-1On the first day of summer vacation, I was alone. On the second, and third, I was alone. But on the fourth day of summer I headed to day camp, and the first thing I saw was an awkward smile and a lopsided haircut. Gerry invited me for a sleepover. Her mother came in an old black truck, and after a short explanation to the counsellors, I left for their apartment in town. The city bustled with an energy I’d long forgotten, and the stair steps up to her apartment felt strange. Just knowing that so many other people lived close by put me on edge, exactly the opposite of the way I thought I’d feel back when we had first moved into the old stony villa. Gerry’s room was a brilliant emerald colour. It brought me back to that second dream I’d had so long ago. Her mother left us to our own devices, and taking what I considered a leap of faith, I decided to finally show Gerry my diary. Her eyes glittered as they fell over all the pictures, and I watched her run her fingers over some of the curvier lines. As she set to reading my most abstract thoughts, she didn’t falter, or think I was a freak. She called my artwork inspired, and described my dreams and feelings as, well, sad. It made her sad to read all that. Gerry didn’t keep a diary, but she said if she had I’d be the only one allowed to read it. We sat and talked for hours, her mother leaving us to our own devices. But as the sun fell behind the trees, a brilliant orange colour cascading in through the window, I saw Gerry look at me. And as she moved in, I did not stop her. Gerry stole my first kiss. I didn’t feel an attraction to her in that way, but I kissed her back, grabbing her hair and smashing her lips against mine. They were so soft,. I tried to pull away but she held on tightly to me, moving from my lips to my cheek and down my neck. I had to stop her, but I could only so much as bring myself to hold her tightly. I felt tears come to my eyes.
“Gerry,” I suddenly blurted, “I’m so fucking afraid of dying. Of getting old, and still feeling this way. I‘m so afraid I could end up like April.”
“Language, girl,” Jerry teased. “I really don’t think death is anything to be afraid of.”
“Why would you ever say that? When we die that’s it. And death can come so horribly. So many bad things can happen to us. It‘s not like you don‘t know that.”
“You can say all that now, but you know why you’re so afraid? Because the worst things the best of us will ever see are in the heights of our imagination. Because as our minds wear away, so will our worst nightmares. Either you think about it so much you come to terms with it, or you don‘t think about it all. Maybe I‘m wrong, but you‘re the first friend I‘ve had in a while. I don‘t have much to think about except now and then.” We laid in her bed for hours, until the moon had passed from one windows sill to the other, and the sun crested from over the curve of the Earth. I didn’t sleep a wink.

On July 23rd, 1999, one year and one April later, I was with my friend Gerry for the third summer. We had traded phone numbers and remained in contact all through the school year of 1998, and it was her who helped me get through another April. She suggested I disband calendars altogether and start measuring time in distance from how long it had been since something had happened.
“It’s been two weeks since school ended,” she said. “That means it’s two weeks from when we’re going to the water park. Simple as that.” I felt a kinship with Gerry that was beginning to grow stronger and stronger. I remembered the night I had spent at her house, and it almost pushed me away, but I couldn’t let it. Gerry was the only friend I had, and I realized I was afraid of the attraction I was feeling back. Gerry’s advice had seen to it that it was the only thing I was afraid of. But why? Nobody liked me. It’s not like I could’ve been scared of what people were thinking. I just didn’t want to be any more different than I already was. But that was me lying to myself. I genuinely felt attracted to Gerry. Not just because I felt betrayed by the only guy who had ever shown a real interest in me either. And not just because I thought she was beautiful, or because she was sweet and nice, but because she cared about me. And as often as anything, she held my head in her lap while I cried, shaking out the pain I still felt over my sister. Aside from her visits late at night, I never heard from April. After all, it seemed so obvious, yet it often had to be forced in that April was dead. I felt guilty. As if I was going against her, except she didn’t mind. She still came as I slept. I wondered if she’d think it was weird. I wondered if she’d think my attraction to Gerry was such a bad thing. I wondered if it was so terrible that I wanted to go further with Gerry, and make her more than my friend. But I’d go slow. The fact that I was more worried about what April thought than my parents conjured a dark feeling inside me.

Two days from when Gerry had given me the best advice I’d ever had, I told her about the safe. She lit up, revealing something she‘d never thought to tell me. Her father had a friend who worked as a locksmith for some time. He had since gone to work at a steel mill, but he hadn‘t forgotten the trade. And a week and a half after that, we invited Kyle Winters--whose family name drew obvious connects to Gerry’s--to come for dinner. And, if he was willing, to crack our safe.
“Do locksmiths crack safes?” I had asked him.
“They do in my world.” He was more than a bit peculiar.

I had planned to introduce them to the trees and the flowers, but from the stone path we could smell the dinner my mother was cooking, and it would’ve taken more than old Oaks to keep them out the door.
“Pleased to meet you,” Kyle remarked, obviously taken aback by my mother. He grinned; she smiled back. The five of us ate dinner, and in between the clacking of forks and knives against the dinner plates, my father brought up the safe. Kyle knew why he was there, and he’d already confided in Gerry and I that he was more than a little excited to return to the task. It only took him a little under an hour to open the dusty box. I imagined millions of dollars flooding out, or someone’s family heirlooms, or beautiful old books that had been long forgotten by some bookworm a hundred years ago. Instead, we all stood baffled. Dozens of unmarked VHS tapes sat neatly stacked within the confines of the massive lead tomb.

We carried the lot of them into the living room and hooked the VCR up to our uncomfortably small television. At first my mother had objected to watching the tapes, as if it would be prying to peer into what were obviously the personal videos of some other family. But we convinced her otherwise and chose a tape at random, practically jamming it into the slot. There was a spark of excitement as we all watched, squinting and straining to see. A faint image appeared on the screen. There was a soft humming in the background of the tape, and a fuzzy white line warped the bottom of the frame. As I looked into the picture, I felt a coldness sweep over my entire body.

I realized at exactly that moment that miracles are when you see what you want to see. That life is what make you of it. For a second time, April left me. I felt ignorant and selfish. It was stupid to think she’d ever forgive me for what I did, and wishful thinking I‘d let get carried away. Hope faded inside me, and that immense burden of responsibility fell over me again. Without the will to live, I felt no fear. I wasn’t afraid of the man on the tapes, and I wasn’t curious about why he did what he did. Whatever he did, it was for his own reasons. But out of those reasons came my own conclusions. He existed only as a stain on the façade of hope. Whether or not he intended to break me, I had been broken. I looked across the room into Gerry’s worried expression and silently said goodbye. I hadn’t yet told her I loved her. I didn’t feel simple yearning, I loved her. But after how I’d thought and acted I certainly didn’t deserve her. I realized how fragile this false reality I’d built up had been. How anything could’ve broken my delusion, like the auburn flower wilting away as April did, or the boy I liked forgetting my feelings because he saw delusions scattered across countless pages. But it was neither of those things that broke me--It was this. I saw the worry in my parents eyes, the first thing to replace that cold sadness which had long lingered. That feeling of impending doom. I thought all the way up the stairs and into my room where I kept the steel lock box with the photo of April. I thought of how different it was, but both the images on the tapes and the image I kept in that box were powerful, personal things. I thought to that empty room beside where the safe was kept, and I thought about how it reminded me of myself. Totally flushed of everything in that moment.

In the faint, warped images of the tape I saw myself. I saw myself sleeping, and I saw myself crack a smile. I could see a man‘s hand brush me softly, rubbing against my arm.
“April… is that you?” I dreamed of a calico cat. The image jittered around, trying desperately to keep its constant focus. Tears streamed down from my eyes. My parents sat expressionless, horrified at what was on the screen. I looked at Kyle and Gerry, who had that same look on their faces. I threw the tape onto the ground, shoved in another. Again, I saw myself, the camera zooming in on my neck and on my cheek. In the video, I saw my tiny bristling hairs stand up, and I watched my sleeping self smile. I could almost hear his heart beat escaping through each of his quick breaths. I dreamed of a warm breeze. Angrily, I forced in another tape, desperately trying to cling onto that feeling; that hope. As I dreamed of a moonlit figure, I saw myself illuminated by the dark, watched by a man so excited he could barely keep the camera steady, and for a second time, I forgot God.

Blink.