AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Tali
There were at leasta hundred emails from Jude filling my neglected inbox. Scrolling through, they dated back to when we broke up, all the way to six months before the tour started.
I clicked on one he sent between Benny dying and the day he was arrested.
Hey Stripes,
Are you checking your email? I really fucking hope you are. I need you to know I love you forever, baby.
I haven’t heard your voice in a week. These days, all I hear is Seven whispering insidious shit in my ear.
I’m dying here without you. My chest is empty and there’s dust in my veins. I’m a fucking husk. Every time I start thinking about Benny, missing him, hating him for leaving me, you take over my thoughts. Am I going to lose you for good too? Are you going to die from my life?
I can’t lose both of you. I don’t think I’ll survive it.
I’m sober. I haven’t touched anything, not even weed. I need you to know I’m trying, but I can’t do it without you.
This dream is nothing without you. You were always supposed to be part of it.
Write back, even if it’s to tell me to go fuck myself, just so I know you’re breathing.
I love you. This isn’t something that’s gonna be buried, even if you never speak to me again. You’re my fucking life, Tali.
Yours,
Jude
The desperation in every word was palpable. I’d felt the exact same way then too. Clinging, clinging, afraid to let go, but too hurt to keep holding on. Feeling like I’d die without him and being resentful over it.
But reading this email…it didn’t remind me of the man I now knew. He’d come alongway from those days, and so had I. We weren’t those kids, bogged down by grief and pain, too blinded by our own sadness to reach for each other with open hands. Instead we’d clawed at one another until we were both broken and bleeding.
I didn’t need any more reminders of that time. The details were still vivid in my mind. If I closed my eyes, I could see the flashing lights of the police car reflecting off my parents’ front windows and Jude’s resigned eyes watching me sob.
The answers I sought were later. I found an email from seven years ago, with the subject line:So much to atone for, Stripes.I clicked on it and sucked in a sharp breath at how long it was.
Dear Tali Stripes,
How are you? I don’t know if you check this email anymore, but I don’t want to intrude on your life more than I already have by sending a letter to your parents’ house or tracking down your phone number to call you. So, here it is, the first apology of many I plan to give you.
I’m sorry.
I am so damn sorry.
The night I saw you at your work event, I nearly died. If Jin hadn’t been there, I think I would have. If I hadn’t seen your face that night, I’m not sure I would have fought to stay alive. I might have welcomed death.
Don’t freak out. You’re not my reason to live, Stripes. You might be my reason to be a better man, though. Not because I think I have any chance of winning you back, but because I owe it to you to be the man you once saw in me.
I’ve been clean and sober for a year. It took me three months of rehab, a month of living in a sober house, and another two months of outpatient treatment for me to use the words “recovering addict.” Now, I’m another six months past that, and I’m confident enough in my sobriety to begin to atone for the hurt I caused as an addict.
First, I need to tell you a story, because the thing I learned along the way was I wasn’t addicted to coke, but the way it made me feel. The pain it masked. I was in such fucking denial, I didn’t know I was in pain, even when it slapped me in the face.
A long time ago, I told you about the accident that killed our friends on prom night, but there was a lot I never shared. Their names were Hailey, Christina, and Ezra. Christina and Ezra were brother and sister, and she was Ben’s girlfriend. Hailey was mine. We weren’t gonna be together forever, but I loved her, you know? We had that soft kind of relationship where we would have stayed close friends when it ended. And Ezra was the shit. I mean, that kid was the coolest cat I’ve ever known. The dude was going to MIT. He was a brilliant, skateboarding genius.
Christina had another year in high school, but she planned to follow Ben to University of Maryland. Those two…they were the real fucking deal. They were wedding bells and baby carriages all the way.
We were all headed to an after party. Ben was going to ride with Ezra and Christina, and I’d drive Hailey, but she was pissed at me about some stupid disagreement, so she wanted to go with Christina. I convinced Ben to ride with me so I could talk it over with him. But none of us should have been driving. We were all well over the limit. The thing was, we did that all the time. Our parents looked the other way while we got hammered on the weekends—that was the way things were done in their circle.
They died, and Benny and I lived. All because of a stupid argument we would have resolved at the party.
