With my dead sister’s letter clutched in one hand, I knocked on Nate’s door with the other.
For a while I just stood there, picking at the hem of my t-shirt and rocking on my heels. Anybody else would’ve left after five, maybe ten minutes passed – but I heard the TV playing on the other side of the door. Nate’s mother had told mine he hadn’t left his apartment in weeks - not since it happened.
He was in there.
I raised my fist to knock again for good measure, but the lock and deadbolt clicked and he opened the door just a crack. Just so he could see me.
“What’re you doing?” he said. His voice was thick and nasal, and his eyes were a little bloodshot like he’d caught a cold or spent the day crying.
It was safe to assume it was the latter.
“Hi, Nate.”
“Is everything okay?” His eyes darted behind me, just passed my shoulder.
I shrugged. “As okay as things’ll ever be, yes,” I said. “Want some company?”
Nate just stared at me and licked his lips before he dropped his gaze to the floor. “This isn’t really a good time, Tess. Sorry.”
He started closing the door but I stopped it with my foot.
“But I have something for you,” I said, and held up the envelope.
“What’s that?”
“A letter, I guess,” I said. “From Becca.”
He froze, just staring at the envelope in my hand then swallowed. “From Becca?”
“Yeah. I’ve been holding on to it for a while, don’t know why. But my mom’s been bugging me to get out of the house, so…” I shrugged. “Guess I’m killing two birds with one stone.”
“Oh.” He hesitated for a few seconds, then pulled the door open all the way. “You could’ve mailed it.”
“I could’ve, but I didn’t,” I said. “I’m sure you’re a little behind on your mail anyway.”
He shrugged, stepping out of the way so I could come inside.
His apartment was in the exact state you’d expect from someone whose girlfriend just bit it. Take out boxes and dishes stacked on dishes. Dirty laundry strewn on the floor and chairs.
Nate had always been so neat.
“How’d you end up with it?” he asked. “The letter, I mean.”
“She sent it in a souvenir package from Mali. Put everything together with a little note that said ‘Give this to Natey-Bear’ or something obnoxious like that. You know how she likes to save money on postage and all.” I turned the envelope around in my hands, brushing my thumb over the front where she’d scrawled Nate and doodled a heart by his name. It was the same bubble-let-tered handwriting she used to tell me how much she missed me in a note that came with my package of kola nuts. “Anyway, here,” I said, and handed him the letter. “Nobody opened it or read it or anything.”
Nate took it and just looked at it real hard, like maybe he could read the letter through the envelope or something.
We stood in silence.
He finally drew in a deep breath and met my eyes. “You don’t – you don’t think it’s a – a suicide note or something?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t.”
Th e notion that Becca, happy-go-lucky Becca who’d spent her summer in the Mali Peace Corps would take her own life was beyond me.
“It might be,” Nate said. “Th at’s what everyone’s saying. Th ey’re saying she jumped.”
“Th ey’re wrong.”
“What else could’ve happened, Tess?”
“She didn’t jump.”
“She fell twelve stories. You know Becca, she hates – hated – heights. She wouldn’t have been fucking around on the edge. It wouldn’t have been an accident,” he said. His voice was getting louder, higher, more hysterical.
“You don’t know that,” I said. “Nobody knows that. You weren’t there. Nobody was. Nobody knows what happened except for her, and she’s not here to tell us.”
His breathing became labored. He scrubbed a hand over his face, then tore the envelope open.
“You don’t have to read it in front of me,” I said.
But I was hoping he would.
Nate read the letter where he was, and I watched his face. His lips were pursed together and his jaw was set tight.
When he finished, he slowly lowered himself into a kitchen chair and pressed his hand over his mouth.
“What?” I said. “What’d she – what’d it say?”
He just shook his head, trying to collect himself.
He took in a shaky breath and dropped his hand from his mouth.
“She wanted to tell me about a nightmare. A recurring nightmare she’d been having,” he said. “She was trapped in an elevator, and it was falling. Th e last thing she thought of when she hit the ground was me.”