(Click. The unkempt girl holds a phone to her face. It shakes as she walks, the words are addressed to someone in a hurried manner.)
Hi. Sorry this won’t be as clean as what you wrote, I don’t know how to script things or think straight the way you do. I’ve been all messed up lately, my brain I mean but also… you can see what my hair’s been like- hah. Uh, so. Let me… confess to this thing one more time, cuz I figure… I owe you to let you know. Where I’ve gone… after I left.
So that night, I ran into a camp of homeless people and this guy next to me started rambling about his collection of illegal fireworks at some point and I’m not sure why, the conversation never started, he just appeared, but I learned his name was David and that made me feel less nervous. He said fireworks were awesome and I had never really felt that way cuz they were a little too loud for my brain but tonight, specifically, I believed him for some reason. I guess it was cuz he seemed happy to have someone to talk to.
We wandered together through a real maze of houses, I always got lost in places so… simple. I think it was a saturday night because some of the doors were open with people filtering in and out, gates swinging open and closed. As we kept moving through the street lights, I remember feeling like a little kid being led around by mom at the amusement park… It’d been a while since I met… anybody at all. I asked him where we were going and he told me he knew a place, up at an empty lot. It used to be a basketball court but some construction crew had come in and torn half of it up to build more houses, then gave up for some reason, leaving a single net standing they didn’t give a shit about anymore, tangled up net torn lose and dangling, just dangling alone, pulled along by a warmth in the breeze that only comes around on warm summer nights when you’re about to do something stupid. We sat next to each other for a second before he lit anything, and smoked something, which could’ve had something really bad for me in it now that I think about it, but he said it was just weed. I told him my sister was probably looking for me, and that we should hurry up, I was worried about you, I know that’s hard to believe.
I wanted to do it so you could see, too, from somewhere else in the city, like a beacon that would tell you I was alright without me having to stay, and keep worrying about hurting you.
When the fuze burnt up, suddenly we both exploded and went somewhere else. Somewhere- where you can trust strangers not to hurt you and there are happy moments. People that are beautiful, forever, in your mind. You came by soon after, but I was already gone. I felt bad leaving the camera there, and david too, alone with the basketball hoop. I hope… I hope he has a couch to crash on with friends he can talk to and more than one good memory of that lot. I hope he didn’t cry himself to sleep that night wishing he wasn’t already looking back on all of it. I’m sorry Gloria, that I… all the times I felt my chest- my chest burning me up from the inside out and looked away so I could cry without you seeing, and for being all fucked up, and being mean to you sometimes, and being dismissive about the advice you gave me all the time, and everything. Maybe next time we see each other, will you stay up by the fire with- with… fuck. You’re my sister, I promise I love you, I promise. I’m not mad, I promise. I promise, I love you. I promise… I remember.
(Click.)
Cover.