by Ashley King
"Anything," I whisper. Jamie holds that kind of power over me. He always had.
"Let me kiss you. Just once."
My eyes widen, my thoughts bouncing around wildly in my head, matching the speed of my heart. I find myself nodding, my arms wrapping around his neck as he moves closer.
His lips move softly against mine. It is everything I thought it would be. It’s perfect. He’s perfect. Then all too soon, he pulls back and gives me a sad look, "I had to know what I’d be missing out on. We could've been something, I think." He shakes his head, as if to sort his jumbled thoughts, while my breath is coming in way too fast, my heart feeling way too frantic. "I mean, I don't know. I'm messing it all up. I just wanted to kiss you and it was the best kiss I've ever had.” He pauses once more, as if there’s more to say, but instead, he says simply, “Look, I gotta get home. I love you, Claire, okay?" And he's up off the bed in one fluid movement, his tall frame dominating my room.
"I don't think you should go. Or at least you shouldn't be alone. I got a bad feeling about it, Jamie. Stay over again," I beg, moving onto my knees. He stayed over plenty of nights when my parents were gone. Nothing ever happened, but those were the best moments of my life.
He shakes his head before I can even continue, which is so unlike him. Jamie knows I am always ready with an argument, but he cuts me off. "I'm fine. I promise." But he refuses to look at me. Even as he pulls me in the tightest hug he can manage, he doesn't meet my eyes. Then he grabs my face in his hands and kisses my forehead and nose. "I love you, always," he calls.
"I love you!" I yell after him, scurrying off the bed, trying to catch him. The door shuts and I even run outside into the cool January night, but he's gone. Gone.
Tears are pouring down my face as I turn over onto my pillow. Every night and every morning after that, I would sniff my pillow, because for the longest time it still smelled of Jamie. But then after a while, it faded. I sniff it again, only to smell the scent of my shampoo. Anger and hurt build within my chest as I think about him, about our last night, and I wonder if there will ever be anything that makes the pain go away.
RYDER
I'll have to wear long sleeves for a while, but it’s not the first time. Weirdly enough there is something good in my life. I’ve written a couple of songs that I think are show-worthy and even made a few calls, although nothing’s set in stone. The goal is to book a gig by Christmas or New Year’s. The thought excites me.
I look around my dingy room with the dark spots on the carpet, the water stained walls and ceiling. My meager belongings are in a few Bacardi boxes by the window. It's hard to imagine that this would be my life. Back in ninth grade, I would've never dreamed this would be how I'd end up. I was the king of the school, on my way to the top. I had the hot girlfriend, the exceptional athletic dominance, and my folks were rich. We were rolling in a nice mansion with people to actually cut our grass for us. My Dad stayed gone all the time, but it was okay because we were living it up. Mom seemed halfway normal then, not all the way, but at least not drugged out of her mind. She always was a little on the neurotic side.
Then one day I came home to find the house packed up and my mother drunk, crying over a box of pictures. Dad left us for some young secretary he'd been having an affair with all along and he expected us to get out within the week. I haven't seen or heard from my father since. The child support check he sends pays for Shelly’s addictions. I don’t call her Mom anymore. Not with those hollowed out cheeks and lifeless eyes. Not to mention that greasy, piece of crap beanpole of a boyfriend that’s always hanging around. He’s constantly going through my stuff looking for something new to pawn. Always looking for the next hit.
But it wasn’t just the fact that I had fallen from grace, or the fact that I live with crack heads in a nasty trailer that sent me over the edge into pariah territory, the same place Claire Watkins hovered and finally landed when Jamie died. Like her social demise, Lindy Baker also caused mine. A mistake that I will always regret, always hate myself for.
I play Unwritten Law's "Seeing Red" as loud as it will go on the tiny speaker in the corner of my room. Claire keeps coming back to me and I feel like a total pansy. There are a million girls in our school and then there's Claire. Those sad eyes, that fragile way she carries herself buries itself into my memory and it makes me think crazy shit. She makes me want to get to know her, to make her smile, but I haven't been that guy in a while. Maybe part of it is the fact that Claire doesn't look at me like I have every STD in the book or like I’m some pervert who takes advantage of girls and puts roofies in their drinks. I'm neither of those things, but Lindy makes sure everyone thinks that I am. Instead, Claire studies me with curiosity instead of open disgust. She even tried to talk to me in the hallway. All I know is I can't let her get to me. I've got a limited amount of time left here and I can't spend it falling for her.
CHAPTER FOUR
CLAIRE
The first thing I do when I wake up is check Jamie’s Facebook page, even though I know I shouldn’t. It’s been a while and I need to feel like he’s here, like he’s real. No one has taken the trouble to disable his page and I find myself thankful for that. I look through all the pictures of us, all the fake smiles he pasted on that handsome face, hiding all the hurt beneath that façade. I try not to get on Facebook often, mostly because of Lindy and her group. After Jamie killed himself, she posted all kinds of nasty things on my wall, along with her minions. They posted things like “It’s all your fault. Wish you were dead instead.” Or even better “Why don’t you hang yourself now that you're only friend is dead?” Those were arrows through my already sensitive heart, carelessly reopening a fresh wound. There was a time in my life when I thought about doing it, too. I really did.
Black Flies by Ben Howard comes on my chill playlist, the lyrics encapsulating everything I’m feeling. The words bring chills to my arms, each and every hair standing on end. Things feel different today, finite, even. The laptop taunts me from the corner and I know better. I know I know better. Checking Jamie’s page is unhealthy and it isn’t like he’s going to post from the dead, but every once in awhile it's a way for me to pretend that he isn’t really gone, that he’s just out of town, at a concert or something crazy, something so perfectly Jamie.
Slowly, I open the laptop and log onto Facebook. The mouse hovers over Jamie's name and I click it before I return to my senses. Jamie's final choice of a profile picture stares back at me, the picture of the two of us last Halloween, only months ago. It's the same Halloween picture I have framed on my dresser, the one I look at each and every day. That's the photo that he chose to immortalize himself with as he left his world. It feels as though someone has struck me in the gut, knocked me down, down, down.
I see the red notifying me of activity on my page and I’m clueless. I have no friends. Only Jamie and now he’s gone forever. A single tear slides down my face at the thought, the harsh reality of it all, that I really will have to do this without him in my life. I’ll have to do this alone. The cursor hovers over the notifications, but I decide to go to my own page, the page that I created only because Jamie told me to. We used to chat on there late at night sometimes, and we always posted funny pictures or inside jokes on each other’s walls. But that's not what I see before me.
Somehow Lindy and Bianca have managed to get on my Facebook page. Lindy posted a comment in all caps, “WHY DON’T YOU KILL YOURSELF TOO? NOBODY WOULD MISS YOU.” Bianca liked the comment and wrote beneath it “Seriously. You're only “Friend” couldn’t even stand you and he killed himself just to get away from you. WTH?!” I stare at the comments. I stare and let it all sink into my already vulnerable mind, my bleeding heart. I'm about to log off when another comment is posted, this one from Alicia, another one of Lindy’s friends. “DRINK BLEACH AND DIE CHUBS!” Chubs? I look down at myself and take in the way my jeans are actually sagging, how all my clothes hang too loosely off my fragile body since Jamie died. I’m anything but fat, but…even
so, the barb does its work and spreads it poison deeper, weaving false truths where they should not live, where they should not foster and grow, but in this broken mind and shattered heart, they do, they do grow and they take over everything as the music hits its crescendo, as everything falls apart, and I can no longer hold myself together.
My parents aren’t home and I think things through. This is not new. This has been going on ever since Jamie’s death. I should tell someone, but I’m paralyzed by fear and instead I do nothing. The words, all of them, echo through my mind, throbbing and pounding until finally I go downstairs. I search through the drawers until I find what I’m looking for. I grab the knife and carry it back upstairs into my room, lit only by the white Christmas lights that Jamie and I hung a year ago, and the candle that flickers off his photos, and that hellish computer light, the taunts staring back at me. I click away and go back to Jamie’s page. I want his face to be the last thing that I see before I leave this place. After all, what’s left for me here? I wonder what went through Jamie’s mind as he took those pills, as his mind, his heart slowly stopped working. My breathing hastens and my heart feels like it’s going to jump out of my chest. The tears mix with my sweat, the two indistinguishable as they rush down my face. My grip on the knife handle is slippery, and I fear that I’ll drop it, but then why do I care?
I sit down on the bed, the knife carefully placed next to me, my glance going between the weapon and Jamie’s face. What would he think of me now? Would he think me weak?
I can almost hear his voice and I know exactly what he would say, he would smile at me with that sad smile. “Claire Bear,” he’d start, using my mother’s nickname for me. “What are you doing? You’re better than this, much better.” He said that to me when I tried to smoke cigarettes, when I tried alcohol for the first and only time. I know he drank often, but what breaks my heart even more is that he never even told me that he did drugs. Not ever. Another stab to my heart. We were best friends and we were supposed to know everything about each other, yet Jamie left this life not knowing that I was crazy in love with him, that I would've done anything in the world if he'd asked me too, and he left without telling me about the pills.
Those brown eyes bore into me and it's like he's here. I can hear everything play out in my head, him telling me to stop this. Not to let them get to me.
I pick up the knife and look at my wrist. "You left me," I cry, the words choke me on their way out, gurgled and troubled like the deepest parts of my soul. "YOU LEFT ME, DAMN IT!" I cry louder, the words stronger as my grip on the knife tightens and in that split second I think I'm going to do it, that I'm going to slice my wrists and bleed myself dry right here on my bed, the same bed that I got my first and only kiss, the same bed Jamie used to sit on when he came over, the same bed I slept in for days after I found out that he was dead, gone forever. This would be the only fitting place to end it all.
My breathing is uneven still and I raise the blade, but my eyes meet Jamie's again, and something there in that picture, in the fact that even just a picture of him is looking at me, that he could be looking down on me, that he could see this, shames me.
The knife slips from my grasp and falls onto the floor. I slam shut the laptop and fall apart, scared to death that those thoughts even flitted through my mind, that I let those idiots get to me. I can't do that again. I just can't. And I promise myself, right then, in the pain, in the tears, in the din of my heart shattering that I would NEVER let this happen again. I refused to let them win.
I finish up on Jamie’s page as the memory haunts me. I get ready robotically and head downstairs. I slide into the chair across from my mother at the breakfast table.
"Your father's coming home tonight," Mom smiles across the table as she pushes a bagel towards me.
It takes everything I have not to slide it back to her. I love her, but she's clueless. Even I saw the signs when I got ready this morning. My eyes are still red and puffy from crying all night. I tried eyeliner, but that only framed the redness, rather than completely obliterate it. My hair's a mess and I just threw it up in a messy ponytail, no one at school to impress, anyway. Then again, my mother gave up asking the real questions about a month after Jamie died. I frustrated her and Dad was the only one who seemed to help. She pretended nothing happened and couldn’t see why I refused to do the same.
"That's awesome," I say as I take a bite out of the bagel. It's dry and feels like sawdust in my mouth. I try to hide my thoughts, but it's too late. She finally notices.
"You need an appointment with the therapist weekly, I think. I just don't know that every two weeks is cutting it," Mom says as she reaches for her phone. She disappears from the room without a backward glance and I know she's calling Dr. Robinson.
Maybe she's right. Maybe I never really faced things like I was supposed to. The only person I’ve told about that last night with Jamie is Dr. Robinson. She’s the only person who knows about the million what-ifs that run through my mind every single day.
What if I told him I loved him sooner? What if I followed him home instead of calling his sister? What if I had seen the signs sooner? I carry so much guilt with me that sometimes it gets to be too much.
My grieving was completely whacked out and all I can remember is my mom giving me her painkillers to dull the agony. What she didn't understand was that the pain wasn't physical. It's my heart that aches every day. I know why he left me. I read the letter. But I still feel like every part of me, my heart, body, and soul, wasn’t enough for him. I’m simply not enough for anyone. My parents think I can't see what's going on in front of my face, but I see their relationship splitting at the seams. I see that I'm partially to blame. I used to think college would be my ticket out of here, but will that really make the pain, the memories of Jamie go away? I gently rub the tattoo on my wrist and gather my books for school.
When I walk into first period, Lindy is nowhere to be seen. She was strangely absent in the hallways too, which makes me nervous. I feel like a Chihuahua, shaking in my corner, about to pee myself. My heart speeds up a little when Ryder walks in. I watch as he pushes his hoodie sleeves up, revealing the two thick leather bands around each wrist. He swings his head to move his hair out of his eyes and slides into the seat next to mine. I quickly look away, but I can still feel my heart tripping all over itself. I haven't felt anything like this since Jamie. I shake my head, refusing to allow Jamie into my thoughts right now.
"You okay?" I hear.
I turn slowly to find Ryder watching me with those intense almost gray eyes.
After clearing my throat, I manage to answer, "Yeah, why?"
He fidgets with the sleeves of his jacket and then looks back at me, "You were just shaking your head, so…"
A burning blush begins to creep up from my neck and weaves itself across my cheeks. I feel it spreading like wild fire. I move my hand to my cheek, casually attempting to prop up on it, to hide it. "Um, yeah. I'm fine. Thanks."
Embarrassed doesn't really begin to cover how I'm feeling. I've already got people thinking I'm crazy and that I'm the reason Jamie's dead, but add internal conversations with body movements added, and well, crazy isn't too far of a leap.
Ryder nods and turns back in his seat, facing the front. He pulls a guitar pick from his pocket and starts to turn it over nervously in his hands. Back and forth, back and forth, and I find myself mesmerized by the simple movement. What's even more fascinating is how peaceful he seems. The normally rigid set of his shoulders is relaxed and his face is calm. I'm about to ask him something, anything, because he makes me want to make a fool out of myself, when the teacher begins to speak.
"I'm dividing you all up into pairs for this poetry project," Mrs. Weathersby says. She moves her trendy thick glasses into her pale blonde hair as she looks down at a clipboard. She can’t be older than twenty-five, and is the youngest teacher we have, one of the few that actually enjoys what she does.
A collective groan comes from the class. Pan
ic seizes my chest as I look around. I don't want to be paired up with any of these people. Just when things can't get any worse, Lindy comes into class. Her gaze zeroes in on me instantly and then she slides it back to the teacher as she hands her a note.
"Seriously, Lindy? Get to class on time. Yesterday you stood at the door and then just left. Now today you're late. Do better," Mrs. Weathersby snaps. I like this teacher more already.
Lindy says nothing as she sits her designer purse on her desk and pretends to be a contrite student. My hands start to sweat and I can feel the nasty overbearing sense of anxiety come over me, followed by dizziness. I used to be able to handle her because of Jamie. He always had my back, so Lindy left me alone because she wanted him. She never realized that Jamie was far from interested in her. But once he died, I became fair game again, but with a vengeance.
"Anyway, it's either do this in pairs or do an essay, so you have your choice," Mrs. Weathersby continues. Everyone is silent and she takes that as a collective agreement that we want the pair work over the writing. Me, I would rather write.
"You will be working on a very simple poem, one that I think you will like. Alfred Noyes' The Highwayman. You'll find everything required in this packet," she holds up a thick stack of stapled papers. "You can work anywhere you want during my class period as long as you check in with me first and tell me where you'll be. The due date is on there as well. Now for the pairs." She goes down the list naming pair after pair, and I feel like I can breathe again once she's called out Lindy's name and mine’s not paired with it. Then she gets to Ryder's name.
"Ryder Andrews, you'll be paired with Claire Watkins."
I hear nothing else. I turn slowly to meet Ryder's worried gaze. He looks at me like I'm trouble and I have to fight back the urge to laugh. But then again, maybe I am. Maybe he's heard the rumors about Jamie, about me. But I've heard the rumors about him too and know they're just that: rumors.