I’m not really sure what happened the day you died. I don’t know where I was or what I was doing. I didn’t find out until months later.

I was working, I had made a joke about when you don’t see someone for awhile you think they died. Then you popped into my head. I hadn’t seen you in a couple months. I didn’t make a conscious effort to forget about you. You were always walking in and out at any moment. I thought you’d keep walking in.

I remember pulling up your account profile. I remember how I burst out crying and all of my coworkers looked at me. I remember exactly who was there that day. I don’t know what happened the day you died, but I remember the day I found out exactly.

I always know when people die. I remember the look on my dad’s face when he came to get me from my friend’s house. How I knew, in a world of possibilities, that my sister was gone. I hated myself for knowing. I hated that I could even pull the thought out of the universe. That I ever brought the possibility into existence. But I wasn’t wrong.

How did I not know Cynthia? How did I not know on the day you died? But the moment you popped into my head I knew you were gone. I felt your absence. I didn’t even have to check. It was the way it always felt when someone was gone. Where you go to pull their essence out of the air and everything feels flat, like you can’t grasp on to a feeling or to anything real.

Six years Cynthia and I haven’t committed you properly to paper. Six years and I haven’t made anyone else feel the loss, I haven’t made anyone else mourn you. I’m trying to finish your story but I don’t want you to be finished. I don’t want to make things up and fill in the blanks, and God are there so many blanks.

I just need to know why you walked in. Why you flung all of your belongings onto my counter and at the same time flung yourself into my life. Why it felt like you pressed so hard against my skin and made the deep impression you did. Why I may be the only person whose memory holds you. Why my life hasn’t been the same since the day you died.