Abigail M. Schilling

I'll be going back to Oregon tomorrow. You know, I haven't been there since I last visited you three years ago. Remember that visit? We went to the fish hatchery and climbed some falls and then two weeks later you dropped out of my life forever.

Of course, you think that's my fault. Or my choice. Or something. Anyway, it's better this way, us not talking. I heard you finally left Oregon, went to another state or maybe another country. It's hard to keep track.

Anyway, I couldn't go to Oregon for these past three years (or until whenever recently you decided to move) because I was afraid that in the big whole state there was a chance I might see you.

And if I saw you I might have to deal with you and everything awful about you and everything about you that I once thought was true and I might have to deal with the truth of the past and I really think I only have time in my life for the truth of the present.

Thank you for leaving Oregon. I never really hated it, like I told people. I hated it because of what you made it. I hated it for letting you hide away and lose yourself. I hated it for making you be whoever it is you are now, or letting you be whoever it is that you have always been and that's hard for me because then my life, every memory I have of us and growing up isn't real because you weren't real.

Some people said it would be better if I ran into you in Oregon because maybe I would deal with all of that. And maybe they are right. But right now, I'm just so happy that you're gone, that I don't know where you are and that I can go back to pretending you're dead. Because part of you is, anyway.

Oregon doesn't kill everyone. And tomorrow it will release me. It will let me be me without you. It will just be a state.