I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer*
Darling,
It’s been a long time since I’ve been in contact, and I hope you appreciate that I’ve given you your space. I have to admit, at the time I thought it was best for us as well. I’m sorry if it seemed like I was in a rush to leave you, but you know how your constant shrill screams of triumphant victory as you stand over what you believe to be my dead body get on my nerves.
It was always the little things, that sent one or both of us off…they seem so trivial looking back. Like who cares which one of us ran the other one over with their car full of drunken friends after prom, only to dump our still-conscious but unresponsive body into a giant burlap sack and throw it into the river? And does it really matter who was the last one to use the toothpaste in your bathroom as they waited for you to come home, cutting the circuit-breaker so there’d be no light to shine on the carcass of your former boyfriend? It’s those little trivialities that make us human, after all.
I hope this time apart has allowed us to both grow as people. I know on my end I’ve taken up meditation and mastered some controlled breathing exercises, should you once again lean down over my body to double-check if I’ve finally let my spirit pass from me. Next time, I can promise you, when my eyes fly open and I reach out in a last ditch attempt to strangle you before you put a bullet between my chest, you will not be tipped off by a ragged intake of breath! The only thing that can take my breath away these days, baby, is the thought of you limping barefoot through a forest screaming for help as I lumber slowly forward with my giant hook and fisherman’s slicker and hat.
I still have that hat, by the way…I’ve never been able to throw it out, no matter how many times my therapist told me that keeping mementos around only keeps me living in the past. Of course, after I left Dr. Lechiemer’s disembodied head on his receptionist’s desk, he won’t be doing any living whatsoever. Haha…I feel like that’s the kind of funny situation we would have shared a laugh with together, had you not escaped the ropes I bound you with by rubbing them against the sharp beam corner in the old abandoned docks I left you in. Anyway, I’m seeing a behavioral psychologist now, and it’s been going pretty good!
So now that it’s been four years, I’m emailing you to get some closure. I’d love to see you again, though with your new home security system in place that’s become pretty hard to do without you spotting me first and using your cell to dial the police. God, modern technology, right? I’ve come to understand why you feel like you’ve needed to move on since high school, become a teacher, and educate a new class of children in the very same home town in which we first met. Sometimes it’s just hard to let go of the past, especially if you’re still feeling really guilty about the death of your best friend, and being a foster parent to her daughter is your way of making amends. To be fair to me though, Tara was a total bitch and if there was anyone who deserved to have a giant spike shoved through the back of her skull so it came out of her eyeball, it was that stuck-up prom queen.
I also hear from the guys down by the docks that you’re engaged to a new man, and that he’s about to be promoted to the head of the town’s police force. And yes, I’m not too proud to admit that I’m a little bit jealous, though Ryan seems like a decent fellow and I promise you, I will not relish in the irony of killing the prodigal sheriff by slicing his jugular with his own badge any more than you will. Well, maybe a little more. I’m only human, after all. Sort of.
Anyway, it’s about time I signed off. I have a lot to get off my chest and dump all over your kitchen walls, but now isn’t the time. I want to talk to you face to face, but in the likely event that you won’t have anything to do with me, you’ll know where to find me after I kidnap little Jessica and leave bloody ransom clues all over your house.
I’ll always know what you did last summer,
- Greg Scary Fisherman
