Remember Remember

Note by Inspector Pitman: The following was found in the diary of Norman Gregg, at the scene of his death.

Tara, do you remember? 

Do you remember, when we were 5, when I tried to kiss you, and you slapped me in the face? Do you remember when I bumped into you in 4th grade and broke your nose? Do you remember when we puked on each other on the roller coaster?

Do you remember when you were there for me when my cousin passed away, the way I was there for you when your Labrador died? When I told you he was in doggy heaven, licking peanut butter out of God's private fridge? How I got a rap on the knuckles for saying that, but didn't mind because you had stopped crying and started laughing? 

Do you remember the millions of sleepovers? The 10-year friendship? Swapping sweets? Swapping secrets? Our bond from heaven? Don't you remember?

The thing is, I myself had forgotten our friendship. The memories made me laugh when I remembered them with you, but when you disappeared, the same memories would make me cry. Sometimes I felt a dull ache and thought I was having a heart attack, but it was a mental pain that was so strong, it became physical. I should've known that the most perfect dreams end in the worst nightmares.

The year after you left, I searched. I spent all my free time looking for you, remembering our times together, and mistaking the pains for heart attacks. A year can feel like an impossibly long time. One day, I woke up, and I decided to forget. The memories were killing me, so I forgot them, not knowing that forgetting would one day kill you. 

I'm sorry the first thing I did, when I finally found you, was yell in your face. It had been 15 years since we'd met, and I'd forgotten what you were like. I had forgotten how easily you took what I said to heart. I had forgotten how strong you usually are, but how when you break down, it’s like you’re a vase that has been dropped, shattering into a million particles, pieces of what you once were lying all around the floor. And you were definitely breaking down then. I could’ve picked up those pieces, gluing you back together like I used to. But because I didn’t have the memories, I didn’t know how to.

Maybe if I'd kept the memories, I wouldn't have yelled. Maybe if I hadn't yelled at you, you wouldn't have set off the gun that was aimed at your temple when I found you. It's true that your hand controlled the weapon, but my words were the ones that controlled your hand. I’m entirely to blame.

But do you know how hard it is to watch the person who used to be the centre of your world, inches from death? Knowing only you have the power to save her? Time went in slow motion. Yet, I couldn't keep up with it. I panicked. I failed. 

I'm sorry I killed you.

A split second before you pulled the trigger, I looked right into your eyes. Our souls connected, and I saw two things.

The first is the memories. They all came rushing back to me when I looked into the same eyes I had looked into 15 years ago. Those hazel eyes, but more weary, and experienced. Nevertheless, still the same.

All those years we spent together came back to me, but it was too late.

The second thing I saw was the guilt. I know that every night, the screams of your victims haunt you to tears, the weight of their souls heavy on your shoulders. And when you wake up in the morning, the guilt disappears, replaced by the thirst for watching others in agony. 

And I know just how you feel because I feel the same way every day. Funny how we both ended up going down the same route; I suppose it shows how close we were.  

It began after you left. 

I had check-ups with the lanky school doctor because I was doing badly in my exams and acting up. If they had left me alone, maybe I’d have been fine. But they insisted on hiring a psychiatrist without much experience; they couldn’t afford a better one. He made everything worse, him and his clammy palms and weird breath. 

He met me for the first time after school one Thursday. His office was intolerably cold; the two air-conditioners, one ceiling fan, and three standing fans were all switched on. And he offered me mints. Mints. As if I hadn’t already become an ice block. It started off with him asking me all the details about everything. Normally I might open up, but his prying questions put me in defence mode. Calls himself a therapist. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that he was some random guy desperate for some extra dough. I could do a better job. He’s even worse than your cousin, Tara. 

What really annoyed me was that he was contradicting himself. First he says not to go looking for you and that the police were already searching. He says to forget about you, that it was only causing me harm. Then he says you’re always in my heart.

It was that phrase that prompted me to stab him with his own letter-opener. 

It was lying on the desk between us, and it was obviously a prized possession. It was engraved with his name (A. Thompson), and the decoration had been hand-carved in Turkey (he told me). His dad, who shared the same initials with his son, had given it to him. If you were in my heart, his precious letter-opener could be in his. The irony made me want to dance with glee.

He tried calling an ambulance; he was reaching for his phone. As a doctor, he should’ve known that that would do nothing. He was good as dead. The whole of the National Health Service could walk into the room and they probably wouldn’t manage to save him. I laughed, and held the phone out of his reach. I loved every second of it. 

Until that night, that is. That was the worst night of my life. Even worse than the night after you left. It's so much harder to hate yourself than to hate someone else. And I hated and regretted with every bone in my body. Guilt is the worst feeling a human being could possibly feel. I didn’t sleep, sobbing into my pillow till morning.

That day, I learnt that watching others in pain got rid of my own pain. The days that followed were the best since you’d left, as the devil on my shoulder tempted me to seek temporary relief. But the nights were the worst. 

They say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing, and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.

That's not always true. There are some people whose names will live on forever. I want you to be one of those people. And I want the same for myself.

That's why I'm writing this.

The gun that killed you, and that will kill me after I finish writing this, will only kill us once. Our names will live on. We’ll never have to die a second time.

We'll be remembered.