By the Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead (3 page)

The smell of licorice is overpowering and I shut down my senses to read.
Charles swiped his eyes with a knuckle. He said, “What about—”

“A triple twist?” Green Boy interrupts. “A quad?”

Stop! Stop it.
“Forget Emilio,” Maggie Louise sobbed. “There’s only us. Only now.” Maggie Louise regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth. She could never give up Emilio.
I turn the page. I wait for Green Boy to pipe up again, but he doesn’t. Maybe he finally got the message.

She pressed her head to Charles’s chest and felt her heart beat with his. Emilio. Oh, my love, Emilio. How could she tell him it was over?

Green Boy says, “I could show you my Rudi.”

A drop of rain splats on my page at the exact moment Dad drives up.

“It’s a rooty-tooty Rudi,” Green Boy calls at my back. As I swing open the car door, I hear him mutter under his breath, “A rooty-tooty Rudi? God, tell me I didn’t say that.”

Over the racket of grinding up a steak and slimy gravy for my dinner, Dad shouts, “I’m really sorry I forgot.”

Did you ever drink meat?

He apologizes all through the meal for spacing my schedule. “There was a fender bender and the interstate was at a standstill. It took me twenty minutes to get to an off-ramp. I’m so sorry, Daelyn. Thank you for your patience.”

He says the words, but they don’t ring true.

“I hope you didn’t panic.”

He hates it even more than Mom when I have a wack attack. One time we got on an elevator—I think we were going to the shrink—and it was around lunchtime and people kept rushing in, punching the Open Door button and crushing me against the wall where I felt trapped and couldn’t breathe. I started to panic and hyperventilate, whimper and squirm because I couldn’t get out,
get me out
, and Mom was there, telling Dad to punch the button for the next floor. He made people move and they got angry, then he yanked my arm too hard to pull me through the crowd because my feet were planted, they were glued to the floor, the faces of everyone scowling at me and Dad shouting, “Move aside! Let us THROUGH!”

His guilt trip for forgetting me at school gets me out of kitchen cleanup, at least. I go to my room and log on to Through-the-Light.

WTG is Ways to Go. How to do it. Methods and Means. Each is rated 1 to 5, low to high, in terms of effectiveness, availability, and pain.

Exsanguination (bleeding to death)

Effectiveness: 4–5, if you cut an artery. Otherwise 1–2.

Oh, now you tell me, I think.

Time: Minutes to hours.

Availability: 5. Razor-sharp knives are best. Razor blades are difficult to hold when they’re covered with blood.

No kidding. I’d hated the blood. So much blood.

Pain: 2–3. Hurts at first.

Not that much. It hurts worse later, after you find out you failed.

Notes: Slitting wrists is a common suicide “gesture” and hardly ever results in anything more than a scar. Average time to die from a wrist-slitting depends on your height, weight, and how large and deep your wounds are. Expect at least two to four hours; longer if you weigh more or have increased body mass.

That was one miscalculation I made. Four hours, though? Of bleeding to death?

Strength and determination are required to cut deeply into groin or carotid arteries, which are the only wounds likely to kill you. Cutting your throat is difficult due to the fact that carotid arteries are protected by your windpipe. If you want to cut your wrists, cut along the blue vein on the underside of your arm. A hot bath helps, since it keeps the blood flowing quickly and slows down clotting. Position yourself so your wrists don’t fall inward against your body, blocking off blood flow.

That was my second mistake.

Wouldn’t the bath get cold in four hours?

Discovery danger is high.

Especially if you haven’t given yourself enough time.

This is giving me anxiety, and I don’t want to feel. I touch
FF
and scan the discussion topics. Same as before. I pick
Bequests
.

I leave my extensive LEGOS collection to Dmitri R*. I’d like Dmitri R* to take my dog.

J_Doe090859 should talk to Dmitri R* first. What if Dmitri R* doesn’t want his dog? I’m pretty sure J_Doe090859 is a guy. Girls don’t leave LEGOS as legacies.

I bequest and bequeeth my wedding vail to my beloved husband, Ferdnor, who proceded me in death. He passed suddunly last year from a massiave heart attack. I find I can not live without him. Nor do I want to.

So far on my list of property to bequeath I have my clothes, which should just be burned because Mom picked most of them out and they’re hideous; my new computer, which isn’t really mine because nothing Dad buys really belongs to me; my books, which I’m dealing with in my own way; and all my other earthly possessions that I threw into the closet when we moved here. If I were a generous person, I’d donate my stuff to a children’s charity or something.

I’m not, obviously.

For trash day I’m going to gather a pile of old games and clothes and worthless junk that would only remind them of me, and shove them into a Glad bag. The next-door neighbors have tons of trash, so one more bag won’t be noticed in the pickup. The trick is sneaking the bag out there without Mom or Dad seeing me.

Twenty-one more days to remove every trace of my existence. I could do that in twenty-one minutes.

— 20 DAYS —

No one calls me fat ass or lard butt at this school. No one smashes a Twinkie through my locker vent. No one pokes me and goes, “Gooey mass,” or “Porker,” or “Blubber belly.”

Back in second grade this boy called me “Plumpkin.” “Hey, Plumpkin,” he said. “Hey, fatso.”

I wasn’t that fat yet. Maybe I was. I remember every mean thing anyone ever said to me. Plumpkin. Fat ass. Crybaby. Big fat crybaby.

It’s so Oprah, but to feel better I ate away the pain. Then the pain ate me.

I don’t know why I can’t let the insults go, but I can’t. I’m the product of every hurt that’s ever been laid on me.

Human waste product. Dispose of it.

He’s not there when I exit the gate. Thank God. I stalled around in the girls’ restroom an extra few minutes so he’d give up.

Why isn’t he in school, anyway? Even yesterday, when I got out early, he was there. He
is
a stalker.

It’s a relief he’s not here. I need to be alone, physically and emotionally. The final act must be accomplished in a total state of purity. The other times, I realize now, I had impure thoughts. Doubt, or hope.

I open my book. The words glow stark against the page. Black, white, black, white . . .

“Sen-Sen?” he says, opening the tin.

I’d scream if I could. I’d tell him to . . . the word “respect” burbles up in my brain. Respect my space, my privacy. I don’t deserve respect. I don’t deserve anything. Mom’s CR-V swerves around the corner and disorients me. How long was he there? Was I reading? Not one word sank in.

I hustle to the street and he calls, “Hey, you forgot your bookmark.” I wrench open the car door and slam it shut. I have other bookmarks.

Mom says, “Hi, honey. How was your day? I missed you.”

She never says that. Why would she miss me?

I almost look at her, then don’t.

There are 318 people logged on to Through-the-Light. Friday nights are lonely for so many people in the world.

Not only have I never had a boyfriend, I’ve never had a date, so being home on Friday night is all I know. Mom and Dad used to have a standing Friday night date. Before, when they could leave me alone in the house at night.

The Final Forum is a beehive of activity. Buzz buzz. Hot topic tonight:
Attempts
.

J_Doe122589: How many times have you tried? This will be my third. And last.

J_Doe050550: I OD’d on heroin twice. My roommate found me both times. He shoulda let me die, man. I’m so f*d up.

I could tell them stories.

J_Doe081967: I’ve tried 12 times. Pills, booze, knives. This time it’s for real.

What a liar. Trying is failing. Failing to complete. Failing to plan and consider every angle of your method. There is always—ALWAYS—the possibility of failure. But twelve times?

I bet most of us here have tried and failed. The completers aren’t here, of course. We’re cowards in their eyes—if they can see us.

J_Doe102259 writes:
I try electric myself and didnt work. My frien told me if I drop hairdry in bath tub, I die. Wrong.

Is she foreign or something? It’s a global epidemic.

J_Doe012964 writes:
I chose electrocution becuz I read its fast and painless. I cut my electrical line and stood in bare feet in a puddle. I lost conshiousness and my neighbor resussitated (sp) me. All I got was 3rd degree burns on my leg. Its NOT painless.

You never want to be resuscitated. You have to plan the time and place. You have to be alone. You never want to end up on life support, or as a vegetable. You must destroy your body beyond the point where it will support life.

The foreign girl adds:
I try total 4 times and evrytime I wake up in hopital.

The worst is waking up in the hospital. Your parents are there, crying. Or your mother is yelling at the doctors and nurses. You come back wrecked. You ruin everyone’s day.

It won’t happen again.

I promise.

— 19 DAYS, 18 DAYS —

I wake with dread this Saturday. Not that I ever look forward to waking up, but weekends are especially bad. More time alone with them, their pathetic attempts to draw me out. “What should we do today, Daelyn? Go to an early movie?” Because I can’t embarrass them in a dark theater, and the matinees are never crowded. “Play Monopoly? Or Clue? How about Pictionary?” When I don’t answer, they give up. They’ve come to realize my only friends exist in cyberspace— like they’re really friends. They’re screen names. I don’t do friends.

When I was nine, Mom said, “Would you like to be in Girl Scouts? I was a Girl Scout. You’ll make a lot of friends.”

By then being around a bunch of girls my age terrified me. “No thanks,” I told her. Girls were so mean.

She said, “Go to one meeting. I bet you’ll enjoy it.”

No, no, no, no, no. She didn’t get it.

She made me go.

At the meeting she stayed a few minutes, then left me at a stranger’s house with all these girls who already knew each other. A few were in my class at school and one of them groaned. It clued in the others. The leader made the troop do a ceremonial welcome bridge and I had to walk under everyone’s steepled hands. More than one girl tried to trip me.

The meeting was boring and stupid. One of the girls from my school came up to me afterward and said, “You’ll like this part, Daelyn. It’s where we eat.” She gasped real loud so everyone would hear. “I hope we have enough cupcakes.”

I went to the bathroom and locked myself in. The leader tried to talk me out, and even with my hands over my ears, I could hear the girls laughing at me. I sat on the floor against the door until Mom came to pick me up.

In the car she said, “Did you even try?”

Why do I have to be the one who tries?

In her eyes, I’m a failure. She won’t miss me.

I’m required to keep my bedroom door open while I’m online, even though the first thing Dad did when we moved here was remove all the locks from the doors. I’m up before them so I log on.

Heavy topic on the Final Forum:
Sexual Assault
. I don’t want to read those stories.
Bullied
attracts me again.

I was teased from kindergarten on because I’m gay. The teasing turned to bullying. J_Doe070790.

I’ve been called fag my whole life and I’m not even gay. J_Doe112985.

People call me pizza face. i can’t help it if i have acne. They say “yo zit wad.” girls back up when I come tward them. someone passed around a picture they drew in bio class. It was this sea monster with tennacles. It had my name and unerneath they wrote zit squid. Everybody got a big kick out of that. i wonder how they’ll feel when I’m dead.

J_Doe090291 writes:
Bullycide is the only cure for living.

Bullycide. I know that word well. Suicide as an escape from bullying.

I touch the screen for
Add a Message
. A blank notepad appears with my ID filled in. My hands hover over the keys—five, ten seconds. I want to write my story. But if I do . . .

No.

I can’t. I don’t trust people anymore.

I go to touch screen off, but a new post catches my eye. J_Doe061890.
I was always the new girl, so people picked on me. I must’ve done something to deserve it otherwise why? I’ve been at this school for 2 1/2 years and every day these girls wait for me and hunt me down. They’ve threatened to cut me and beat me until I bleed to death. I’m going to save them the trouble.

I key fast, “In first grade this boy said to me, ‘You’re fat. You’re fatter than the fattest pig on the farm.’ It made me cry. I told my mom and all she said was, ‘Ignore it. Let it roll off your back.’ How many times are you supposed to let it roll off your back?”

Just writing that much makes my pulse race.

J_Doe110282 writes:
The jocks call me queer fag sissy buttf*ck from the minute I get to school until I get out of there. I know it’ll never end. Never.

They kill you with their words. My fingers fly: “The first day in my new school these three older girls on the playground surrounded me. They were a pack. I was standing by the swings waiting for a turn and the leader said, ‘You can’t be serious. You couldn’t even fit on that swing.’ They all laughed. One of the other girls said, ‘Even if you could squish in, we don’t want you to break the new swing set.’”

J_Doe061890 replies:
“People are so f*ing mean. I hate everyone.

Join the biggest club in the world.

J_Doe100285 writes:
People teased me because of my disability. When I reported it nobody did anything. It just got worse.

“I went to report them,” I key, “but I found out the people with orange vests were the mediators. All three girls were wearing orange vests.”

J_Doe061890: F* the entire human race.

Every recess. It was like they’d made a pact with every person at school. Don’t let the fat girl play on any of the playground equipment. Don’t play with her because she’s fat.

Fat is ugly. Fat is stupid.

I cried every night. “I don’t want to go to school,” I told Mom and Dad. I begged them to let me stay home. Mom said, “You have to go to school. It’s the law.”

“Can’t I be homeschooled?”

“We both have to work,” Mom said.

They cared more about work than me.

I even told them how people called me names.

Dad said, “I got called names all the time because I didn’t play sports. ‘Wuss’ and ‘willy,’ stuff like that. So what? Brains’ll get you farther than brawn.” He patted my shoulder. “Don’t let them get to you.”

But they are! I wanted to scream.

“Daelyn, what are you doing?” Mom walks into my room.

My fingers spring up off the keyboard. I raise my hand to cover the screen and it goes dark.

“Are you okay?”

I don’t answer because I can’t talk. Anyway, rhetorical question.

She says, “You look tired. Did you have a rough night?”

I don’t sleep well. I have nightmares.

“I can’t sleep either.” She pulls her robe around her and hugs herself. “It was a hard week. I lost the account in Houston.”

She doesn’t sound sad, but I know she is. Losing work? Horrors. She pads over and squeezes me around the shoulders. I wince from the ache of her touch. I hate my skin for feeling.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see her looking around my room.

She zeroes in and crosses to my bed. Lifting my book off the pillow and flipping it over, she reads the blurb on back. A smile tugs her lips before she sets the book down. “They were difficult clients, anyway. Nothing I ever did was right. When your business is going under, you don’t blame the accountant.” She heads for the door and I think, No, you blame yourself. “You know what today is?” she says.

Mom smells good. She has this face cream that reminds me of peach pie. Don’t breathe it in.

“The weekend. At last. Oh, don’t forget we’re seeing Dr. Novotny at one.”

She pauses in the threshold. “You really do look tired, sweetheart. You should get to bed earlier. Get more sleep.”

I intend to, Mom. Eternal rest.

* * *

Dr. Novotny is our fourth or fifth family therapist. I lose count. He says, “Hello, Daelyn.” He wants to talk to me alone, I know. But I refuse. “Hello, Chip. Kim. Please, take a seat.”

I want all of us, in unison, to pick up our chairs and leave. When Dr. Novotny runs out after us, Mom and Dad will say, “You told us to take them.”

One, that would be amusing. Two, we are not amused.

“How is everyone?” He feigns interest. He has sweat stains under his pits. He looks like he doesn’t get paid enough to spend wasted time with suicidal girls and their incompetent parents.

No worries, Dr. No. This is your final monthly torture session with the Rice family singers.

“Who wants to start?” he asks.

My hand shoots into the air and I wave it around going, “I do I do.” Three—that wouldn’t happen in this or any other life.

Dad says, “Daelyn seems to be doing well.”

If only I could laugh, I’d give you that one, Dad.

“So the new medication is working?” Dr. Novotny peers intently at Dad. Like Dad would know. I’m supposed to let them in on how I’m feeling; if this antidepressant makes me sad or suicidal. What is beyond suicidal?

Dr. No turns to me, “How would you rate your happiness quotient, Daelyn?”

Oh, off the scale.

He probes my eyes, which is futile. I have nothing against Dr. No, personally, but he can’t help me. No one can change the past.

Mom goes, “Daelyn seems much happier. She doesn’t cry as much.”

Because tears are useless.

Mom adds, “She’s adjusted nicely to her new school. At least, that’s my impression. Am I wrong?” She arches her eyebrows at me.

I don’t look at her. I can’t. I’m staring at Novotny’s hair plugs.

He pushes a legal pad across the desk at me. There’s a pen on top. I don’t take them. What would I write? “Bald is beautiful”?

“She has a friend,” Dad says.

I do?

“She does?” Mom and Dr. No say together.

“A boy,” Dad explains. “I saw him talking to her on Wednesday.”

“
That
boy?” Mom’s voice takes on a sharp edge. “I told you not to talk to strangers, especially boys. He looks dangerous to me,” Mom says to Dr. Novotny, to Dad. “Like a punk.” To me she says, “He’s not a friend of yours, is he?”

Does anyone see the humor in this?

Boys are
not
girls’ friends. I’ve never known one boy who only wanted to be friends with a girl. Mom’s right about them being dangerous.

She takes my limp hand and looks like she’s going to break down. We’re only five minutes into the session and already she’s losing it. She doesn’t usually disintegrate until we leave.

I hate to touch his filthy tablet. His nasty pen.

Mom holds my hand in her lap. “He’s so . . . I don’t know what you call it. Goth. Gangster.” She says to Dad, “I don’t want Daelyn associating with people like that.”

He’s so far from goth or gangster it’s not even funny.

“He looks all right to me,” Dad says. “Daelyn’s going to have to talk to strangers sometime. I mean, everyone’s a stranger at first.”

For God’s sake. I take back my hand and grab the tablet. In the bottom right-hand corner, in my tiniest print ever, I write: no.

I pass the tablet to Mom. She squints. Dad leans over to see. Even Dr. No is intrigued. I’ve totally made their day.

“No, he’s not your friend?” Mom asks.

I know it’s going to hurt, but I give Mom a definite shake of my head. The gesture rips my throat.

“Oh, Daelyn.” Her eyes pool with tears.

I have to go. I have to go now.

Mom says at Sunday brunch, “Let’s take a drive.” Is it still brunch when your eggs and bacon are blenderized? When your waffles and strawberries are pureed and sipped through a straw?

I don’t want to “take a drive.” I want to go back to bed.

“We could drive up to Tiny Town. You used to love that place.” She salts her scrambled eggs.

I never loved Tiny Town. It’s this fake miniature town that some crazy person built. You walk around and peek into all the tiny windows. Then you get a sno-cone and come home.

“Is that place still there?” Dad asks. He separates the newspaper, handing me the comics. I don’t read the funny pages anymore.

Can I go to my room?

Mom reaches over and pats my wrist. “It’ll be fun. Just the two of us.”