Michael Ford - Suicide Notes

“It’s okay,” she said again.

I slipped my fingers underneath the elastic and felt hair. I don’t know why, but I was surprised that it was as rough as mine is. I thought girls would have really soft hair down there, like rabbit fur or something. It felt strange. Also, I’m used to feeling, well, something down there, and it wasn’t there.

Sadie made a soft grunting sound and kissed my neck. I could feel myself getting hard, but I didn’t know what to do next. Was I just supposed to stick it in? Was there something else I was supposed to do first? In the movies they always end the scene before you see that part. And it’s not like someone gives you a manual or anything. I just figured that when the time came, I’d know what to do. But there I was, and I had no clue.

Sadie put her hand into my boxers. I pulled away from her and rolled onto my side.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I hear Carl,” I said. “His keys.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Sadie said. “It’s probably just the wind.” She started to touch me again, but I wasn’t hard anymore.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should go.”

I didn’t wait for her to say anything else. I just left. Of course, Carl wasn’t in the hall. I knew he wasn’t. I ran back to my room as fast as I could and got into my own bed.

I knew I couldn’t avoid Sadie forever. I mean, it’s not like there’s, oh, anywhere to get away from people for very long around here. In fact, I pretty much ran into her first thing at breakfast.

“Hey,” I said, which is so incredibly witty that you can applaud my genius any time you want to.

“Hey,” Sadie said. “Take my advice, stay away from the muffins. They look like blueberries, but they’re actually raisins. Totally disgusting.”

She was talking like it was any other day and not the morning after I tried to have sex with her but couldn’t keep it up. I figured she was just being nice and pretending it hadn’t happened.

“I’m sorry about what happened,” I said. Lucky for me, no one else had come in yet, so I didn’t have to worry about anyone eavesdropping. Well, except for anyone listening on the hidden microphones, which by the way I totally believe are planted around here.

“What about it?” Sadie asked, poking at her oatmeal with her spoon.

“You know,” I said, not believing she was going to make me actually say it. “Not being able to—”

“Oh, that,” said Sadie, waving her hand like she was shooing away a fly. “Don’t worry about it. We were just fooling around, right? It’s not like it was our honeymoon.”

“I just wanted you to know that it wasn’t because of, you know, you or anything.”

“Oh, I know,” Sadie answered. “I never thought it was. It’s all about you.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said. I felt like she’d slapped me.

“No,” she said, looking at my face. “I didn’t mean it that way. I mean I know it’s because of you. You and Allie.”

“Me and Allie?” I repeated.

“Sure,” Sadie said. “You’re in love with her and she doesn’t love you. Or something like that. I still haven’t quite figured it all out. But I know it’s about Allie.”

“It’s not like that,” I said, shaking my head. “She’s just my best friend.”

“Best friend,” Sadie repeated, making air quotes with her fingers so that I would know she didn’t really believe me. “Okay, so you and Allie are best friends. That doesn’t mean you don’t want to be more than that. So what’s the problem?”

“It’s not a problem,” I said. “Or at least it wasn’t. Not until Burke came into the picture.”

“Who’s Burke?”

“Allie’s boyfriend.” It was the first time I’d said his name out loud since coming to the hospital. It tasted like raw onions.

Sadie nodded. “I get it now. You’re jealous because Burke’s got Allie, and Burke’s all jealous because you and Allie are friends. That is such a guy thing. He probably gets all pissed off because he thinks she spends more time with you than with him.”

“Right,” I said.

“And because she’s a girl and thinks boyfriends are the most important thing in the universe, she told you she couldn’t spend so much time with you.”

“Something like that.” Sort of.

“God, girls make me sick sometimes,” said Sadie. “Here’s this jerk who’ll probably dump her in a month and she gives up her best friend for him because he’s too insecure to handle the fact that she likes to hang out with another guy. What a stupid bitch.”

I didn’t say anything. Allie isn’t stupid, and she isn’t a bitch. If she was, what happened between us would be easier to forget. But she’s not like that at all, only I couldn’t tell Sadie that because it would make her think I wasn’t telling the whole story. Which I wasn’t.

“That’s why you did it, isn’t it?” Sadie said after a minute. “Because you lost your best friend?”

“Pretty much,” I said. “I don’t know, maybe I thought it would make her feel sorry for me or something. Pretty stupid, huh?”

“Not stupid,” said Sadie. “Sad. Especially because she doesn’t deserve a friend like you.”

Then she got up and hugged me. I totally wasn’t expecting it. Like I said before, my family isn’t big on the whole affection thing. I mean Amanda hugged me when she saw me, but that was just a case of temporary insanity. Normally she would never do that. Even Allie has never hugged me more than a couple of times, and she comes from a big family of huggers. I guess I just have this invisible sign on me that says no hugging.

But Sadie ignored the sign. She hugged me really hard, patting my back and squeezing me. I wasn’t sure what I should do, so I patted her back. That seemed to work, because she let go of me.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” she said. “But you know what? You don’t need her. It’s time you had friends who see how great you are.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“No maybe,” said Sadie, taking my hands and holding them. Her thumbs touched my wrists, and I could feel her rubbing my scars. I let her.

“I want you to know you can tell me anything,” Sadie said. “ Anything .”

“Thanks,” I told her. “You too.”

“Aren’t you two a cute couple.”

I looked up and saw Rankin grinning at us. He was carrying a plate piled with scrambled eggs, sausage, toast, and everything else he could fit on it. I don’t think I could eat that much food in an entire day, let alone for breakfast.

Rankin took a seat at the table while Sadie went back to her chair. To tell the truth, I was kind of relieved that Rankin had interrupted us. I mean, I was happy that Sadie wasn’t mad, and it was nice of her to say everything she said, but I had pretty much used up all of my sharing time minutes, if you know what I mean.

Rankin was ignoring us and concentrating on his breakfast. And I mean concentrating , as in he was staring at it like it was a math problem he needed to figure out. Finally he picked up a sausage and bit one end off.

“Take it easy on that thing, Rankin,” said Sadie, looking at me and winking. “You know what they say about playing with your sausage too much.”

I couldn’t believe she’d said that. “ Stop it ,” I mouthed at her.

But it didn’t matter. Rankin didn’t get the joke, anyway. He wrinkled up his eyebrows and said, “I’m not playing with it, I’m eating it.” He put the rest of the sausage in his mouth and chewed it.

Sadie looked at me and giggled.

“You guys are weird,” Rankin said, and dug into his eggs.