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It breaks something in me instantly. I don’t even try to stop it. The tears came without me agreeing, and I let them run free. I smile through it, because I don’t know how to exist in front of her without pretending I’m trying my hardest to hold us both together with broken arms.

“You still cry a lot, Mireya,” she says quietly.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I don’t really know how to stop anymore.”

She studies me for a second, and then she says, “You know, I don’t understand why you feel that way.”

“I didn’t—I didn’t want to make you go through this. I wanted to protect you, but I failed.”

“It’s okay, I promise. I’m glad I’m not here anymore,” she whispers. “It looks like it hurts more for you now that I’m gone.”

My hand lifts before I think, brushing her hair back from her face like I used to wish someone would do for me. “I’m glad you’re not either,” I say.

She blinks at me and smiles wider. “You’re still me,” she says, then softer, almost like she’s forgiving me for still hurting. “I just got left alone longer.”

The wind moves through the cliff again; the ocean is softer now. Here she’s safe.

“It’s okay. Stay here,” I say, voice breaking slightly. “The firefly might come back.”

She looks past me, toward the dark, and I can see that she wants to believe me. “It might,” she repeats, nodding. “Can I make a wish?”

“Of course.”

She takes the paper star in her hands, turns it once as she hums something I can’t hear, a secret probably, then she throws it into the wind. It lifts immediately reaching the sky with every little star we used to throw. Our own constellation of wishes that never happened yet. And I watch it go until it disappears.

“I want you to never feel bad for being you ever again,” she says pointing at my heart. “You have my heart, be kind to it, Mireya.”

She looks at me one last time, and I try to hold it. I really try. But her face starts to blur.

“Stay here,” I whisper, but I don’t know if I’m saying it to her or to myself.

I reach out to her, but I’m pulled back.

No… no…

My eyes open wide; a pool of blood is welcoming me. My blood, flowing down my arms. The cuts are fresh, and so is the line of white powder on the sink.

“And me… can I make a wish too?” I whisper, like I’m still ten, like I never left her behind.

Maybe the firefly can find me one day.

1

Mireya

Play - Goodbye by Billie Eilish

Hope is dying slowly

September 9th, 2006

It’s strange, isn’t it?

Being a father’s daughter.

Some girls love their dad; they laugh together, they share jokes over dinner, and they even call him their hero.

Some see in their fathers the kind of man they want to love someday, the kind of dad they want for their own kids.