A Yellow Envelope
"Reagan?"
The voice is muffled, but only because I've pulled my blankets over my head. I think, if I was allowed, I'd sleep forever and ever and ever, and I'd murder the sun so it wouldn't wake me up.
There's footsteps on the stairs, so I press my eyelids closer together, willing everything to turn off. The sound, the light, the day.
"Reagan, it's two o'clock." Dad's voice isn't mad. He stopped getting mad months ago, and now he's just perpetually disappointed in me.
I roll over and clutch my sheets tighter, willing him not to come in or say anything else.
It works.
I can tell he's hesitating, because there's no sound at all, then his footsteps fade away down the hall.
I wish he hadn't done that, because now I feel guilty. If he'd knocked my door down and yelled at me it would've been easier to stay in bed. But instead he just silently hates me, I guess.
* * *
The clouds are like fish, I think. Swimming around in an endless sky, nowhere to go. I wonder what that's like, to be a fish. Do they know the ocean goes on for ages, or do they just stay in the same part of water that they've always been in?
I throw an arm over my face, sick of the sky, and close my eyes. I'm laying in the backyard grass, where it's sticky and hot, mostly because Dad won't bother me out here. The heat's too much for him.
It's too much for me too, but I pretend it's not.
I peel some hair off my forehead and sigh, my eyes opening again because it's just too hot and buggy to feel relaxed at all. The cicadas don't help either, they're so loud. I put my hands over my ears and stare at the clouds some more.
* * *
The mail comes. I know because no one else ever comes to visit, and the tires on the torn-up road out front sound like the earth is tearing in half. What a horrible noise.
I'm in a tank top and my pajama shorts still, but I roll to my feet and come round to the front of the house anyway. All my shorts are pajama shorts, really. I think all clothes should be pajamas, and vice versa. What's the difference, anyway?
The mail truck pulls away, and I wander down to the mailbox and yank it open. Bills. Birthday card for Dad. Bills. Junk. A little envelope.
A little envelope for me.
I shove everything else back into the mailbox. I was going to bring it inside but now I can't be bothered. I retreat to the backyard, all the way back by the creek, where I know it's extra buggy but at least there's no chance of Dad finding me.
Even in the moderate shade it's hot. I'm so sweaty that the yellow of the envelope is darker where I've been holding it. Circles of wet paper. I wonder if I've ruined whatever's inside.
I put my feet in the stream, my toes curling on the mossy rocks, and just stare at the envelope in my hand. It has a return address, but I don't recognize it. No name, either. I wonder if that's even allowed.
I just stare at it. I'd wanted to rip it open when I'd first seen it, but now I just feel tired and I don't even care what's in it. Probably nothing important. A weird looking college mail? They mostly email me, but I still get things in the post sometimes too. They tell me how great their campus is, and how many student activities there are, and how happy the students are.
I can't really picture myself in college. I think I'd probably be crap at it anyway, so there's really no point.
A mosquito is on my leg, and I kill it, but I can tell it's already bitten me. It reminds me that I have a different bug bite on my other leg, so I scratch it even though it's not itchy. Now it itches.
I flip the envelope over and break the seal, slide the letter out.
Hi Reagan!
You're probably thinking it's weird for me to send a letter and it is. But I've made it my mission this summer to stay in contact with everyone and so this is the first one. I'm not away on holiday or anything exciting, so I don't even have a postcard, but I thought this might be fun! A bunch of people in movies do this kind of thing. You'll appreciate that more than other people, I think, since you like movies.
So far the only exciting thing I've done is chipped a tooth and that's only because my brother pushed me out of a tree. Have you done anything exciting? Or climbed any trees lately? You don't have to write back if you don't want to but I hope you at least text me. I'm pretty sure you should have my number if you haven't deleted it. Hope to hear from you!
Parker
I read it probably three times. It is weird. Parker and I are friends, I guess, but not in a write-letters-to-each-other kind of way. We're not even friends in a text-you-every-once-in-a-while kind of way. I'm friends with Parker in the way that the earth is friends with the sun. It's just kind of nearby and keeps showing up.
Though it's not the best metaphor, because I don't orbit Parker.
Parker's one of those people that everyone likes, and everyone knows. He's nice, and funny most of the time, and overly, annoyingly enthusiastic and optimistic. He makes you feel like you're really important, when you talk to him, and then he bounces away, onto the next person, and you remember that you're nothing and you're going to die and turn to dust one day.
That's how I see it, really.
So it's a nice gesture, I guess, to write letters to people, but he's writing them to everyone. So that doesn't make this very special at all.
I scratch at my mosquito bites and slip the letter back into the envelope. I'd toss it in the creek and let it get washed away, but I'm not that dramatic and I'd rather just chuck it in the grass beside me and lie down.
But I don't do that either, and I stare at the yellow envelope until it blinds me, all the while tracing the lettering that says my name. Reagan. Parker hand-wrote it, and I'm not very sentimental, but something feels awfully sentimental about that.