Dear Sam,

I had once loved the ocean. I loved when the tide rolled in and I couldn't just hear the sound of the waves crashing into the sand, but I could also feel it in the wind. The smell of salt everywhere: in the sand, in the breeze, in my hair, in my clothes. I loved the feeling of barely dipping my toes in the water. The way it was cold at first, but then all I could feel was my body relaxing because I knew I was safe there. I was safe and alone and that had once been all that I wanted. It had...

I remember the days after your accident. I would stand at the edge of the water, where the sand was hard and cool against my bare feet. But I wouldn't dip my toes in. I wouldn't even look at the dark blue waves, Sam. I would look up at the murky white sky, or I would look at the sand. I would think about how I had once loved how warmly lit the sand was from the sun. But those days after, it looked like a deep shade of grey that swarmed with remnants of secrets. It looked like something evil, Sam. The ocean was no longer the place where I would go for comfort or shelter; it had become the place where the guilt tried to swallow me whole. Where I would wish the waves would stop smacking against the shore and dragging away the flowers that were left by the mourners. Instead I had wished it would drag the echoes of long ago memories, the echoes of laughter and smiles and happiness. But mostly the ocean became the place where I would wish the dark water would steal my breath and my thoughts. I would wish the ocean would pull me under, into a blanket of darkness that would be impossible to return from. A place where I could forget, Sam.

It was a place where I could forget that your mother had locked your bedroom, the light shut off and no sound of music seeping through the crack beneath the door. I couldn’t see your posters barely clinging to your maroon walls, and the mess of blankets and sheets lying at the edge of your bed anymore. I wanted to forget that people stood at the edge of the water in large circles, candles burning in their hands as they prayed for you. I wanted to forget how hard your mother cried at your funeral and clung to me, repeating your name over and over again as tears flowed down her cheeks. And sometimes Sam, sometimes I even wanted to forget you.

I spent nights alone, out by the water, and I swore I could smell the scent of you. I could smell you in the breeze that flew through my hair. And I’d close my eyes and just breathe it in, trying and wishing to be breathing you in. Even when I was lying in my bed, the moon gleaming through the cracks in my blinds, I would roll over to the right side of my bed and breathe in the smell of my blankets. They smelled like your shirts, and the peppermints that you used to hand me at the times when I couldn’t sleep. At the worst of moments, when I would close my eyes tight and try to picture the edges and curves of your face, I thought I could hear you whispering my name. But then I’d open my eyes, and you wouldn’t be there, because you were gone, Sam. And in those moments, I wanted to be gone too.