“She was the kind of girlfriend God gives you young, so you’ll know loss the rest of your life.” ~ Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

She was my roommate and bestie.  She stripped at the place where there were hundreds of beautiful girls and one ugly one.  But Liz was not the ugly one. Oh no! She was as beautiful as she was bad-ass.

She would weave my baby blue aluminum junk on wheels in and out of traffic with the speed of a demon, and with  high heels she would press that pedal to the metal, pressing us forward towards heaven and hell.

Her favorite color was purple.  Her favorite cereal was Captain Crunch Peanut Butter. We would rock out to the Beastie Boys, and our dream machine was a Vintage Chevy Impala.

The week before her big trip she almost killed us on our way home from Disneyland.  I was lucky enough to wake up in time to wake her behind the wheel. Never fall asleep when you’re driving in a car with someone who is just as tired.  I should have known it then. It was an unstoppable premonition that I read too late.

The morning of the big trip she had a break with Eddie, her fiance.  She cancelled and took her bags in, but I brought it back out and I had put it in the trunk.  I wanted the place to myself so I patched them up and sent them off on their merry way.

The night before the trip she worked and caught no sleep, but I was not thinking about those things back then.

Past midnight I received a call that descended upon me like heavy fog, and I felt myself sinking.  She was the one behind the wheel.

We have not even seen twenty one years back then.  We had to travel south of the border to even get ourselves drinks.  She lived furiously and fast. How could it end with her flying through a window of breaking glass?

Her infant son survived, screaming in his car seat.  The sounds of ambulance sirens still sets him off. The nurses said that she lived just long enough to see him alive, longer than she should have for someone who had her trachea smashed in.

Eddie lived, but was never the same.  He had to have immediate brain surgery, and I did my best to help him with his recovery until his trauma manifested into transference, and sometimes he would call me Liz.  This sort of reverse Nightingale syndrome manifestation unfortunately evolved into a much ill-favored kiss. It was a sinking feeling, and so I moved away, back in with my parents to live in my room inside AOL.

If only I had not patched them up and sent them on their way.  If I had not done so she might still be alive today. Their reconciliation became my rue where I had to remind myself there was nothing I could do, and what was done is done.

I felt sorry for her father who fought with her the day before the trip, after finding out that she danced her days naked for a living.  At the funeral he shared with us a story on how, on his way there, he was stopped by a woman on the road. The woman told him that Liz had sent her a message, and that she forgave him.  Liz’s brothers, who were with him, confirmed the ghost story.

If only I had met that woman on the road.

One night years and years later I dreamt Liz came to me in the form of light and love, and she kissed me on the forehead as I slept.  I woke up with my cheeks damp and salty.

This is my ghost story.

Poetry for Liz:

Inside the imaginings of shattered glass

Between the temples of her infant’s screaming dream

She struggles for a last breath

While her son’s memory gives birth

To his mother’s death.

Decay has taken her paramour

From corpse to dust to nevermore.

Liz died October 12, 1996