Chapter 42 Goodbye
Goodbye
Dear Marín,
Letter greetings are so weird, right? Or maybe we’re the weird ones because we’ve gotten out of the habit of writing them. Whatever it is, “dear Marín” is much more than a formula because, well, you’re Marín and you’re dear to me. Very. Always. Although, I guess you already know that.
I realized that I was in love with you when I was standing next to a window in the apartment, drinking a Coke.
You don’t know how beautiful sunset makes you, Marín.
I almost died of love and pain. You say that I’m the ultimate girl, and I’ll say that you’re the kind of guy that gets tattooed on your guts.
Nobody will see it, but I’ll always carry you inside me, even though I guess you’re leaving a hole so that I can love someone in the future the way that I love you today.
You’re even great at that—you define what love means; you’re the pinnacle, the landmark, the record of loving.
I’m going to stop writing this stuff. I don’t want this goodbye to leave me feeling like a fucking nutjob.
As you’ll see, I left the bedroom completely empty, except for the books on the nightstand.
They’re for Gema. She’s always asking me for book recommendations, and since I don’t plan on seeing her for a while, I left enough for her to have fun stuff to read for the next six months.
Don’t tell her that. You don’t need to tell her everything.
She’s very mature, but she’s still really young, and we don’t want her to know that love is sometimes brutal, it hurts, and it can be very cowardly.
Thank you in spite of everything. Thank you for that night in November when we met, for being so open to the world, for being so receptive, for hooking me with one single look in Via Láctea bar.
You fucked up my life a little because I love that place and now I’ll never be able to go back there without thinking of you.
Actually, you’ve drawn a whole map of Madrid where every corner is a memory.
It’s going to be hard to make this city my own again so it can stop being ours.
Plaza Espana and that time I gave you a seashell I was carrying in my pocket.
Atocha station, where for a while it seemed like our strolls always ended up.
Every stupid cobblestone in Malasana, which is a step, a jump, your boots, mine, a puddle full of our toasts, and my tears now that I have to say goodbye to all of that. Not see you later. Goodbye.
Thank you for this house. For the cactus, the “wall of fame,” the peeled carrots you would leave in little baggies in the fridge so I would eat something with vitamins.
Thank you for the Sundays when we didn’t let the cold in, for the dusty-pink sunshine of summer evenings and the gray echoes of winter sunrises.
Thank you for your bare feet padding across the hardwood floors and the promises that the noise of the water running in the shower brought to me in bed every morning.
You probably won’t understand me, but at this point I think it’s pretty obvious that this note is more for me than for you.
I’ve said goodbye to the whole house already, so I won’t need to come back.
The pain will last a long time, I’m sure.
I love this apartment, but as I walked around it a few minutes ago, I realized that I’d like any place where you were.
The new couch didn’t turn it into a home or the wallpaper in the hallway (which, by the way, didn’t actually look that great in the light—I never told you because you seemed so excited), the cookbooks next to the stove, that wilted plant in the kitchen window, or those super-bright curtains you insisted would give the living room some personality.
It wasn’t the old furniture that time converted into being trendy, either, or the book or the lamps or that super-weird poster with the physiological diagram of a cat that you found at your grandparents’ house and hung in the living room, you absolute freak.
We made it a home, so this probably makes me a bad person, but I’m comforted by the thought that I’m not leaving my home here.
My home, in part, is me. The same thing will happen to you.
You’ll still have part of your house, but half of the home is coming with me.
I’m happy, but it makes me feel really bad, I swear.
I’m going to miss you. I already miss you more than I ever thought I could.
That’s the truth. And I spend my days thinking about how difficult it is to define what hurts you when distance is what’s causing the pain.
The hollow feeling in your chest, the heaviness in your stomach, the rough skin that doesn’t even get touched anymore, how hard it is to keep breathing when I can’t smell you.
What the fuck am I doing? Trying to forget you.
With the knowledge that I can’t because I don’t want to. I don’t want to yet, but I will.
I’m leaving, Marín. I’m not going to ask you not to come find me or make you swear you won’t write to me, but I will ask you not to do it in vain.
If you miss me but everything is still the same, don’t do it, because it will be egotistical and unfair and you’re not like that.
Come if you decide that this is the dumbest mistake we’ve ever made in our lives, if the “let’s just be friends” was just the “boo” in a stupid prank that isn’t funny anymore and, what the fuck, if I’m the ultimate girl, I’ll be the only one in your life.
Come only if the reasons I’m leaving no longer exist because you have to understand that as a friend you really hurt me and it was even worse because I felt like you were mine.
Mine isn’t the word. I’m not talking about ownership or belonging.
It’s about skin. And you and I understood each other’s skin before we even touched each other.
Don’t come back for your friend Coco because she doesn’t exist anymore, but come if your life stops making sense the way you always wanted it to because I’m not there. Come with a purpose or don’t come, but if you come, don’t take too long because life is what I’m living with you now.
I love you,
Coco
PS I watered the cacti. Don’t water them again for at least a month or they’ll drown.
PPS Don’t stop calling Blanca and Loren. We’ll know not to overlap. This doesn’t have to leave either of us with no friends.