Dear Edward

by Ann Napolitano

“You’re not okay. Do you hear me, Edward? Are you listening? You are not okay. We are not okay. This is not okay.”

True emotions

She’s lived many lives, in many bodies, so her memories are oceanic—a body of water she swims regularly.

Well written!

and a question yawned open inside him.

Only guy thirteen had a decent job and money in the bank, but his way of showing affection was to criticize. For her birthday, he gave her makeup, and for Christmas, weight-loss pills. She broke up

him before Valentine’s Day, but she’d left that relationship second-guessing every facet of herself.

His life is there, with all its characters, but clouds keep passing across the view. What he sees, what he recalls, changes every hour.

The prevalent question is: How should I pass this time before my real life resumes?

When I’m with you, I feel fixed, he

Eddie is gone.

Transition

Camp, Edward thinks. The word sounds familiar, but it takes his brain a moment to figure it out. Summertime. Children. Arts and crafts. He and Jordan did a science camp every summer, at the Museum of Natural History.

Trauma

mind. This is how memories appear now, like a burglar bursting through a locked door without warning.

She looks excited. Edward identifies this emotion as if it’s an answer on a test.

Trauma

Eddie

Going back to classic name

Edward says, “I like her.” Even though like has nothing to do with it. Shay feels like oxygen to him. He doesn’t like oxygen; he requires it.

Edward is a mess, so he recognizes Lacey. And he recognizes that he’s part of her mess.

“It’s not the best commercial for the passage of time,” his aunt says.

????

“There’s no point to them. The reality is that I’m capable of seeing things that grown-ups can’t. Which means I’ll be able to see what’s inside you before anyone else does.”

violence is a stone thrown into a still pond, Benjamin has become adept at spotting the ripples, and there are none here.

Observant

Edward can feel the heartbeats of the mothers, fathers, siblings, spouses, cousins, friends, and children upstairs. His body syncs up with their sadness. He’s glad he stayed in the basement. The others are beating the plane windows with their fists, and Edward is down here because he doesn’t belong with them. He belongs with the dead, the ones who didn’t show up, the ones who know everything, and nothing.

People fly despite knowing that a certain percentage of airplanes crash every year. They “know” that fact yet find ways to qualify, and therefore soften, the knowledge. The most common qualification is the fact that it is statistically more dangerous to travel in a car than in an airplane. In absolute numbers, there are more than five million car accidents compared to twenty aeronautic accidents per year, so, in fact, flying is safer. People are also helped by etiquette; because commercial air travel is public, a kind of group confidence comes into play. People take comfort in one another’s presence. Sitting side by side, shoulder to shoulder, they believe that it is impossible for this many people to have taken a foolish risk at the same time.