Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls

by Lynn Weingarten

  Ryan turns slowly, the smile gone from his face. “Wait, like, are you saying she . . . ?”

  I nod. “Did it herself.”

  “Jesus. How?”

  “I don’t know. But . . . there’s something else.” My heart is racing. I need to get this out. “She called me two days ago.” I hate hearing myself say this. I hate so much that it’s true. “But I just let it ring. She left me a voice mail. I didn’t listen to it at the time because I . . .” I stop. I didn’t listen to it because I couldn’t. Because I had worked so hard to try and put her out of my mind.

  “What did she say?” he asks.

  “I still haven’t played it yet.”

  Ryan exhales slowly. “Maybe you don’t need to,” Ryan says. “Maybe it will only make things worse.”

  “But how can things be worse than they already are?”

  He just shakes his head, looks down, then leans back and holds out his arms in this way that I love, when I’m capable of feeling anything. Which right now I’m not.

  I lean against him anyway, and he squeezes me tight. We stay that way until the front door opens a few minutes later and Ryan’s mother and sister Marissa come in. We spring apart. I stand up.

  “Junie, sweetheart!” Ryan’s mother smiles. “We missed you over Christmas.” She puts her keys and her fancy purse down on the counter.

  His sister waves to me as she walks up the stairs.

  “Marissa told me what happened at your school today,” Ryan’s mom says. She frowns. “Such a terrible shame, a tragic waste. Did either of you know the girl?”

  I don’t want Ryan’s mother to make a fuss, the way I know she will if she finds out the full truth. “I kinda used to, a while ago,” I say. “Not anymore.”

  “Oh, honey, that’s still awful. I’m so sorry.”

  She reaches over and gives me a hug. I know if she holds on too long, I will break apart entirely, because all of a sudden it turns out I am just barely holding myself together. I have to get out of here.

  I pull away awkwardly. “I need to use the bathroom.” I can feel Ryan watching me go.

  Once I’m safely inside, I turn on the faucet and slide down to the floor, my back against the door.

  I cannot wait any longer. I fish my phone out of my pocket and dial voice mail. I hold my breath.

  First the automated recording. “Message received Tuesday, December thirty-first, three fifty-nine p.m.” And then Delia. “Hey, J, it’s me, your old pal.” Her voice sounds at once completely familiar and like I’ve never heard it before in my life. “Give me a call, okay?” She pauses. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  That’s it. That’s all there is.

  Suddenly, I feel the edge of the door pressing into my back. Someone is trying to come in.

  “One second,” I call out. My voice cracks.

  I slip my phone back into my pocket, pull myself shakily to my feet. I splash water on my face and pat it dry with one of their soft towels.

  I’d assumed there would be something in her voice to make this all make sense, but all that’s here is Delia sounding exactly the way she always did. She doesn’t sound like a girl who is getting ready to die.

  Except . . . she was. It was the day before; she must have known. Did she call to tell me? Did she call so I could stop her?

  I open the door. Marissa is standing there in the hallway, smiling at her phone. “Sorry,” she says without looking up. “I thought you were with Ry. He’s in his room.”

  I walk down to the end of the hallway. He’s waiting for me on his bed, his blue plaid comforter bunched up behind him.

  “Did you listen?” he asks.

  I nod. “She said there was something she needed to tell me. But that was it. She always did like to keep people in suspense. Guess I will be forever now.” I try to choke out a laugh. Delia would have liked that joke. But the laugh gets mangled on its way out and comes out like a cough and a sob. I won’t let the tears come. I can’t.

  “I don’t understand,” I whisper.

  Ryan shakes his head, he clenches his jaw. “It’s beyond understanding.” And he looks like he is going to cry too.

  “Junie?” Ryan’s voice jolts me out of my trance. It’s later. We haven’t been sleeping, just lying in bed, holding on to each other. The sun has gone down and the room is dark.

  Now he holds something out in front of him. “Your present.”

  It’s a tiny snow globe, a perfect winter ski scene behind glass. When I look closer, I realize the person on the slope is a rabbit.

  “It’s Alva,” he says. “Or Adi.” He smiles. “When they went on vacation.”

  I try to smile back, but my mouth won’t work right. “Thank you,” I say. “It’s perfect.” And I think about the rabbit wallet I have for him back home, how I ordered it custom from an Etsy shop and was so excited when it came. How I spent a long time wondering whether buying him a present referring to our private joke was somehow too much, too serious. And I thought for a long time about whether to get one rabbit or two.

  I remember the girl who only had that to worry about. It all seems like a million years ago now.

  We make our way back downstairs. The kitchen is warm and bright and smells like sweet cooking onions. There’s music coming out of the sleek speaker on the counter behind the sink—happy instrumental stuff with lots of percussion. Marissa sits at the kitchen table with her laptop open. Ryan and Marissa’s older brother, Mac, is there now too, standing at the kitchen island. There’s a tangle of peppers and onions sizzling in front of him in a pan.

  Mac is nineteen and is different than the rest of his family. They all fit so easily into this world of happy family dinners, easy smiles. Even Ryan does, though on some level I think he probably wishes he didn’t. It’s a really good world to visit, but I’ve always only felt like a visitor. Sometimes it seems like maybe Mac kinda feels that way too. He graduated high school last year, and then went to Europe with his band. He came back a couple months ago and is starting a company with his friends, something to do with technology and filmmaking that’s supposed to be a secret. He lives in an apartment in downtown Philly with a few other guys, but he comes here sometimes for dinners and things. I always get the sense that he has some kind of secret life, maybe part of the world I used to belong to before I met Ryan when my whole life was wrapped up with Delia.

  “Mom’s at some exercise thing and Dad’s working late,” Mac says. “Here’s food if you guys want it.” He hands us each a plate piled with grilled shrimp and peppers and onions. He puts a platter of tortillas in the center of the coffee table and surrounds them with sour cream and homemade guacamole. Mac is a good cook, but the idea of eating seems absurd to me.

  But not as absurd as the idea that Delia could be dead, which makes no sense at all.

  I sit with my plate in my lap, barely moving.

  Delia devoured life in greedy, gulping bites. She never had it easy—there was hard stuff with her family, and hard stuff maybe wired into her brain. But no matter how bad things got, she would never have chosen to leave the world when there was still the chance that things could change, and things could always change. There’s always hope. And the Delia I knew knew that.

  So what the hell happened?

  No one talks much at dinner. Ryan takes the onions off my plate and gives me the guacamole off his. I eat one bite. When the three of them are done eating, Ryan takes our dishes to the kitchen to load the dishwasher, and Marissa goes upstairs to her room. Then it’s just me and Mac. He comes over to the couch where I sit, and leans in, voice low. “They’re having something for her tonight,” he says. “Her friends from Bryson, I mean.”

  I stare at Mac. I wonder if he is purposely not saying this in front of Ryan. I wonder, maybe, if somehow Ryan told him what happened all that time ago.

  “Where?” I ask.r />
  Mac shakes his head. “Sorry, I wish I could tell you. I only heard that they were meeting at her favorite place. And I don’t know what that is.”

  But I just nod and almost smile, because the thing is, I do.

  Chapter 5

  2 years, 5 months, 24 days earlier

  By the time Delia and June got to the reservoir, the boys were already there.

  Delia linked her arm through June’s. “Don’t be nervous,” she whispered. “It’s not too late to change your mind.” She was using this gentle, sweet tone she only ever used with June and her cat.

  But June shook her head. “I want to get this over with.” It was the summer after eighth grade, and June had decided it was time.

  Delia snorted a laugh. “Well, that’s one way to think about it.”

  They kept walking down toward the water, and June could hear the others now—laughter, the clink of bottles, and music coming out of someone’s phone. According to Delia, they were out there almost every night during the summer. They all went to Bryson, which was the school Delia would have gone to if she hadn’t convinced her mother to tell the school district that they still lived in their old house even after they’d moved in with Delia’s stepfather.

  “Guys at Bryson are generally hotter,” Delia had told her once. “More skateboardery than soccer player, which is why it’s better not to go to school with them. Then you don’t have to see them in the morning and look at the oozy zits they popped when they got out of the shower, or smell their coffee farts, and have no choice but to find them disgusting forever.”

  And so when June mentioned not wanting to start high school still not having kissed anyone, Delia made a joke about kissing her, then laughed and said, “Well, you’ll just make out with one of the Bryson boys, then.” Like it was no big deal and already settled. Delia, of course, had kissed lots of people. Eleven at last count, according to her list.

  They made their way toward the tiny flickering campfire and stopped. Delia reached over one of the guys’ shoulders and snatched the bottle of beer from his hand. Then she backed up and sat on a rock. Delia stayed far from the fire. She always did. Fire was the only thing on earth she was scared of.

  “Hey, D,” the guy said without turning. He had longish floppy hair and a black-and-white striped T-shirt.

  “Hello, boys,” Delia said. “This is June.” She turned to June and handed her the beer. “June, I can’t remember any of their names. It doesn’t really matter, though.” Delia grinned at June. She was doing her Delia Thing, which guys always seemed to love. June held the beer tightly to keep her hands from shaking. She pretended to take a sip and looked at them more closely.

  There were four: one shirtless with wiry muscles, two in black T-shirts who looked tough and cool, and the one whose beer she had. She watched as he raked his hair away from his face. He had a tattoo on the back of his wrist where a watch would be, a figure eight maybe, but she couldn’t say for sure. He caught her staring at him, and by the light of the fire she thought she could see the tiniest hint of a smile.

  “Tell us honestly, June,” Shirtless said. “Is Delia paying you to hang out with her?”

  “No,” June said. “I’m her imaginary friend.”

  June hadn’t known what she was going to say until the words popped right out. When she was around Delia, she was a better, more clever version of herself. Like she really was someone Delia had made up.

  All the boys laughed. And for a second June felt bad; maybe it wasn’t nice of her to join in with the boys’ teasing. But Delia laughed too and slung her arm over June’s shoulder, proud.

  “Then how come we can see you?” said Shirtless.

  “She must have a very powerful imagination,” Striped Shirt said. “A dirty one.” He was staring directly at June then. She felt herself blush, and she was glad it was dark. She liked the way his voice sounded, sexy but playful, like he was saying that but also making a joke about someone who would say that, all at the same time.

  June glanced at Delia, who was looking back and forth between them. Delia gave June a tiny nod. Him. A minute later when the boys asked them to sit down, Delia arranged it so that June and Striped Shirt were sitting next to each other. And then a minute after that Delia walked toward the water. “Hey,” she shouted. “Come with me if you’re not a pussy.” They all watched as she stripped down to her bra and underwear, climbed to the top of the tall rocks, and threw herself off into the reservoir.

  “We better go down there and see if she died,” Shirtless said. Even though they could already hear her splashing and whooping below. Shirtless and the two in black stood up. Striped Shirt stayed behind.

  “Next time you take a drink from your sink,” Shirtless said, “remember: my balls have been in your water.” He leaped off the edge, and the others followed.

  And then it was June and Striped Shirt all alone, just the way Delia had planned it. He leaned over and put his elbows on his knees. She could see the tattoo on his wrist again. It was covered in plastic wrap. He reached out to rub it like he wanted her to notice.

  “I only got it a few days ago,” he said. “So it itches.”

  “Does it mean something?”

  “Yes,” he said. And she couldn’t tell if she was supposed to ask more questions or not. So she just picked up a skinny stick and poked the end of it into the flame.

  She wished very much that Delia were still there next to her instead of far away in the water. June’s heart was pounding. She felt small and scared. She closed her eyes, pictured Delia nodding. Him.

  June took a deep breath, then turned toward Striped Shirt, and in one swift motion she grabbed the neck of his shirt and pulled him in toward her until their lips were touching.

  For one horrifying second he just sat there, lips slack. His mouth was cold and tasted like beer, and she thought about the fish at the bottom of the reservoir that sometimes nibbled at their toes when they went swimming, and how this was what kissing one of them might feel like. But a half second later he started kissing her back, and a second after that he pushed his tongue against her lips. She opened her mouth and let it in.

  This is my first kiss, she thought. I am having my very first kiss now.

  But it didn’t feel sophisticated or cool or even good. It was odd—a little gross, really. And suddenly, June was struck with something else: For the rest of her life, no matter how many kisses she had, no matter who those kisses were with or what they meant, this was the one that came before all of them, out in the dark with a guy whose name she didn’t even know. He would always be her first.

  Striped Shirt reached up and put his hand on her boob. His hand felt small, in a creepy way, kind of like a child’s. She thought maybe she wanted him to stop, wanted to undo this. But she wasn’t sure how.

  A moment later Delia and the boys were back, climbing up the rocks, dripping and shivering. June and Striped Shirt pulled apart.

  Shirtless said, “Whoa, hey now,” and started backing away when he saw them.

  But Delia just stood there, wringing out her hair. June felt like she might cry.

  “Come over here, D,” is what one of the guys said. “I think our boy and your imaginary friend could use some privacy.”

  “How was the water?” June asked. She tried to make her question sound casual, but what she was hoping beyond anything was that Delia would somehow figure out all that June wasn’t saying. And fix it.

  Delia raised her pinky up to her mouth and ran it back and forth across her bottom lip. She was staring straight at June.

  June scratched her ear. Their code.

  A second later Delia glanced down at her phone, then said loudly in a voice only June would know was fake, “We have to go now. Sorry, Junester, my mom just realized we’re not at home. She’s totally going to kill me.”

  June scrambled to her feet.

 
“That sucks,” said Shirtless.

  “Parents, man,” said one of the others.

  “So I’ll see you back here sometime?” Striped Shirt asked June. And June nodded, not meaning it, not even looking at him.

  Silently they walked away. Delia held June’s hand the whole way home. She never brought it up again.

  Chapter 6

  When I get home, the apartment is dark, but I can hear the TV blaring through my mother’s bedroom door. It’s after nine and she’s not at work tonight, which means she’s drunk, and what is there really to say about that. I’ve long since gotten used to things being the way they are; in general I just try not to think about it. But as I climb up the narrow stairs, for one weak second I let myself imagine what it would be like if I could knock on her door and tell her what happened. I imagine her wrapping me up like Ryan’s mom did. I imagine her telling me everything is going to be okay. I feel a wave of something then, longing, maybe. I shake it away. My mother wouldn’t do it. And even if she did, I wouldn’t believe her.

  I go into my room, kneel down, and start pulling things from my drawers. In this moment I am calm again, a strange, faraway kind of calm, like I’m not really here at all.

  Ryan tried to convince me to stay the night. “My parents won’t mind,” he said. “Considering everything . . .” His voice was soft and sweet, and even though I could hardly feel anything, I knew that if all of this hadn’t happened, it would have made me happy that he wanted me to. And a part of me wished so much that I could say yes, that I could sit there on his family’s couch where everything is safe and warm and good. When his dad got home he’d make bad puns and turn on the news. He’d kiss Ryan’s mother on the lips, and Ryan would jokingly roll his eyes. Then Marissa would make popcorn with tons of this butter spray she loves, and we’d all sit together. I’d let their normalness swirl around me and envelop me. I’d pretend like none of this had happened.

  “I should go home,” I told Ryan, “to be alone for a while, I think.” And he seemed to understand, or at least he thought he did. He walked me out to my car and stood there watching as I drove away. Alone. I felt bad for lying to him. But what choice did I have?