Going up
        Mila Santos

I was laying on the floor in the hallway when I heard the screen door open. Caiden greeted my mother and offered to help her put away the last of the dishes, when she dismissed him and said I was upstairs I sprang up and sat there under the attic door. I was shaken out of my thoughts by a familiar voice. Cade and I had known each other since before we could talk, our mothers had been best friends ever since high school.
“There you are, have you been outside yet its beautiful out!” Its nearly 10am and I haven’t even brushed my teeth so that would be a no. I shook my head and he layed down next to me without another word.
“What do you want to do, Raegan?” His voice was soothing and in that instant I felt the most relieved I had felt in weeks. My shoulders relaxed and I closed my eyes. He spoke again tilting his head ever so slightly to the left.
“Rae you haven’t left this house in months, do you really think your dad would have approved of you moping around everyday.” I opened my eyes and met his gaze. He was sitting down next to me playing with the band of his watch.
My dad was a real outdoorsman. We used to go on family hikes every weekend before my brother Drew was born. My dad called him “oops” when my mom wasn’t around. My mother would never say he was an accident like my dad had, but the word sure is fitting. My mom was 43 when she got pregnant with him, I was 14 and going through a “I hate everybody, leave me alone phase.” Cade said something but I wasn’t paying attention.
“What?” I asked.
“Have you ever been up there?” He pointed to the door on the ceiling that led to our attic.
My dad used to write at an old desk up there when he first got sick. As his cancer began to spread and it became harder and harder for him to move, my mom stopped letting him go up, occasionally i’d find him sneaking up the chipped ladder when my mom went to the store or something but for the most part we all just stayed away.
“No, Mom never let me go up.” I said let down by the lameness of his question.
“Lets go then!” Cade practically shouted, his voice cracked a little and I got a whiff of his cologne as he got up.
“Why? Theres just a bunch of junk up there, its nothing special.” I told him and his smile faded. “How would you know if you’ve never been up there?” He questioned me with a smirk he often gets when he has a idea. He went into the bathroom and came back with the the Ninja Turtles step stool that my four year old brother uses when he brushes his teeth. Cade is 6’1 and could easily reach the handle to the door but he stepped up onto the small stool anyways. When he pulled down the hatch and dust went flying everywhere. I stood up and followed him up the rickety stairs into the steamy addic. It looked different up here than I had imagined. I thought it would be dark and scary, with walls lined with spider webs and dust bunnies. I walked around sifting through old boxes until I came across his desk. It sent chills up my spine to look at this old piece of oak that my father once sat at writing poems and editing drafts of books that will probably remained unfinished and unpublished forever.
“Just a bunch of junk, huh?” He said raising an eyebrow at me and my new found fascination with the desk that stood before me. He began to cross the humid room to meet me when he spotted something out of the corner of his eye.
“Look.” he bent down and picked up a faded green envelope. I walked over to where he was now hunched over and stared at the piece of paper before us. I couldn’t make out the words but I knew that date well. May 15th, 2009.
“What is that.” My voice was barely audible and I cleared my throat. He handed over the letter and I got a better look at what had been written on the front. Spelt out in small cursive letters  was my name. Raegen. I ran my fingers over the word a few times, I know that handwriting I thought to myself.
“My dad wrote this..” I practically whispered to Caiden, who had his arm slung over my shoulder making me hotter than I already was.
“What was the date on it?”
“May 15th….2009, 6 days before he…” I trailed off. Cade, clearly sensing my discomfort, took the letter from my hands and headed for the attic ladder.
“Come on it too hot up here, lets get some lemonade and try to figure out what this is. We walked downstairs and he poured us two glasses of Minute Maid.
“We don’t have to open it Rae, it’s too soon, you're still trying to wrap your head around him being gone.” When I didn’t reply he started to talk again.
“Its okay to miss him you know, I mean he was your father, I know you’re trying to be strong for your mom and Drew...but it’s okay to let your guard down a little sometimes.”
“I want to open it. Everything left of him in this house reminds me of when he was sick, maybe this is the one thing I have left of my dad. The part of my dad that came to my soccer games and took Drew to Mommy and Me. The Dad that starred in all my “who’s your hero” papers in middle school.” I swiped the letter from his hands and examined it quietly, tension building in my head as I wiggled my finger under the seal and pried it open. I carefully unfolded the letter and began to read. I read it in his voice in my head. Deep and mellow with the sarcastic tone that  “made my mother fall in love with him.” Tears welled in my eyes as I read his words, his apologies. Apologies for not being here anymore. For not going to be at my graduation or my wedding, for not being around when Drew gets older and really needs his father. Apologies for the little things he did wrong and the things he didn’t do at all. As I read through the “i’m sorrys” I began to think of all the things i’m sorry for, and how now, he’ll probably never know what i’m sorry for. I was now balling, my face stung of salt and I felt Cades arms encompass me. He pulled back my hair and whispered “He knows Reagan, he knows.”