The Suicide King

by Vanessa Marie

  Oh shit…the truck.

  Grace's chewed on her bottom lip. "We always went in his truck. He called it Optimus Prime. We'd blast the radio, sing off-key, and go to this old frozen yogurt place."

  "Sounds like a good time. What's your favorite kind of ice cream?"

  "Vanilla and cookies and cream with gummy bears and Oreos. My dad always said it looked like a bird had chewed it up and spit it out. So I would always open my mouth while I was eating and gross him out more."

  Hannah chuckled. Grace's mouth pulled into a soft smile.

  "What was your dad's favorite?"

  "Do you know he will never eat chocolate ice cream again? That's all he ever got was plain chocolate in a waffle cone. He ruined the truck. I don't know why he picked the truck. Like, that was one of my favorite things, and my mom says she doesn't even want it back. I don't either. He always told me it would be mine when I got my license, and he took that away from me too. He loved it so much. We washed it together every week. He taught me how to wax the right way. He said he loved me. Why didn't he love me enough?"

  "He did, Grace. He loved you very much. What happened had nothing to do with you. Even though it feels like it had everything to do with you. It directly affects you, but you weren't the cause and you weren't to blame."

  She was quiet for a few moments as she worked the puzzle. "Well, it feels like it. They don't think I know things because I'm too young"—she used quotation marks around the word young—"but I hear a lot. They always go in their room to fight, but our whole house echoes, and their room is right next to mine. I hear everything through the wall. They fought all the time. My dad drank beer all the time, and my mom would tell him stuff and then he would yell at her and then she would yell back. They yelled about money. She told someone about an insurance policy not paying us money because he killed himself, and we'd have to go to court, and she was tired."

  "And your mom doesn't know you know about any of this?"

  "No way! I know she's already close to the edge as it is. My dad was, and look at what happened to him. I don't need to dump all of this on my mom, and then she will leave me too."

  "It is very natural for you to feel like you are going to lose your mom right now, Grace. And that's why you're pushing her away, but she is here right now for you. Your mom is not dealing with the same issues your dad was. He was not in a very good place and made an extreme decision that changed both of your lives forever. I think the more you two talk, the better you will understand each other. She wants to have an open dialogue with you, and that is very important. This will be a safe place for you to vent your frustration and feelings as well, but know you do have your mom to rely on, okay?"

  Grace bit on her bottom lip before meeting Hannah's eyes. "So, you don't think my mom is going to do it too?"

  "In my professional opinion, no, I do not."

  "She loves me too much?"

  "She loves you very much."

  "But he didn't."

  "He also loved you very much."

  "But not enough to stay."

  "Sometimes, people make decisions we can't make sense of, no matter how hard we try. No matter how much they love us."

  Hannah handed Grace an edge piece she was looking for. "If you remember anything I tell you, it's to always hold on to your good memories of him. Don't be afraid to talk about him because it will help keep his memory alive. Even if you only feel comfortable doing it in here for a while. It will be good for you to talk about him, okay?"

  "Okay."

  I was glad she had happy memories of me, but I hoped they wouldn't be overshadowed by the bad.

  19

  I knew why we were here the second we arrived. Only I didn't think the outcome would be typical. I hadn't taken the time to think about this either. Something else that would change once I was no longer there.

  Deep-fried food no longer held the appeal it once did. The way my stomach once rolled in anticipation for the salty explosion of sodium overload, the aroma now made my nose wrinkle in disgust. I walked toward the scene unfolding in front of me, needing to know what was being said. It didn't matter if Luke followed or not. This one wasn't about him. I needed to know these chumps were going to do the right thing.

  David Perez and Phillip Bell were both standing casually with their hands on their gun belts in front of West, one of our local homeless guys. I'd trained Perez when he was a rookie and now he was training Bell.

  "So, West, why are they calling on you this time?" Perez asked. West, a veteran who only answered to his surname, looked at Perez and lifted his shoulder in a shrug. "Dunno. I wanted to eat. They told me I couldn't."

  "Did you have money?"

  West pulled a wad out of his pocket and held it up.

  "Were you panhandling out here for that money?" Bell asked.

  Quicker than a blink of an eye, West shoved the money back in his pocket. "Not here. King told me I couldn't do that no more. So I haven't. I just wanted a sandwich and when I walked in, the girl started yellin' at me."

  Both men exchanged an uncomfortable look the second he mentioned my name. West didn't seem to notice.

  "I bet you anything it's that stupid teenager they put in charge," I muttered more to myself than anything.

  "Go find out the deal with the manager. I'll stay here with him," Perez told Bell. The rookie did as he was told. As soon as he was gone, West seemed to relax a bit.

  "So I thought you got out of town for a bit?" Perez asked.

  I thought he had too.

  West shifted, the way he usually did when he was uncomfortable. "I did. King took me to a real nice shelter two counties over. They said they had work programs and stuff, but then it got full and there were no more beds. They wanted young people. Not old-timers like me. There's no place for someone like me. We get discarded when they think we're no longer useful. So I came back to where I felt the safest."

  It pissed me off. I'd worked hard to get him into that shelter. And then he got passed over because he was in his seventies? I remember asking him once why he was on the street, and he'd told me when you've burned every bridge you have, sometimes there's nothing left in the ruins and the flames. He told me he didn't have any family, but I'd always wanted to check. It was something I'd never gotten around to doing. He'd gotten sober on his own. He was just a victim of circumstance. So I helped him whenever I could.

  Bell came walking toward them, annoyance written all over his face as he walked up to Perez and dropped his voice. "Whoever put that bitch in charge is crazy. She said she didn't want him in there because he is a nuisance and he smells and runs off all of her other customers."

  "What was he doing?"

  "Apparently he had the audacity to try to order a cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich."

  "This is ridiculous."

  I huffed my annoyance right along with them.

  "Hey, West, what did you want to eat?"

  He looked pensive for a moment. "A hot cup of coffee and a sausage biscuit would be heaven."

  "You got it. Also, when is the last time you took a shower?"

  He shrugged his right shoulder. "I'm not sure. King always gave me a ride to the shelters and if they were filled up, sometimes he'd take me to his barber and then get me a shower and take me to dinner. But I haven't seen him around for a couple of weeks."

  Perez and Bell shared another knowing look before Bell spoke up. "Well, how about we help you out with that now?" He looked to Perez for confirmation he'd made the right decision.

  Perez dipped his head in a nod.

  My chest felt tighter and lighter all at the same time. I didn't know how I was feeling with all these emotions at the same time. I felt Luke walk up behind me as Perez helped load West into the back of the cruiser, and Bell stepped back inside for the food. "You must have done something right."

  "That didn't have anything to do with me, and everything to do with the man who gave his entire life to the service and it spit him back out."

&
nbsp; Luke pursed his lips. "Maybe it did. He also made choices. And so did you concerning him. Looks like the ones you made will be carried out by others."

  "Then maybe some of what I did made a difference."

  "Maybe it did."

  20

  Standing in the background watching someone else's life unfold in front of me was not the way I thought my death was going to go down. Honestly, I had no idea what to expect. But, to be thrust into Frank’s living room, as Anette was currently losing her shit, was uncomfortable to say the least. I'd known him all my life and her since college and sure I'd seen them argue before, but never like this.

  "I don't think we should be here," I whispered to Luke.

  He cut his ice-blue eyes to mine in a way that made my insides quake. "We are exactly where we need to be."

  Anette's heated squeal cut through the air. "I'm sorry your friend is gone! I really am. But you can't use this as another excuse to live at the bottom of a fucking bottle, Frank!"

  His heated glare shot to hers, and he jumped from his chair and staggered a little.

  I wanted to grab his arm and steady him, but Luke shook his head.

  "I wasn't there, Anette. He was my best friend, and I wasn't there."

  "Damn right he wasn't there. He was never there for me," I muttered, a bitter edge to my voice.

  A sharp pain sliced into my side, causing me to double over as Luke's elbow jabbed me deep in the rib. Asshole.

  "Well excuse me that I've needed you. But surprise, surprise, you haven't been here for me either." She wrapped her hands around her stomach as tears cascaded down her face, pain etched in the deep lines in her forehead and around the dark circles under her eyes that hadn't previously been there.

  Frank swiped the beer sitting next his worn leather recliner and took a long pull before giving her a hard stare. "Don't start will all this again."

  "Don't start with it? Really? You're not the only person who's lost someone here, Frank."

  I glanced back at Luke, my brows knit together. Did she really care about me too?

  He jerked his chin back to the scene unfolding in front of us.

  "I don't want to talk about it, Anette!" he shouted with a bitter tone I'd never heard from him before.

  I'd seen many sides from Frank over the years, but never anything like this. They always said you never really knew what a person was truly like until you saw them behind closed doors. My heart rate picked up its pace, thumping wildly in my chest, which was weird because I was pretty sure I was dead. How he could go from the man I saw at my funeral to this, was mind-blowing.

  Anette stomped her foot, like a toddler trying to get their way. "Well I do, dammit! I'm tired of not talking about it. I'm tired of feeling like I'm not enough. I'm tired of feeling like I'm lacking. I'm tired of being married to an alcoholic. I'm tired of doing everything I can to succeed and always coming up short. I'm tired of my dreams being sucked away every time I am within reach of grasping them." Her chest rose and fell heavily as fat, heavy tears rolled down her pink-stained cheeks.

  "I am sick and tired of you pretending that everything is fine when it's not. I am sick and tired of everyone thinking we live some picture-perfect life when we're miserable. I am miserable!" Her voice broke as she choked on a ragged sob.

  Frank stared at her, unmoved like her unloading—no unpacking—all of her pent-up rage and angst was nothing more than a breeze. He blinked at her while she continued to unleash on him, my gaze bouncing back and forth between them, transfixed. I wanted to shake him. Make him wake up and respond to her. Had that been what I was like when Maggie unleashed on me?

  "I am so tired of suffering in silence! I lost three babies, Frank! Three! And each one of them was just as real as the last, and you want to act as if none of them ever existed! I wasn't allowed to tell a single soul about any of it. Do you understand how isolating that is? And no. I don't want to just try again. I'm tired of pretending. I want to feel my pain. I want to live in it for a while. Revel in. Let it swallow me up for a while so just maybe I can deal with it. And I'm sorry, Jason was in pain too."

  Those words cut right through me just like Luke's icy glare, which was currently shooting daggers in my direction. How the hell the guy could casually lean against the wall with arms folded over his chest and one foot crossed over the other, looking like he was ready for a fashion shoot while his face was at complete odds with his body language, was beyond me.

  "But Jason was a coward. He couldn't handle his pain, and he took the easy way out. He checked out and left that pain for the rest of us to carry around."

  No longer paying attention to the oddity that was Luke, I snapped. "I am not a coward!" And lunged right in front of her.

  Anette flinched, and for a moment, I wondered if she could actually see me. If I was really in the thick of it with them. But she flung her finger forward, not toward me but through me to my dickhead friend, Frank, who was still standing there with the same blank face and glazed eyes…like they'd been ever since she'd told him how she felt.

  He just stood holding a bottle of beer in his right hand.

  Anette's arm went through me again. "So don't think for a minute that his death doesn't affect me, too, because he was my friend. But right now I'm pissed off at him, and I have my own grief to deal with. So this is it. Either find another way to deal with your grief that is not at the bottom of a bottle or I'm gone. I am not doing this anymore."

  Dumbass Frank chose that moment to take a swig of his beer. Daring her to do something about it. Here she was, little five-foot-two Anette, the girl who helped us do our homework in college to make sure we passed. Okay, more like she did it for us, but we know the score, and we know what story she likes to tell to not make us look as bad. She baked us cookies and cooked chili and brought them into our shift when she knew we were tired and hungry. This was the woman who selflessly set up fundraiser after fundraiser for anyone in the department whose family member was going through something just because she wanted to help. She was a doer. The man should have known not to take her threat lightly.

  I'd never seen Anette move with ninjalike skill and viper precision in my life. Her hand came up and smacked the bottle out of his hand so fast it propelled across the living room and shattered into a million glass shards against the perfectly painted periwinkle wall. I knew it was that color because I'd helped them paint it when they had a "painting party" a few years ago.

  After that, I watched one of my best friends swallow a shaky breath and slam the front door behind her.

  "Go after her, you prick!" I shoved both of Frank's shoulders with every ounce of strength I had.

  He stumbled a step or two backward.

  "Why didn't you ever tell me about any of this? I would have been here for you. I would have supported you in any way I could have. I don't know what it's like, but I could have listened, you stupid motherfucker." I tried to shove him again to no avail. All of my efforts were futile. But as soon as the words left my lips, I wondered if they were true. Would I have? Was I capable of looking past my own grief, sorrow, pain, and desperation to help him? Some days I couldn't even make myself get out of bed. I wanted to believe I would have helped had I known. But I also didn't have the weight bearing down on me right now.

  Right now I had clarity. Right now I had the ability to look through a window from the outside and say his issues were easy to fix. When in reality, I knew they were nothing of the sort. Could I have been there? I guessed I'd never know.

  Outside an engine started and headlights flashed in the window as Anette backed out of the driveway and took off down the street. The worry in my gut churned in the same way I worried for my own wife and daughter when we'd had a fight.

  Frank walked over to the fridge like nothing had happened, grabbed another beer, twisted the cap off, and threw it on the counter. He didn't even give enough of a shit to walk another foot to the trash can. Was that how bad I was before?

  There was zero emotion on h
is face. He was empty. Hollow. The haunting realization hit me hard and fast. It was like looking in a mirror of what I'd looked like before I'd pulled the trigger. Frank was right where I was.

  He sat down in his chair and took a hard pull off his beer, staring at the wall. I sat on the couch opposite him and glanced between him and Luke, who nodded at me like this was what I needed to do.

  "Frank, I don't know if you can hear me or not, but, buddy, please wake the fuck up. Don't do this to Anette. She needs you. She was begging for you to open your eyes. To see her. Most importantly, don't do this to yourself. I didn't see the depression and the PTSD while I was here because I was too deep in it. I didn't want the help. I didn't think I needed help. I went through the motions. I looked down on the head-shrinkers and the process and never really went all in. But, dude, we've seen some shit. And we've been through some shit. And what I learned a little too late is everyone has shit they're dealing with…battling with and they're screaming silently. Like you and Anette. Maybe like I was. Please don't go down the path I did. If someone reaches out to you, please take their help. Don't push them away. Do better than I did. Just please"—I swallowed hard—"do something."

  I sobbed harder than I'd ever sobbed before. Harder than I'd sobbed before I pulled the trigger. I'd wanted peace, but I was afraid to die. And the shittiest thing of all was, I didn't get what I was seeking. I'd left nothing but questions and turmoil in my wake.

  Guns N' Roses' filled the silence. It took me a second to realize it was Frank's annoying "November Rain" ringtone. He answered it and hit the speaker button. Almost like he knew he wasn't alone in the room. "Yeah?"

  "Frank, it's Chris. Anette just got here. She's a sobbing mess, bro. Is everything okay? What's going on?"

  A sigh of relief filled me knowing she'd made it to Frank's brother's house safely. Which was right down the road.

  "No. We're not okay." Frank's voice cracked.

  It was the first sign of emotion I'd seen from him.

  "I'm coming over."