Dear Dollie

Bryane Alfonso

“I brought you something.”

Zadia’s statement breaks the comfortable silence beneath the oak tree, scaring the squirrels a few feet away. Dollie watches them run into the bushes and wishes she could go with them.

“Uh…” Dollie refuses to look at Zadia, blood thrumming loud in her ears. “What is it?”

Zadia claps Dollie’s shoulder and pushes to her feet, fingernails digging into her skin. Dollie holds back a wince, and a teasing look crosses Zadia’s face. Dollie rolls her eyes and bats her hand away. She stands and crosses her arms, cocking an eyebrow.

Zadia’s bookbag hangs from one of the lower tree branches, and she reaches inside and pulls out a thick, white envelope. The edges are curled, and Dollie’s name is printed in big letters. Dollie can’t read the fine print below her name, but a thrill runs through her as Zadia hands her the envelope.

“Open this when you miss me,” Dollie reads aloud, a smile forming on her face.

“I thought we could write each other letters, y’know?” Zadia trains her eyes on the envelope, a blush starting on her ears. “My dad left behind a few stamps when he left, and I’m only moving, like, a few hours away, so…”

         It feels like Dollie has butterflies in her mouth, blocking her response from coming out. A moment from two years ago appears at the forefront of her mind: she and Zadia walking up the school stairs in sixth grade, talking about how they both wanted a pen pal.

         “Oh, forget it. It’s stupid,” Zadia continues, playing with her hands. “I know we can, like, call and stuff, I just thought it’d be cool—”

         “No!” Dollie interrupts. “I wanna do it.”

         Zadia tilts her head, disbelief written all over her face. Dollie doesn’t know what else to say, so she just pushes the letter into the pocket of her jeans. Zadia sighs and turns, heading back to her house.

         The sun has started to set, an ardent glow settling over the Florida treetops. Dollie can’t see Zadia anymore, but she follows the track of footsteps on the forest floor. She finds Zadia swinging back and forth on their old tire swing, facing the opposite direction. Dollie steps on a branch and it cracks down the middle, the noise bouncing off the trees.

         Zadia slows and says, voice wavering, “Do you think we’ll ever be together again?”

         The question draws an unprompted flinch from Dollie. They haven’t really talked about Zadia’s move since the day she broke the news, when Dollie gripped her own wrist hard enough that the crescent moon marks stayed for half a day.

         Dollie doesn’t answer, picking at the fraying rope that holds the tire swing taut. Zadia exhales through her nose, frustrated, and stands. She doesn’t look at Dollie as she says to wait here, hands balled into fists. Dollie watches the line of her back slowly disappear as she approaches her house. She stubbornly pushes away the onslaught of memories threatening to arise and instead traces the shapes of the fallen leaves beneath her sneakers with her eyes.

         She jumps when Zadia comes back with two red Solo cups, bright green straws sticking out. She hands one to Dollie, their fingers brushing, and Dollie already knows it’s sweet tea the way Zadia’s mother makes it, a bit too much sugar but with enough lemon to cancel it out. As Dollie takes a sip, she thinks about how she’ll probably never be able to drink this again. An ache blooms in her chest.

         A few minutes pass with Zadia shuffling back and forth, an awkward silence growing between them. Dollie fights the urge to look at her. Instead, she trains her eyes on the ground, watching Zadia’s dirty white converse draw circles in the dirt. The letter burns a hole in the front pocket of her jeans.

         Zadia says her name. Dollie ignores it, picking at the lip of her cup. Zadia says her name again, and it sounds so far away, like Dollie’s drowning and Zadia’s the person saving her.

         “Hey, songbird.”

         “Don’t call me that,” Dollie snaps automatically, but the tension between them has dissipated, and Dollie thinks she can look at Zadia without feeling breathless. So, she does.

         Zadia’s eyes are downturned, but there’s a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. She’s still sipping the sweet tea, savoring the taste in a way Dollie had never learned.

         “I’m sorry,” Dollie says. “I just can’t believe you’re leaving. I don’t know how to handle it.”

         The words feel like they’re being punched out of her chest. Dollie’s always had a problem with communicating her feelings, and she can tell Zadia is surprised by her comment but says nothing of it.

         “I know. My mom says we don’t have a choice, ‘cause we can’t afford the house without Dad. But we can still talk every day. Oh, and maybe I can convince my mom to let me come during summer!” Zadia looks away, suddenly hesitant, and kicks a few rocks aimlessly. “And you can come visit on the weekends, y’know? If your parents let you, obviously.”

         “I’d like that.” Dollie can’t help but smile at Zadia’s excitement, feeling a sprout of hope replace the ache in her chest.

         They’ve both finished their tea, cups discarded at the base of the tire swing. The sun has almost fully sunk below the horizon now, a few rays of light illuminating the sky. Zadia is looking at her like she’s holding up the sun with her bare hands. Dollie can’t take the silence.

         “Can you braid my hair?” she blurts, immediately wishing the ground would open and swallow her.

         Zadia looks delighted, though, grabbing Dollie’s shoulders and shoving her unceremoniously to the ground in front of the tire swing. Zadia sits on the swing, legs bracketing Dollie’s body, and stretches her arm out, waving her hand in front of Dollie’s face. Dollie slips the hair tie off her wrist and wordlessly plops it into Zadia’s hand.

         Dollie mentally drifts as Zadia gathers her long brown hair and starts untangling it with her fingers. Her wrists keep brushing over Dollie’s nape, and Dollie zeroes in on that feeling, stuffing it into the jar in her brain labeled Zadia in big, bold letters.

         She’s pressing her fingers into the shape of the letter when the déjà vu floods her with memory, syrupy slow. Dollie remembers hiding with Zadia in her closet when they were seven, their wide eyes trained on the slats in the door. Yelling floated upstairs, interrupted by the occasional sound of something thrown against the wall. Dollie knew the louder voice was Zadia’s dad and that Zadia’s mom was barely yelling back, but didn’t know why they were fighting or why Zadia made her turn off the bedroom light and hide in the closet. She did know that Zadia was scared, tears threatening to spill down her face.

Dollie asked Zadia to braid her hair for the first time there, the same way she asked her own dad to braid it when he was upset or mad. After Zadia’s dad left, after the braid sat heavy between Dollie’s shoulder blades, after Zadia’s mom turned on the bedroom light and they both climbed out of the closet, Zadia whispered thank you and Dollie pretended to ignore it.

Zadia’s satisfied hum as she secures the hair tie at the end of the braid brings Dollie back to the present. The moon is the only thing lighting up the woods, a calm but electric atmosphere surrounding them. They don’t say anything as they stand, grabbing the almost forgotten cups and making their way back to Zadia’s house. They’re close enough that their arms keep brushing and Dollie steps on Zadia’s shoelace a few times, but they don’t move apart.

         Dollie leads Zadia up the steps to her back porch, where they both stand and stare at each other. She’d handed the cup to Zadia halfway through their walk but regrets it now, nails picking at the skin on the back of her hand. Zadia looks a little lost.

         “I’ll miss you,” Dollie says.

         “Me too.” Zadia nods. “Hey, you gonna write me back?”

         “Um, duh,” Dollie laughs.

         They hug, tight enough that Dollie fears for her lungs, but she doesn’t let go. She opens the jar in her mind and shoves this moment right into it.

         They break away after a while, a few tears escaping Zadia’s eyes. She quickly wipes them away and waves a hand in the air, but Dollie knows her. She knows there’ll be more after she turns around.

         “See you soon.”

         Zadia doesn’t respond, just nods and smiles sadly, and Dollie walks backwards out of her yard until all she can see of Zadia is a blurry blob under the porchlight. She rights herself and starts walking the rest of the way home. The letter Zadia gave her seems to brim with excitement and Dollie smiles, pulling it out. She rips open the envelope with her teeth and yanks out the first and only page inside it, the rest being a bundle of photographs held by a rubber band.

         Dear Dollie,

         I knew you’d open this the moment you left. You can’t miss me that quick, can you?    C’mon, at least wait until you get home.

         Yours,

Zadia

Bryane Alfonso is a lesbian Cuban writer hailing from Hialeah, FL. She currently resides in Orlando and holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Central Florida.