Lynn Weingarten - Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls

“I hope he’s at least secretly into something freaky,” Krista says. And then she winks and lets out a pained little moan. “My eyes are not ready for winking yet.”

A second later the announcements begin. “Good morning, North Orchard students and faculty. Can I please have everyone’s attention?” It’s Vice Principal Graham. There’s something strange in his tone. I sit up and listen. “It is with deep sorrow and a heavy heart that I must deliver some very sad news. A member of the North Orchard High community passed away over break.” He pauses to clear his throat. And in that moment, I stop breathing. I think everyone does. In that moment it could be any of us. “Junior Delia Cole passed away yesterday. Ms. Dearborn and Mr. Finley and the rest of the counseling staff will be available for anyone who needs to talk, and my door is always open as well. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Ms. Cole’s friends and family during this difficult time.”

The loudspeaker clicks off. And then there is silence, and the ding of the bell. The school day has officially begun.

My head detaches from my body. It rises right up into the air and floats toward the door, and so I follow it.

“He didn’t say how,” someone whispers. “What could have happened?” They sound confused, as though her death was so unlikely.

But I can so easily imagine a million ways Delia might have died. Maybe she climbed up onto the old closed-off bridge that stretches over the reservoir and went out onto the rotted part beyond the DO NOT PASS sign. Or she was up on someone’s roof looking up at a big bright moon and teetered onto the delicate edge, even as they begged her not to. Maybe she walked across the road with her eyes closed, playing a game of chicken like she used to, her final moment the howl of a horn, a rush of adrenaline, and sudden blinding light.

Ryan is waiting for me outside homeroom. We lock eyes and he stands there staring, frozen, like he isn’t really sure what to do with his face. And I’m not sure what to do with mine, either, because it doesn’t even feel like my face anymore. I start walking toward him and he pulls me against him into a hug. His arms are strong and warm like always, but right now I can barely feel them.

I say, “This is . . .” And I stop because my brain has run out of words, and there’s nothing in my head but air.

“. . . completely nuts,” he says. He is shaking his head. And it occurs to me that this is the first time either of us has mentioned Delia, referred to her at all even, in over a year. I thought we would at some point – that it would be so strange when we finally did.

We make our way across campus, and he drops me off at the door of the English building, where my next class is. He leans in and hugs me again. The nylon of his jacket is smooth and cold against my cheek.

When he lets go, he looks down at the ground. “I can’t believe this happened.”

But the thing is, now that it has, it seems like it was always going to. Like somehow all along, Delia was far ahead of us, dead, and we are only just now catching up.

“I don’t know if it’s weird to say this now,” he says, “but I really missed you.”

And I know in a different version of the world than the one we are in, this would send a jolt of pleasure up my spine. So I say, “Me too,” but being apart from him and winter break and everything that happened before this moment seems very far away. I can’t really remember what missing feels like, or any other feelings either.

CHAPTER 2

I went to classes. My brain registered nothing. It mattered even less than it normally did.

It’s right after lunch now. I’m in the bathroom standing at the sink. There are two girls three sinks away, juniors like me. I don’t know them well, but I know their names: Nicole and Laya. Nicole always wears big silver hoop earrings and Laya always wears a ponytail so tight it looks like her face might split. They are passing a stick of eyeliner back and forth.

I’m not really paying attention to them, to anything, until there’s a buzzing sound – Laya’s phone receiving a text. And then a half second later there’s Laya’s highpitched voice shrieking, “No fuh-reaking way.”

I look up. Nicole is lining her bottom lid, pulling at her face so you can see the pink around her eye. “What?”

Even though I don’t know what Laya is going to say, my heart is psychic and decides to start pounding.

“So you heard how Hanna’s older brother is training to be a police officer, right?”

Nicole nods, her head bouncing like it’s too heavy for her neck to hold up.

“And you know how they didn’t say how she died, right? Well, she said he said that’s because” – Laya pauses, getting ready to say something juicy – “it was suicide.”

Through the fog of feeling nothingness, my stomach drops, my heart stops beating. I lean forward, like I’ve been punched.

Nicole turns to Laya. “Whoa.”

“Yeah. On New Year’s Day.”

“Oh my God, that is so sad!” Nicole sounds excited. “How?”

Laya shrugs. “Hanna’s brother didn’t tell her.”

“I read a thing once that women, girls, whatever, are more likely to use pills, but I don’t know, I could sort of see her, like . . .” Nicole puts her two fingers together and sticks them in her mouth. Then she jerks her head to the side and lets her tongue hang out.

The water is pounding down into the sink and splashing onto my shirt. Maybe I am going to throw up.

“She always seemed sort of off the rails . . .” Laya says.

“Totally. Like one of those famous people who do insane things, except not actually famous.”

“Yeah, like, famous only in her own head, though.”

My sink has filled up. Water drizzles out onto the floor.

I face them now, something inside me sparks and catches fire. “Stop talking about her like that,” I say. I try to keep my voice from shaking. They turn toward me, like they’re only now noticing that I’m here at all. “Just fucking stop it.”

“Um, hi?” Nicole says. “Private conversation. Besides, were you even friends?”

She looks at me, lips pursed slightly.

“Yes, we were,” I say.

“Oh,” says Laya. “Sorry.” And for a moment she almost kind of sounds it. Laya and Nicole exchange a quick look and then head toward the door without another word. They are best friends, which means they don’t always need to speak to understand each other. I watch them go. There’s a squeezing in my chest, and my eyes tighten. The tears are starting to come, but I grit my teeth and I blink them back.

The thing is, when I said Delia and I were friends, that wasn’t really true.

If we were still friends, then when I saw Delia’s name flashing on my phone two days ago for the first time in over a year, instead of clicking ignore and not even listening to the message, I would have picked up. I would have picked up and heard Delia’s voice, and would have known something was wrong. And then, no matter what Delia said, no matter what Delia was planning, I would have stopped her.

CHAPTER 3

1 YEAR, 6 MONTHS, 4 DAYS EARLIER

It was a relief to know she didn’t have to explain. Not about the ache in her chest, the pit in her stomach, where it was coming from, and how much she didn’t want to talk about it – Delia would just get it. She always did.

June imagined what Delia was about to say, maybe something along the lines of, “Parents. Fuck ’em,” or “Only boring people have perfect lives.” Delia could make you feel like the things you didn’t have were things you didn’t want anyway. She changed the whole world like that.

So that’s what June was expecting, standing out there in the summer sun, waiting for Delia to fix this.