Detached (9 page)

“An overdose.”

“Of what, though?”

“I don't know. Lots of things. Do we have to talk about this? It was almost thirty years ago.”

“But you never talk about it. I still can't believe I didn't know you had a sister all this time. I mean, you don't have a picture of her anywhere. I've never even heard anyone mention her name, not once.”

“I talk about her.”

“You've NEVER talked about her when I've been around.”

“No, it's usually when you're not there.”

“But why?”

“My parents wouldn't allow it when I was in high school. It was something they were ashamed of. I guess I got used to not speaking her name.”

“But it must have been pretty terrible to lose your sister and then not even be able to talk about her.”

Mom stopped drying and looked at me.

“It was a nightmare. You have no idea. I can't even describe it. I don't think I was ever the same after that.”

“Don't you think it would have helped to talk about it?”

“Yes and no. Some things are better left unsaid.”

“It's wrong, if you ask me. If she'd died of leukemia or in a car accident, you'd have pictures of her on the wall. You would have named me after her or something. There'd be some sign she existed. But it's like you wish she was never alive in the first place.”

“That's not true,” Mom said. There was a sharp edge to her tone and I knew I should drop it.

“I'm just saying,” I said quietly and let the rest of the sentence dissolve in my mouth.

 

It took me a few weeks to recover from my failed hanging. Not only did my back and neck ache for over two weeks, I was so shaken by what I'd almost done I found it hard to get back on track. In fact, I was so downhearted I almost forgot about the list I'd hidden in my math binder, between the cardboard insert and the vinyl cover. It was a list of all the ways someone could kill themselves. At least it was everything I could think of. It wasn't until I came downstairs one Saturday morning and saw Mom sitting on the couch that the memory choked me. Sherlock was warming her feet and she had my binder on her lap. Her hands were folded over it and she had a faraway look in her eyes.

“Mom?” I asked.

She turned to face me but she didn't say anything.

“Everything okay?” I asked again.

I was afraid to step any closer so I stayed at the threshold of the living room and watched the distance expand between us.

“I'm fine,” she smiled absently.

She paused and although I wanted to flee, I waited for the ambush.

“I was just thinking about Christmas. Maybe we should shake it up a bit this year. Do something different. What do you think?”

The sweat that had been building on my forehead evaporated so quickly I felt faint.

“Sure, whatever you want. As long as we're all together.” I tried not to stare at the binder but I had an overwhelming urge to rip it out of her hands.

“That's what I thought too, but your dad is so traditional.”

I couldn't think of what to say so I stood as quietly as I could. Mom got lost in her thoughts again.

“So, um, did you need my binder for something?” I asked finally.

“No, sorry. Not at all. I just borrowed a piece of paper to start my shopping list.”

She fluttered the list in the air and handed me the binder. I grabbed it and hugged it to my chest. Then I chastised myself for leaving it out in the first place.

“I have to study for a test,” I said.

“I'm going to the mall later if you want to come,” she called out as I padded down the hall to my bedroom.

“Sounds good,” I called back to her, “let me know when you're leaving.”

To be honest, I had no desire to go to the mall. There was nowhere I could go that was going to make me feel any better. In fact, I knew being at the mall would probably make me feel worse than just sitting in my room. But I was feeling too restless to be alone.

I sat down on my bed and found the small tear in the cover of my binder. I got a pair of tweezers and pulled the list free. I knew what was written there and didn't need to read it, but still, I unfolded the piece of paper.

Ways to Kill Yourself

• jumping from a bridge
  (definitely afraid of heights)
  
• getting hit by a moving truck
  (can't take the chance of killing someone else)
  
• slashing wrists (not an option — thought of blood makes me pass out)
  
• carbon monoxide poisoning (not an option — access to a car and a garage problematic)
  
• gunshot to the head (not an option — access to a gun problematic)
  
• hanging
  (how did that TJSS guy do it?)
  
• drowning (still possible? maybe if water is cold?)
  
• overdose
  

It seemed like years had passed since I'd walked across suicide bridge, but it had only been four months. I glanced out my bedroom window at the snow falling. Even the botched hanging had receded. Panic clawed out from inside my chest and I lay down on my bed. I tucked my knees under my chin and tried to clear my mind.
What was wrong with me?
I wondered.
Why couldn't I just go through the motions of living like everyone else and act happy? Was everyone as miserable as me but a better actor? Did Aliya sometimes wish she could fall asleep and never wake up? Did Kyle ever want his brain to just shut up?
I shook the thought from my head and sat up again. I needed a distraction and turned on my laptop. Joe found me on Facebook within minutes.

“Do U ever study or R U, like, always on FB?”
I asked him
.

“Nice conversation starter,”
he quipped back.

“Sorry. How R U?”

“Fine. Did Mom tell U her big plan for Christmas?”

“Not really, what?”

“She wants to go on a cruise.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, she thinks if we stay home all we're going to do is think about Granny and Gramps like last year.”

I didn't know what to write back. I didn't want to think about Granny, or Gramps.

“U still there?”
Joe wrote a minute later.

“Yeah, I'm here. Getting away would be good.”

“She needs us to convince Dad.”

“How?”

“You're his favourite. Don't U have any strategies?”

“Yeah, rite, I'm his favourite. Where does she want to go?”

“Alaska, but they don't run in winter.”

Too bad
, I thought when I pictured all that icy water slapping at the hull of a cruise ship.

“Where else?”

“The Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the South Pacific.”

“Aren't cruises big $$$$?”

“Yeah, I was surprised too. But something down in the Caribbean is probably ok.”

“It would be nice to be warm for a week.”

“So talk to Dad.”

“I'll see what I can do.”

I'd never been on a ship before but I imagined it would be pretty easy to sneak onto the deck at night and slip over the railing. Once I was in the ocean there was no way I'd be able to swim to safety and nobody would be around to rescue me. In fact, it might be considered an accident and Mom and Dad would be spared the grief of knowing they'd raised a suicidal freak.

“Sweetie?” Mom knocked on my door and poked her head into my room.

Sherlock, who was lying beside my bed, raised his head hopefully and whacked his tail on the floor. The cat jumped off my bed.

“I'm going to the mall now. You still want to come?”

I slapped my hand over the list lying beside me.

I have to stop being so careless
, I thought.

“Yeah, sure. Give me five minutes.”

I logged off my computer, tucked the note back into its secret compartment, and joined Mom in the car. I almost got out again because the thought of being at the mall was overwhelming, but I forced myself to put on the seatbelt.

Because the snow was falling hard, traffic moved slowly and what should have been a ten-minute drive seemed to take forever. To make matters worse, the wipers were squeaking across the windshield and the heater was blasting so hot on my face that I started to feel claustrophobic. I closed the air vent and sighed.

“You sound tired,” Mom said. She glanced over and offered me a sympathetic smile.

“It's just this time of year,” I said.

“I know how you feel. Which brings me to Christmas. I think we should go on a cruise. Skip the tree, turkey, and trimmings. Spend a week lounging around a pool.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said. I knew she didn't want to bring up Granny and Gramps, but not saying their names didn't mean we weren't both thinking of them.

“We just have to convince Dad. I think he's worried about you. Maybe you could let him know you're all right with changing it up this year?”

“Sure, I'll talk to him.”

“I have my eye on a trip already. It leaves December eighteenth.”

I suddenly got what she was doing. She wanted us out of the country before the anniversary of the accident. Like we'd somehow avoid thinking about them if we were in a different place. Their faces loomed large in my mind. I still hated myself for not crying at their funerals.

“That's close. Can you book something so late?”

“I haven't actually called, but a lady at work booked the week before Christmas last year. She got a last-minute deal.”

Mom and I split up at the entrance of the mall and agreed to meet at the food court in two hours. She headed to the department store to buy underwear and I wandered in the opposite direction. I still wasn't sure why I was at the mall. I knew there was no point buying new jeans or boots if I wasn't going to be around to wear them.

When I was thirteen, I loved shopping as much as I loved drawing. I tried to fill the nagging void inside by buying new T-shirts and hoodies. But those days were a distant memory. Instead of stopping to admire the window displays at my old favourite stores, I rushed past. The Christmas music and frenzied shoppers made me feel anxious. I wasn't sure I could stand another season of forced cheerfulness and togetherness, even on a cruise ship. That's when the urgency hit me with so much force I had to stop and lean against the railing to catch my breath. I looked down at people walking on the level below. Groups of teenagers moved in herds. Couples split up to go around them.

“Hey, you!”

Without even looking up, I knew it was Gisele. It was getting harder and harder to fake my regular self and even smiling drained me. But as I turned around I somehow managed to transform my expression.

“Hey, Gisele. Are you working today?”

“I always work Saturdays,” she said in a tone that implied I was an idiot not to remember.

“I've got my days mixed up. I thought today was Sunday,” I said apologetically.

Gisele leaned over the railing beside me. She was the kind of friend who didn't mind silence. Still, I knew I'd need to come up with something to say sooner or later.

“Have you started your Christmas shopping yet?” It was all I could think to ask.

“No,” she snorted. “Everyone on my list gets wine glasses or bowls.”

“Oh yeah,” I said. She worked at a kitchen store.

“Listen, are you feeling okay? I mean is something bothering you? You've been really out of it lately. Ever since the party at the forks.”

My stomach thumped and I scrambled for an explanation.

“It's not just me,” she continued. “Everyone else has noticed too. Aliya, Mariam. Even Kyle said he saw you one day wandering down by the highway.”

“I wasn't wandering by the highway,” I said a little too defensively. “I was looking for a box of Joe's stuff that fell off the moving truck.”

“Joe moved a year and a half ago.”

“Geez, Gisele. What's with the interrogation? He took some more stuff over to his apartment and a box of linens fell off.”

Our language arts teacher taught us that the key to creating a believable story was in providing believable details. I applied the same theory to my lies. A box of linens seemed much more believable than just a
box
.

Gisele raised her eyebrows. “A box of linens?”

“You know my mom. She's a shopaholic. There was a sale. She thought he needed matching towels.”

Gisele didn't look at me. She kept watching the heads below.

“What do you
think
I was doing down there?”

“I don't have a clue. I don't get you much lately. You're sort of quiet. Not yourself.”

I took a deep breath. I knew I'd have to pull out an Oscar-winning performance if I was going to convince her everything was okay.

“Listen, keep it to yourself, but my parents have been fighting a lot lately. I think they might be getting a divorce. They haven't been the same since, you know, since my grandparents' accident.”

Gisele nodded knowingly. “Wow, that's rough. But still, I never would have expected your parents to split up.”

I nodded and pressed my lips into a straight line. “Don't say anything. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. I always thought your parents were so cute together.”

“I know. It totally sucks. That's why I've been, well, preoccupied lately.”

Gisele looked at her watch and stood up straight again.

“Sorry. My break's over. I gotta get back. Catch you later, okay?”

“Sure thing,” I said.

“Talk to me, you know, if you're feeling, like, sad or something.”

“I will.”

Mom arrived at the food court with a large bag in each hand. I was eating some fries and drinking a Coke, even though I wasn't really hungry. It just made me feel less awkward to be doing something with my hands while I waited.

“That's a lot of underwear,” I said and nodded at the bags.

She laughed. “It's not all underwear. They had a sale on bed sets so I got Joe a new comforter and two new pillows. I thought we could drop them off on our way home.”

She looked for my reaction and when I didn't give anything away she sat down and took a french fry from the carton on the table.

“Is that okay?” she asked. “It's not going to put a wrinkle in your plans or anything?”

“That's fine,” I said. “I haven't got any plans.”

I stood up and took a bag off the floor.

“You don't want the rest of these fries?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Help yourself.” Then I picked up the second bag so she could walk and eat at the same time.

I hadn't been over suicide bridge since the previous summer and I could feel myself tensing up when we got within view of it. The memory of the heat that day was so out of place with the snowy scene outside the car, I felt disoriented. I distracted myself once we were on River Road by looking down the steep banks. The river had started to freeze along the edges. It usually didn't freeze over completely until late December, when the temperatures dropped low enough. If I walked out past the ice and jumped into the water, I reasoned, the shock of the cold would immobilize me and I'd have a chance at drowning. But I only had a couple more weeks, then I'd have to wait for the spring thaw.

Jumping in the river seemed so easy. I'd already managed to jump in the river once, so maybe my body wouldn't be too freaked out about being on the ice. Besides, there'd be no heights, no rigging ropes, no timing traffic.
How hard could it be to sneak across the ice?
I asked myself. Then I remembered the boy who'd shot his face off, but somehow managed to survive. He was on the same talk show as the legless girl. He'd been so afraid to come out of the closet to his parents that he decided to take his father's rifle to his head. If you could screw up killing yourself with a gun, you could probably screw up anything. Still, I was starting to feel more desperate as the days went by and I woke up yet another morning to that hollow, nagging feeling that my life was a lie, that I didn't belong to any of it.