In her column “Non-nonfiction,” Ribka Desta ’27 explores personal experiences under her creative dictatorship, where her hyperbole and opinion have full reign. In this realm of nonfiction and fiction, she unpacks the memories that resurface while rewatching an old movie.

I spent the beginning of my second life consumed by what I let you do to me — and what I did to you. Although I had long awaited the chance to love people who weren’t you, I turned down invitations all of freshman year so I could sit in my dorm rehearsing what I would say if I opened my door one day to find you had finally flown across the country to hurt me in person.

For quite some time, I slept above a letter you sent to me. You had hunted for my address after I avoided you for months. I fixated on your devotion while laying in bed. I dreamt of your penmanship glowing, enchanted to poison the envelope when I pried it open. You knew I spent years trying to pry you open.

You wrote as if there was no distance between us at all, updating me on what I had missed without any apologies or acknowledgment of my ghosting. On the back, you threatened violence if I didn’t respond, but then added that you were joking. I’m still not sure if you were.

I was sure that my guilt over slaughtering us would one day kill me in my sleep. For months, I nightmared of your words beating underneath me like a tell-tale heart. 

In honor of the work you put into getting to me, I kept the letter as a sadistic memento. I’ve changed dorm rooms and lives since you sent it, but I’ve brought that corpse with me each time. Despite the years that have passed, I am still loyal, tireless and diligent. I am working hard at getting you to get hit by a bus. Actually, I’m getting hard at the thought of you getting hit by a bus.

You left me with suspicion, superstition and a good taste in movies. I’ve set aside time twice a day to pray on you. At 11:11 a.m. and 11:11 p.m., I cross my fingers and wish a bus would run you over. I wish someone would film it, and it would go viral. I wish that I could watch it when I miss you.

I rewatch one of our favorite movies every October. It feels like slipping into an old pair of jeans that don’t fit right anymore. By the first scene, I am transported to the whole world you would create for me whenever we watched your – never my –  recommendations. All through the first musical sequence, I miss how well we could harmonize and how we looked together. But you don’t fit me anymore. I’ve grown. By the second scene, I remember how you would infect movies with your impatience and incredible ability to get to me in a way no one else could.

You couldn’t love anything without demeaning it. You had no faith in my intelligence. In an effort to ensure I would love how you love, and see what you see, you spoiled everything. You had to reveal foreshadowing the second it hit the screen. You talked over the movie. You ruined it everything with what you were sure was your Midas touch.

Or maybe I ruined everything by not forcing you to keep your hands to yourself.  All I did say then was that I loved how you loved movies, and how you loved me. Some things should be kept separate.

But until the credits played, we could pretend that we were immortal. If something went wrong, we could go backwards and restart the scene. And if I didn’t watch something right the first way, we had the time to replay it over and over again.