invisible

I turn the key in your door and open it as the sunlight illuminates particles of dust in the air. Papers, shoes, discarded clothing, yogurt containers, magazines, and water bottles: the detritus of a life litter the floor. I step in, close the door, and make my way around the studio apartment, methodically turning on every light. I get to the corner where the bed once was. Now, there is only a clean rectangle of carpet, untouched since the day you moved in.
I remember that day, you smiling down at me from the balcony as you hoisted a huge crate up with ropes. It was the hottest day in August, and it had rained that morning. I stood beneath you on the ground, sweating from the effort of attaching the ropes to the crate.
“What the hell is in that crate?” I laughed.
“Shoes,” you yelled down.
“All that work for shoes!”
“I like shoes. They last forever. My feet have stopped growing. If you take care of shoes, they last a lifetime,” you replied.
I am glad the bed has been removed. Your father told me they found you on the bed, fully dressed, wearing makeup, holding a plush turtle and a CD compilation. There was an empty wine bottle on the night stand, next to an empty generic sleeping pill bottle. The words,“unlovable. misunderstood. invisible.” were written in blue ink on your left arm, on the pale skin above your wrist. There was no letter.
Your family asked me to come take anything I wanted, anything I would like to have to remember our life together. I sit down among a pile of your clothing, your favorite pink coat sighing dejectedly under my weight. I feel like a fraud. They have no idea that five days ago, I told you that I could not handle your sadness any more, and that I was exiting your life forever. They have no idea that you gave me back a huge box of things that remind me of our life together. They have no idea that every single thing in this apartment reminds me of our life together, and that the secret will tear at me for an eternity.
I feel a sudden rage at all these things that you thought would make you happy. So many things, scattered across the floor. I stand and start kicking at things: clothes, makeup, books, shoes, jewelry, until I am one with all the stuff, one of the things that just could not make your sadness go away. I scream and scream until my throat hurts and finally I lay down, sobbing, on your pink, vintage sofa-patterned coat, and inhale your scent. I wanted to try harder. I still want to try harder, and I hate it that now I can’t. Across the room, I see the plants that you loved so much, still alive and reaching for the sun, and I think that is ridiculously unfair.
In the past few days, people would see me, and ask how I was. “It’s not your fault,” they would all say. Any response I could have possibly had was lost in the canyon of despair inside me. I opened my mouth but my vocal cords would freeze, and a few perfunctory words would force themselves out like concrete bricks crashing to the floor.
I want to tell you these things; that it’s you that I need to help ease this pain, but it’s too late to say anything that I need to say. I begin to pick up the pieces of a life and put them together, hoping it will somehow start to make sense.