I practice mentally: hey I hope you know I really care about you and I hope things with us are okay. I have the words ready, all arrayed in order like a paint palette, but as soon as I open my mouth they dry out. Regina reaches into her backpack, pulling out a container of soy yogurt and a plastic spoon. I’m eating a satsuma, and I hold it out for Regina to tear off a segment. She either pretends not to see or doesn’t.
I’ve never said this aloud to anybody, and I resist letting the thought form in my own mind, too. But this is the thing I’m most afraid of, the fear that fits its lens over everything Regina ever says or does to me: that she blames me. Even if she doesn’t know the whole story—and it would be so much worse if somehow she did.
I wonder sometimes which moments are the ones where she misses Sandra the most. There’s a case to be made, I think, for when things are rough, when nowhere else in the world is a safe harbor and all that history you built with someone collapsed—every fight she has with her parents, every time the grief overtakes her. But I think there’s something to be said for when it’s just moments like this, too, the mundane ones that you can’t talk about with anyone else because they don’t matter all that much. One time sophomore year after Harry’s sister was already away at Harvard he texted her a picture of their dad casually walking around in a pair of skinny jeans he’d gotten himself. I’M DEAD, Evelyn texted back, and then like twenty skull emojis. DEEEEEADDDDDDDDDD. And I missed my sister all through middle school when my dad was struggling, sure, I missed her every time things were tough at home, but after that I felt cheated by her absence in all those small things and in all those times that were various opposites of hard: how one Christmas my parents, who never buy each other presents, both independently bought each other the same Costco garage opener as their sole gift, or the way my mom looks driving in her gigantic sun visor when no one else is in on the joke. Who does Regina text now about those stupid things that don’t matter enough to tell anyone else, when she sees twin puppies on a walk or when a pair of shoes she’s been eyeing go on sale or when she reads a mildly interesting article and wants to talk about a single line in it—is it Harry? Or do they just wither in the ether?
Talk to her, I tell myself. Do it now.
The bell rings. “I’ll meet you guys,” Regina says, getting up. “I need to stop by the office first.”
Harry lifts his hand in a wave goodbye, then grabs his backpack kind of roughly and jostles it onto his back. When the rest of our group trickles out into the crowd he lets his public smile, the one with the crinkle around his eyes, slide from his face, and then he just looks tired after that.
It was March of last year, March seventh, that Sandra died. We found out in first period. It was a Wednesday, so it was a block day, and I was in AP English. When we came in and sat down we could tell Ms. Lee had been crying. When the bell rang she sat on the edge of her desk, a piece of paper in her hand, and said, “I want you to know that I love every one of you.” Then she read the letter from the principal: Dear Monta Vista community, it’s with deep sadness that I have to inform you that junior Sandra Chang died yesterday by suicide. Counselors are available to help you process the news. Please notify a staff member immediately if you are having difficulty coping or if you believe you might harm yourself. That was the whole letter, and when she finished it broke open a wall of silence that froze us in place.
Regina was whisked away by one of the counselors and we didn’t see her the entire day. After school we all ended up at Harry’s. Both his parents were gone on business, his mom in Taiwan and his dad in Singapore, and a steady stream of people trickled into his front room. Ahmed was there already, and he stood up when he saw me.
“What are you doing here?” he said, his voice hard. I’d never seen him look so angry. “You weren’t even friends. You’re just here because everyone else is, or what?”
I felt my face burning. “No, I’m—look, man, I’m sorry, I know you guys were—”
“You didn’t even like her. Why’d you even come?”
Before I could answer—and what would I have said?—he’d turned away. He set himself down roughly on the couch, and said to Lisa Teng, who was sitting next to him, “He’s never even liked her. He wants everyone to think he’s this deep sensitive artist, but all he is is some asshole who can draw.” Then he buried his fist against one of the cushions so hard the sound, even swallowed by the leather, made a sickish thud I felt in the pit of my stomach. I recognized the look Lisa gave me: she felt bad, or at least awkward, but also felt trapped by the moment, and that look was all I’d get from her. Harry was seeing Aaron and Maurice in at the door, and I don’t think he heard. I escaped to the bathroom, my face stinging, my heart carved into shreds. I washed my face and toweled it off and stared at myself in the mirror. My eyes were red.
When I came back I settled myself on one of the leather chairs in the far corner of the room, opposite the couch where Ahmed was sitting, Regina next to him. Harry was standing by the wall, still shell-shocked. Susan Tung had taken a bottle of Xanax from her backpack and was passing it around. I took one. My parents had been calling, and I was ignoring the calls.
Later more details would trickle down to us—how she’d taken pills, how she’d been drunk at the time, how it was late at night. But that day it was all a gaping mystery. No one knew why. That was what we talked about. We knew she was worried about next year, we knew she sometimes seemed unhappy, we knew she had it pretty bad at home. But then everyone was worried about next year, everyone was sad sometimes, so many of us had problems at home. And even if it was worse for her at home than for almost anyone else—which I’d believe it was—we couldn’t make that somehow fit cleanly up against death.
We still tried, though. All afternoon we kept trying to come up with some way to force the world into making sense.
Regina was staring at the wall, blinking rapidly, her face a mask. I watched her from across the room. There was an aura around her, something like a force field that made you afraid to get near her. Even Harry wasn’t near her, although I guess constantly having to get up and open the door was his excuse. Next to me Susan was shaking so hard she was struggling to put the lid back on the bottle of Xanax. I reached for it and twisted it on and then touched her hand a second, which she didn’t react to. It’s a strange and uniquely painful thing when you try to reach someone and instead you pass right through them, like a ghost; it makes you feel not all the way there yourself.
After ten or twenty minutes—or maybe it was shorter than that, maybe it just felt like an eternity—Regina jumped up and announced she’d make everyone coffee. I followed her into the kitchen. She was a whirlwind, flinging open cabinets and pouring water and staring daggers at the coffee maker while it dripped, pouring the coffee into cups roughly, so it splashed over the side. I touched her elbow and said, “You need help?”
“No.”
Her hands were trembling. I took the coffeepot from her, and even after I set it down the coffee still sloshed up the sides for a few seconds. Regina leaned against the counter and folded her arms against her chest.
And she almost said something to me. I could see how much she wanted to, and I was afraid I knew exactly what it was. She had the words formed on her tongue, and I could see them, and I put my hand on her elbow and I was ready for whatever it was she was going to say, I was determined to hear it and face it, and then she stopped herself. I could see her deciding not to tell me, deciding to hold it in. She took a deep breath that looked like it ached. “Open the cabinet over the oven, will you? Get me a tray and I’ll put the coffee on it.”
“Reg, are you—”
“Get a tray,” she hissed. Her voice was streaked through with hatred. I got a tray.
We all sat there in Harry’s living room as it got dark, clouds rolling over the hills and obscuring the treetops of Cupertino below. Every now and then someone would start crying. A couple people went home, and each time someone did it hurt, kind of, in this lonely w
ay I was pretty sure everyone else felt, too, or maybe I was wrong and it was just me. Around dinnertime we ordered pizza. Well, Regina ordered it, and when people tried to chip in, she refused. No one ate any when it came.
It was around six when Regina broke down—the only time I’ve seen her do it. Ahmed was the first one to grab her and hold on to her, whisper something in her ear, grip her shoulders and rock back and forth with her. When he did it I could feel a kind of tightening in the room, like someone pulling on some kind of string that knotted us all together. I cried, too.
I was the last one to leave that night. I helped Harry straighten up, and lingered until I couldn’t anymore. I would be okay as long as I was here with him, I thought, but as soon as I left it would all hit me. When all the pillows were back in place and all the uneaten pizza slices thrown away and I was at the door to go, my mom waiting outside the gate, I said, “Ahmed thinks—” and then I couldn’t go any further with it, couldn’t say it aloud.
Harry didn’t make me. I have always loved him for that.
“No, I know you,” he said. “He’s wrong. I know you better than Ahmed. I know you better than anyone.”
That saved me in that moment, I think, that absolution. I’ve never told him that. It wasn’t enough to erase the rest of it—a part of me still shrivels whenever I’m around Ahmed, that same part that worries the universe chose wrongly in keeping me here—but in that moment it was enough to hold me. I said, “Okay.” I turned to go.
“Wait.” He reached for my hand, and then he put his arm around my waist and pulled me closer. “Promise me you won’t ever do that. What happened to Sandra, I mean.”
My mind had flashed blank for a second when he’d touched me like that, and it took me a second to recover and answer. “I won’t.”
“No, Danny, I mean—” He looked frantic. “Promise me.”
“I meant it. I promise.”
He scanned my face. There was a heat creeping into all those cold places I’d been sinking into all day, and a tingling that ran through me like a shock. I held myself still and let him look. I wanted, in that moment, to give him the entire world.
Finally he said, quietly, “Okay.” He dropped his arm. When he did it was like a cold gust of air blew over me and I wanted, kind of desperately, to ask if he’d found whatever it was he was looking for. He repeated, “Okay.”
I would have stayed there forever. And it didn’t mean anything, I don’t think, it was just that the world had spun out of control around us and when that happens you reach for literally anything you can to steady yourself. But the moment had moved on, and also maybe part of me was scared of it, or maybe scared of ruining it, which is a different thing. I wished I wasn’t, though, because the thought of leaving and being home without him felt like a small death.
Right before I closed the door behind me, though, something happened. Harry said, “Danny, wait—”
He stepped over the threshold and stood there for a moment in front of me. His breaths were shaky. He opened his mouth and I thought he might say something, but then he didn’t. Instead he reached out and cupped his hand on my cheek, then he held it there, and then very gently he brought my head closer and touched his forehead against mine.
“You promised,” he said finally, stepping back. “I’m not going to forget.”
There are twenty-eight of us in Journalism this year and we’re pretty self-sufficient; people mostly trust a bunch of kids stocking their transcripts with a UC-approved elective course. Our advisor, Mr. Renato, primarily teaches AP English and has a never-ending stack of essays to grade in his classroom next door and is in there at least 50 percent of the time, including today. We put out one paper a month and it’s mostly Regina running everything, assigning stories and cajoling local tutoring companies and restaurants into buying ad space, badgering everyone not to write stories directly in InDesign and to remember hairline framing around photos.
Today is story assignment day. Most people always want to write, like, profiles of their friends or movie reviews, but Regina likes big, demanding stories: refugee crises and hate crimes and police brutality, all the deep fissures in the world. I’ve always thought they give her energy and purpose, and—paradoxically, I guess—a place to rest.
She seems a little nervous perched in front of the room—her voice is pitched higher and she keeps running out of breath. She’s wearing a striped blazer with the sleeves rolled up, tight jeans and heels, and she looks professional and adult, and she makes me wish everyone else here cared as much as she did. In here I can imagine a whole future around her—a life where she got out of Cupertino and built something else for herself, where I can turn on my TV each night and watch her distill all the chaos of the world into measured, narrated segments.
“As we know, we’re coming up on the anniversary of Sandra Chang’s death in March,” she says, holding her hands still in her lap, “And I know that’s still a little while out, but I wanted to see what everyone thought of doing a tribute to her in that month’s issue.”
Twenty-seven people go quiet. This is the first time since Sandra died that I’ve heard Regina bring her up in public voluntarily.
Here’s the thing. When someone at your school dies by suicide it consumes you, not just you as an individual but corporately, the whole campus. Theories swirl and everyone looks for a reason, for something or someone to pin the unthinkable to. (Was she bullied? Too stressed out? Was she abused?) Parents start to flood school board meetings and the teachers panic, pulling you aside to ask if you’re all right every time you’re quiet or tired in class. The administration calls in experts and you take anonymous surveys about whether you’ve ever been depressed and psychologists come talk to your second-period advisory classes about calls for help and about healthy ways to deal with stress, and they don’t let you all wear her favorite color on the same day or dedicate anything to her. You aren’t allowed to post pictures or notes on the person’s locker or have any kind of memorial service, and the family’s funeral is private. And the places you once believed were safe—your school, your world—feel hostile and fragile and uncertain.
“What kind of tribute?” Advaith Jagtap, our news editor, says cautiously. After Regina, Advaith’s probably the most invested in the paper; he’s the guy you go to when you want to talk politics or current affairs, because he always knows what’s going on and always has opinions and has probably already written a thirty-part tweetstorm on the topic. He hangs out with a group of mostly robotics-club-type guys and wasn’t friends with Sandra.
“That’s a great question,” Regina says brightly. “Any ideas? I was thinking maybe we could interview different people so they could share memories, or—what does everyone think?”
Harry’s sitting very straight, looking around the room protectively like a hawk, like he’s just waiting for someone to say something out-of-bounds so he can pounce on it. Esther leans over and whispers something to Lori and Maureen, and Harry’s eyes hover over Esther. She’s crocheting something, a ball of bright blue yarn getting tugged around on the tabletop.
“That’s a nice idea,” Advaith says. Harry whips his head around to watch him. “I think what I’m wondering is—there’s no way Renato will approve it, so like how would we—”
“Well, we don’t run all our story ideas by him anyway,” Regina says. “So this would fall under that same category.”
Another silence. We all know how to rebel in standard, practiced ways: how to take Pepcid to hide Asian glow when we drink and how to lie to parents about having a boyfriend, who to ask to take the SAT for us or Photoshop a report card. But that’s a different thing than blatant, public rebellion. The last time I cut class it was literally to go with Harry to the library so we could research our AP Lit projects, and even that made him nervous.
“Could it cause problems?” Esther says, not looking up from her yarn. Harry goes on high alert. Esther’s crochet hook flashes back and forth. “I don’t think we should do anything too
risky.”
“It’s not risky,” Regina says smoothly. “I mean, that’s a really good question, but you don’t have to worry—it won’t have everyone’s name on it. I’ll be responsible.”
“What if we just put it on the website?” Lori says. “Then we can take it down if we have to. Putting it in the paper is so permanent. Some people save every issue of the paper.”
That startles Regina; she laughs. “Do they? Who? Even I don’t do that.”
“You totally do,” Marvin Chu says, grinning. “Admit it. You probably have a special filing cabinet and everything.”
“A special filing cabinet? You don’t know me at all. Obviously I have them all framed on my walls.” Everyone laughs. I’ve always both admired and worried about the breeziness she exudes in front of other people even when we’re circling around everything that happened. “But the point is that it’s permanent. Also, no one looks at our website.”
“It’s true,” Advaith says. “I think there was a month when we got thirteen hits. Thirteen. And probably twelve of them were me.”
Lori raises her eyebrows at Esther’s cascade of yarn. “Well, I’m just saying.”
“No, those are really great points, Lori, thanks. But, yes, everyone should know it’s not really a question of risk to anyone. I just want to make sure, you know, everyone’s on board with whatever we decide to do as our center spread.”
“Technically,” Advaith kind of mumbles, as nicely as possible, “according to that lawyer you made us go listen to, school papers don’t have First Amendment rights. So I wouldn’t say there’s no risk. Just, for what it’s worth.”
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