Page 33 of The Strawberry Field
I didn’t intend to sound cold, but I know I did. And it makes me dislike myself in new and unfamiliar ways.
I hate this version of me.
The one who recoils instead of reaches out.
The one who doesn’t know how to be anything but alone.
I fill a bucket with water at the kitchen sink and add a splash of bleach I found in the laundry room. The gloves I also found there—still sealed in their original packaging—make a satisfying snap when I pull them on. I imagine my mother doing the same thing. I imagine her humming, her hands moving across these same countertops, her rhythm steady and sure.
I miss her with a pain so sharp it steals my breath.
I set the bucket on the floor, dip the rag into the water, and begin to scrub. Hard. I don’t let myself think, just focus on each motion. I start with the sink. I scrub until the porcelain shines, until the chemical sting of bleach clings to the air like penance.
When I’m done, sweat drips down my spine, dampens my forehead. The sink gleams. The counters are clean. The room smells like something has been erased.
If only it were that easy.
If only we could scrub away the layers of what life leaves behind. The buildup of grief, regret, memory. The hardened film of everything we’ve endured, until we’re new again.
Unmarked.
Untouched.
Unruined.
Another memory slips in. The summer I was hopelessly in love with Jake.
I would’ve taken any form of him back then, friendship, silence. I just wanted to be near him. I wonder now if he ever truly noticed me, or if I was just the awkward younger sister of his best friend. I think about the way he always treated me—with patience, gentleness. He never laughed when I asked a serious question, even when the answer was more complicated than I could understand.
Back then, I believed if I was just good enough, smart enough, thoughtful enough, maybe he’d see me. Really see me.
Now, my cheeks burn with shame for how desperate I must have seemed. Jake never made me feel foolish.
And that was what I loved most about him.
I wonder what might have happened if Tommy hadn’t died. If that summer had played out the way we imagined it might.
But there’s no point in wondering.
Tommy’s death rewrote everything.
Any path that might have existed between Jake and me disappeared the moment my brother reached for that cable. After that, we couldn’t look at each other without seeing what was lost. Without asking the unspoken question: Could we have stopped it?
I’ll never stop wondering if I could have. If I hadn’t been so focused on Jake. If I’d looked sooner.
Moved faster.
Noticed.
But I didn’t.
And he died.
The truth is, none of us walk away from life unweathered. The little things, the moments that don’t seem like much at the time, chip away slowly. But it’s the storms we don’t see coming that change us. That wash out the ground beneath our feet and leave us standing on something hollow.
I’ve weathered a lot in my life.
But this storm, the one I’ve been living inside these past few months, it’s the one I can’t get back up from.
