of a typical fifteen year old. This applied to Silas as well. Our maturity led us to keep to ourselves because we couldn’t handle the ignorance and the lack of understanding that our peers possessed. We took on the world together, and I think we did a damn good job. We didn’t need anyone else. Having each other was enough. And that’s what love is: needing no one else, because nothing could ever measure up to the bond we shared.
In preparation for graduation tomorrow, I had to write my valedictorian speech. Needless to say, it caused a lot of internal debate. For the longest time, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to give the typical inspiration spiel or if I wanted to be real. The me before I met India would never have even considered taking the risk of showing her true colors. The me when India was in my life would have jumped at the chance to show what it was like to be real, and would have loved to jump out of her shell. But neither of those girls were the person I was now. This new Aspen had been hurt too many times to bare her soul without hesitation. But she also knew that keeping to herself and putting on a fake identity only caused self-disgust and regrets. I had written both speeches, knowing that I wouldn’t have been able to make a decision until right at that moment up there at the podium, with the eyes of all the students in the class of 2014 and their parents on me. I had a feeling that no matter how much I would want to let it all out in front of everyone, and tell my story, at the last second I would chicken out and use my unoriginal speech about “how far we’ve come in the past four years,” and “even though we’re parting ways and friendships may fade, the memories we’ve made will always stay.”
Silas was the one who gave me the idea of telling my story to everyone. He said he thought everyone should know how I dealt with so much and was still able to keep my s*** together enough to be named valedictorian. It was a very tempting offer, even though I was never the type to toot my own horn. The idea of revealing some realism in a community of fake people was infectious. It got into my head, and so I wrote a speech in which everything was revealed. Whether or not I was actually going to read it aloud was still to be determined. That evening before graduation, after I finally finished the two final drafts of my speeches, I phoned Silas, demanding he come over and read them both. The fact that it was 1:30 in the morning had escaped me since I had been so focused on perfecting the papers, and he was obviously irritated with my forgetfulness.
“Aspen? The f*** are you doing? It’s one in the morning.”
“S***, it is?” I exclaimed, shooting to sit up straight in bed, my eyes darting to glance at the clock. It was indeed, 1:34 a.m. I winced, bracing myself for the expected lecture and possible yelling that was about to come from my boyfriend.
It didn’t come. Instead he sighed, “Yes, it is. And while I am bothered that you decided to call me this late, I’m assuming it’s important. What do you need?” I felt guilty that the request I was about to present to him was so petty and I interrupted his sleep on the night before such an important day.
“Nevermind, it’s really stupid. I didn’t realize it was so late—if I had, there was no way I would’ve woken you up, I’m really sor-” My anxious and rushed apology was cut off by Silas chuckling.
“You can’t wake me up and then decide not to tell me!” He laughed, and even though I couldn’t see him, I knew that he was smiling that ‘Silas Taylor’ smile, his dimples popping out and his eyes sparkling.
Relieved he wasn’t too upset, I responded, “I just wanted you to come over and read the final copies of my speeches; I know it’s really stupid. I just could’ve sworn it wasn’t even ten o’clock yet.”
“Aspen,” Silas’s tone was dead serious.
“Yeah?”
“You’re fucking adorable, and I’d love to come over and read your speeches, but it’s really late, and I think I can hold on until you give it tomorrow. I mean unless you really want me to come over, I think it can wait,” This was his way of telling me, ‘okay, this was a waste of time, but I love you anyway’ in a nice way. I smiled at his effort to be the sweetest boyfriend in the world, even at ungodly hours.
“No, it can wait. Goodnight, Silas.”
“Goodnight, beautiful,” he whispered before hanging up.
I was far too alert to get to sleep immediately, my mind filled with thoughts of the coming day. There were so many things about tomorrow that I was nervous about. The speech, for one was causing all kinds of stomach churning. But not only that, it was the first time that my mother and father would be forced to be in the same vicinity for more than an hour or two since they divorced six years ago. That alone was enough for me to need a double dose of my anxiety medication. Then, after we went out to our “family luncheon” I was off to my “friend’s” house to get ready for the graduation party being thrown by Hunter Malcom, the rich, popular boy that the entire school had been obsessed with since sixth grade. I hadn’t been to a big blowout party since India had run away. That kind of social situation was one I only ever enjoyed when India was by my side. However, it was one Silas had always loved, and he had given up so much for me in our relationship, so I knew I had to give him one night to be a boy that didn’t get home until dawn, drink until he passes out, and skinny dip in a $500,000 pool.
All of the stress about tomorrow had been building up for years. I had ignored the weight the pressure and anxiety had put on me, but suddenly it seemed to all pile up to a point where I couldn’t ignore it anymore because it was right in front of my face. Graduation Day was here. In a little less than twelve hours, I would no longer be a high school student. This thought scared me more than I ever thought it would. It made me nauseous to think about how college was a mere summer away. Three months left of being a carefree teenager seemed like a long time, but summer had always passed far too quickly. It didn’t take a detective to deduce that this coming summer wasn’t going to be any different. Silas and I had so many plans for our final summer as children: we were going to take a road trip all over America, stopping at the best beaches for me, and amusement parks for him. We were going to an indie movie festival, a few concerts, and then at the end of August, we were going to spend a week in Hawaii together. It was sure to be a wonderful distraction from the impending adulthood, but it was also sure to pass in an instant.
I was going to go to Princeton in the fall to major in psychology, and Silas was headed to Penn State on a football scholarship. We were a little over three hours away from each other, so we could visit each other every other weekend or so. Even so, the distance seemed too far, especially considering how in high school, we’d see each other for hours after school almost every day. The sudden shift from seeing him nonstop to barely getting to be with him at all was sure to hurt immensely. It even hurt to picture going back to the antisocial girl who spent her free time locked up in her bedroom with only books and the internet for company.
It was never that I was bad at making friends; no, people liked me well enough, and I probably could be a social butterfly if I wanted to. The thing was: I didn’t want to. I had trouble connecting to people and trusting them. It’s easier to be alone; then you know nobody can hurt you because the only person you have is yourself. My entire life made it so trusting people and letting them in was so difficult. To reveal everything about myself, giving someone access to see my worst flaws, insecurities, and secrets…that was something I could never do all too often. Someone had to prove I could trust them for me to even consider tearing down the walls I’ve built so high. But once I saw how the world looked through more open eyes, I never wanted to go back. India’s abandonment did force me back into my own personal exile for a while, but I was quickly put back into the social atmosphere with Silas. While nothing could ever truly be as great as life with India, life with Silas came pretty close. Being social was a distraction from all the emotions thinking alone in your room brought up. A distraction from all of the pain I’ve gone through was precisely what I needed. Time spent with other people for the sheer purpose of having fun and enjoying myself was far better than I thought it would be. I was afraid to return to my state of being withdrawn from the world and I feared college would be the perfect trigger to lead me down that road.
After a while of tossing, turning, and thinking, I threw the covers off and wandered to my desk. On it were papers strewn all about. The top pages were the speeches I had prepared for the coming day, full of scratches and notes that I included to perfect them. Each word was chosen specifically to give the precise impact I wished to have on the audience. One would make them cheer; the other would most likely cause tears. The decision still seemed impossible of which one would be the one I felt was right. Underneath the stapled papers were old homework assignments, birthday cards from elementary school, and at the very bottom was the letter I had drafted to India two years ago, the one I would never get to deliver. I opened the envelope that had teardrops smudging the pen ink I had used to write her name on it. My stomach dropped twenty feet and I slowly lifted the envelope and looked at it for a good five minutes before I gained the courage to open it with shaky hands.
I swallowed hard and managed to get the enveloped opened within a somewhat timely fashion. I removed the notebook paper and unfolded it before sitting on the stiff wooden chair and letting myself get lost in the words I wished that India could somehow see one day.
Dear India,
Well for starters, I hate you. You’re a b**** and a coward. You are fucking selfish and a liar. You abandoned me and have ruined the chances of me ever opening up to anyone else. You’ve proved that everyone will hurt me if I give them my trust. I can’t trust anybody else ever again because of the way you’ve hurt me. I will never forgive you for this.
That being said, I miss you. I miss you more than I’ve ever missed anyone or anything in my entire life. You meant…no you mean the world to me. You are literally the only person I’ve shared anything remotely personal with. You are the one soul in the universe that knows about how my parents’ fights affected me—really you’re the only person who knows any of my secrets. You are the only person I’ve ever loved. No not like that. I’m straighter than a white girl’s hair. But my parents…I always wanted to love them but it was always difficult for me to open my heart up to them. You of all people know that. With you, opening up was easy, and even a good thing. You are the person that turned my life around and I never really told you that. I just sort of hoped you would somehow know. It’s pretty embarrassing to actually admit. But you are. I don’t think I can ever really love again if you’re not there. Nevertheless, thank you for giving me the chance to do so, if only once.
Life without you seems impossible. I really wish that it was the same way for you, but I understand if it’s not. More than anything else in the world, I wish I could see you in person just one more time, get one more hug. Because if I had known that would be my last chance to ever see you, I would’ve squeezed you so much tighter.
You are now, and will always be my best friend,
Aspen
I reread it about five times before finally placing the piece of notebook paper back onto the table. Maybe the letter could’ve been written better, but it stated exactly how I felt. The longing I had felt at the time for her to be able to read this letter returned, stronger than ever. I didn’t know if she ever really even thought about me after running away from here, but I still wanted her to somehow know the effect she had on me, and how much she meant to me. When the longing subsided, it was replaced with the sadness that she was gone; she’d never read it. I felt the tears pool into my eyes. Tomorrow was the day India and I had planned to get away to Ocean City together and sneak into clubs. We had planned it the first time we had a sleepover in which I vented to her about my life, well my life beneath the surface. How had I lived two years without her by my side?
For about a minute, I sat there reminiscing over all of the memories—good and bad—that the letter had stirred inside of me. India was the only person who had made me feel so much. The best and worst times of my life were all because of India Lovette. Suddenly, I jerked myself out of that emotional head space and climbed into bed, instantly so mentally and emotionally tired from investing thoughts into India. She tired me out, when she was with me, physically, and since she’s been gone, mentally. It only took a few minutes to fall asleep due to the sudden exhaustion, and even though it was the last thing I wanted to do, I dreamed of good times of the past with India.