A Goodbye Note

.         In the center of the attic there is a photograph.

         One of the slanted walls has scatterings of poster tape at irregular intervals. There are gaps in the paint on the other two where shelves used to be, and the remaining wall is mostly covered in Sharpie-and-pencil "graffiti" of music lyrics and miscellaneous quotes. Some of these scrawls are my hand.

         There used to be carpet, but they had it ripped out before leaving.

         All the signs of careful and methodical abandonment are here; the colorful wallpaper around the house painted over, the carpets replaced by beige doppelgängers, family pictures packed away and great-aunt Carmen's silver long since shipped to the new house down in Fort Lauderdale.

         The only anachronism is the photograph in the center of the attic.

         When I say "in the center", I don't mean the floor. Taped to a thread, hung from the absolute ceiling of the house is a three by three Polaroid, giving the sensation that if you were to tug on it, the entire spine of the roof would come crashing down on you and all the things you see in the once-bedroom-turned-attic-turned-nuclear-fallout of the orphaned home.

         This is where it happened.

         I remember holding myself up on my elbows with our faces so close I could tell where he was by the warmth in the dark; stroking the tender skin at the small of his back with the fleeting guilt that, perhaps, I was seducing him; teasing his mouth open with my lips to show him how to breathe in time with me. I remember waking up to find his arm still holding my waist; not in possession, but as if holding a fragile lifeline.

         Remember the realization he'd lied to everyone else so much and so long, he'd started to believe himself.

         I remember the remark that made me run the whole four blocks to the house I'd avoided passing for half a year to find it assaulted: gutted a scant few hours before I reached it.

         I remember slowly climbing up the stairs, to the room I was never allowed to enter, the familiar empty punch to my stomach as I saw the door open like a rape victim's skirts, the attic laid bare but for a photograph.

         There are no words written on it; no goodbye note. There is only a picture; a lonely snapshot we took that glorious morning. Me kissing the corner of his mouth, the curl of a smile at the shore of my lips. His eyes piercing me through, six months later.

         The only picture he had kept, because we couldn't risk anyone ever finding us out.



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