Dear Alana by Saya Shamdasani (19, Maine)

The desk wobbled as I set my forearm on it. It always did. Alana said it added character to the
wooden desk. I found it frustrating. We were different in that way. I hate winter because the cold suffocates me, Alana loved winter because the cold liberated her.

I leaned over and pulled out my ink pen, the one my father bought me for my twenty-second birthday. It was a sad birthday. The first without her. I reached into the side drawer of the desk and found a piece of paper. My ink pen grazed the surface of the parchment and I began:

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Dear Alana,

With love deeper than your scars, I promised that you would be okay. You didn’t live to see another day, another sunrise, or another sunset. I want to bottle it all up for you—the sudden storms, the soft sun, the raging rain—and I want to send it to you, wherever you are. I’m writing this letter by our window. The one we used to sneak out of during our high school years. When we were young, delirious, and fearless. Back then, the world seemed so big, full of endless opportunities. I wish I could feel that again. I wish I could be that again.

I like to think that you left us fearlessly, like the screaming crash of an ocean’s wave. I like to think that you were content with your life. That I gave you enough, that we gave you enough. I like to think that your life was like the smile a lover wore before the lights went out—completely and utterly content.

But I know I’m fooling myself. Because, Alana, you deserved Paris at midnight. You deserved dancing on wooden bar tops. You deserved beautiful children with your big blue eyes and his golden
curls. 

He misses you. Calls every day, begging to go through your belongings, just to smell your scent and see your smile. By three in the morning, I find his golden curls plastered on the floor of the local bar. I always envied the love you both shared. I wanted pieces of it. I wanted to bury myself in it. Sometimes, I hear your voice in my head and you sound so real, so alive. Sometimes, I just close my eyes and listen and pray it never ends. Alana, the sun that paints my skin is dull without you and the air I breathe is emptier, but I’m alive. And I have to see Paris at midnight.

Love,
Your only sister.

I folded the letter in half, like I always do, and opened the drawer of Alana’s desk. I placed the
letter inside, next to the others, one for every day I miss her. One every day.​