Jeremy died last week.

He had asked me to marry him.

And I kept on thinking that it’s not my fault, it’s not my fault you stupid bitch what the hell is wrong with you, stop crying, this isn’t going to fix anything.

Jeremy died last week.

I wore red to his funeral.

It was awful. I stood out so sharply you could see me immediately through the cracks between the crowd’s bodies. You could get down on your knees and peer through rows of stiff shins and spot that garish crimson hem, sodden in the April sullenness.

I think at some point, I got up and walked away. His sisters were all sobbing in messes of salt and water, and I thought it might be nice if they’d go drown in their self-made oceans, it might be nice if they were buried under miles of water, where everything was so terribly silent.

Jeremy died last week.

I kept of staring at the clock and wondering which way it ran. If it was another second past or another second closer.

The house is very quiet. The house is very still. It seems to seep in passivity, a sanctuary against time, insulation from the glaring noise around us.

Jeremy died last week.

He’d called me too, just before it had happened, and said, “Sasha, listen, hey, how’s it been, huh? Yeah. How’s life, and how’re you and—I haven’t talked to you in a while and I just thought I’d—just. Yeah. So.”

And I’d said, “I want you to come home.” In a voice that was much too weak and much too honest and he’d sort of laughed, and there was the sound of traffic blaring in the background.

“I was thinking about what you said,” he’d said, after a big pause, “And I think. I think maybe that it’d be okay. What you said, I mean, you’re right. I got a job, you know, because you’re right, that part time stuff isn’t going to cut it and I said I’d take care of you and I—I don’t want to break up.”

“Okay.” I said, and that was all I could think of saying. “Where are you?”

“I’m at the office. I was sleeping there. I’ll just come home now—Sasha, Sasha, you know I love—”

And then my battery had died.

And then he ran the stop light.

And then, when the other cars missed him, missed him, you know, like one of those miracles—he drove his car straight over the rail and into the ocean and didn’t release the acceleration, (floored it) until he’d hit the bottom.

Jeremy died last week.

Jeremy died last week.

Jeremy—

Was one of those artists who wasn’t any good, who could feel the compulsion but not slave to the urge, and he knew it, I knew it, and his paintings never sold. Because that’s idiotic. No one buys mediocrity, and we were too old to delude ourselves into thinking it might happen.

He asked me to marry him.

Jeremy died last week.

I told him I’d think about it.

Jeremy died last week.

What if I never met him? What if I never bought his coffee? What if he never bought me those earrings? What if he hadn’t moved in? What if I hadn’t quit my job? What if he hadn’t stopped painting? What if he hadn’t tried to grow up? What if I hadn’t made him try to—

Jeremy died last week.

You know what? I’m not sad. I think about him and about how he died and I think he’s a goddamned idiot and I hate him and he’s selfish and then I can’t breath.

My stomach hurts.

Jeremy died last week.

And I don’t know why I care I mean it’s not like I would have said yes, like, like I would ever be so stupid to—

I wore red to his funeral.

Among all the black, it was like being a wound. It’s like I was bleeding. It hurt. So I left.

Jeremy died last week.

I’d probably have said no, anyways.

Jeremy died last week.

But it’s like he’s here with us. Because we’re buried under mountains of water and everything is so still, so silent, my dress flaring like a flower of blood, thrown from the wound.

His sister’s won’t stop crying.

Jeremy died last week.

I’ll think about it. Maybe.

I want you to come home.

Jeremy died last week.