I haven’t seen Allie since then. I’ve talked to her, though. When I didn’t hear from her for three days, I knew that Burke had told her. On Christmas Eve, when I couldn’t take it any more, I called her. When she answered I said, “I just want to say Merry Christmas.”
She didn’t say anything for a while. I could hear her breathing. Then she said, “Why didn’t you tell me you’re gay?”
“I’m not,” I said. “Allie, you have to believe me.”
“I thought we were friends,” she said, and hung up. That’s the last thing she ever said to me.
So now you know the whole story about why I got all dramatic on New Year’s Eve, and why I’m here. I’m gay. I know it sounds stupid. Tons of people are gay, and you’d think it would be no big deal. But I was really hoping I wasn’t, that it was all just a big mix-up and I’d get over it. After the stuff with Rankin, and what happened—or didn’t happen—with Sadie, though, I know that I won’t get over it. It’s what I am.
I read once that a third of all gay kids try to kill themselves. They say it’s because being gay is so hard in this world. They say that we won’t stop trying to kill ourselves until more people understand us, and until we live in a world where it’s okay for a guy to love another guy. That’s probably true. But there will never be a world where it’s okay to fall in love with your best friend’s boyfriend.
Day 38
So now we’ve established that not only did I try to kill myself, but that I’m gay, too. That’s like having two cherries on your dog crap sundae. Or extra nuts.
And now, of course, it’s all Cat Poop wants to talk about. Today he asked me to tell him more about what Rankin and I did together. It was completely embarrassing talking about that. Then he asked me how I felt about having sex. I told him it felt great, but that the best thing for me was thinking that Rankin wanted to do those things with me. It wasn’t the sex, really. I mean, you can kind of do that on your own, right? But having this other person want to do it with you, that’s pretty special. It means he likes you. At least, it should.
I keep wondering what Rankin was thinking when he did those things with me. Had someone done those things to him? Is he really gay? Did he like me at all? I guess I won’t ever be able to answer those questions. I asked the doc, and he said that when people hurt us, the best thing to do isn’t to ask why they did it but to remind ourselves that it wasn’t our fault.
In other words, either he doesn’t know what Rankin’s deal is or won’t tell me.
Either way, I’m not sure I believe him. Maybe it was partly my fault. It’s not like I made Rankin stop. It’s not like I didn’t like what we did. It’s not like I didn’t want to do it. At least some part of me wanted to.
To change the subject, I asked if Martha was going to be okay. Martha hasn’t said anything since that night—not even “frex”—and I worry that she’s totally regressing, which is a term I learned from Cat Poop. Basically, it means that whatever good has happened to her might have been erased by what happened with Sadie. I love how shrinks have a special word for everything that can be wrong with you.
Cat Poop said he didn’t know. But there was something in his voice that made me think he didn’t believe she would be all right. I wanted to ask him more about it, because I figured it had something to do with why she’s here in the first place. But I knew he wouldn’t tell me anything, so I just said I hoped she would be okay.
I found out later, though. I asked Frank. Like I said, Frank can be kind of a jerk. But he likes to think he knows a lot, so when I saw him later on, I started talking about how awful what happened to Sadie was. “Martha was really upset about it,” I said, knowing he would want to tell me everything he knew about it.
“Yeah, well, who can blame her?” said Frank. “She probably thought it was happening again.”
“Thought what was happening?” I said.
He laughed again. “Oh, right. They don’t let you listen to the news in here. Kid’s dad shot her mother.”
“Martha’s dad?” I said.
“Blew her open with a shotgun,” said Frank. “Then killed himself. The kid saw the whole thing. When they found her, she was sitting between them on the kitchen floor, holding that damn stuffed rabbit. She’d been there two or three days. Aunt or something went over after she kept calling and getting no answer.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“It was all over the papers,” said Frank. “I forgot, they only let you look at the funny papers.” He laughed. “Funny papers—get it?”
I ignored him and walked away. All I could think about was Martha sitting in that kitchen. No wonder she flipped when she saw Sadie. Poor kid. And I thought I had problems. If we’re keeping score, I think Martha just pulled way ahead of the rest of us.
Day 39
I was sitting in Cat Poop’s office today and all of a sudden I asked him, “How do I know if I’m really gay or not?” It just popped out of my mouth, but once it was out there I really wanted to know.
Cat Poop leaned back in his chair and looked at me. “What’s your favorite color?”
I told him it was blue. Then he asked me why.
“Why what?” I asked back.
“Why is blue your favorite color?” he said.
It seems like a dumb question, right? I mean, why do you like anything? I told him I like blue because when I look at blue things, they usually make me feel good.
“Okay,” he said. “Now what’s your favorite song?”
I told him it was Lolly Dreambox’s “Snow Cold Sunday.” At least right now. I’m sure next week it will be something else. That’s how it is when you’re fifteen.
He asked me again why it was my favorite. I said because whenever I hear it I want to sing along. I picture myself on a stage, singing, and it makes me feel good.
“Okay,” he said. “What do your favorite color and your favorite song have in common?”
The answer is that they both make me feel good, although in different ways. That wasn’t too hard to figure out. But then he said, “How do you feel when you think about girls?”
That seemed like a trick question to me. There are a lot of different ways to answer it. So I asked him to be more specific, and he asked how I felt about girls when I thought about going out with them, like as a boyfriend.
I said I didn’t really feel any particular way about it. It didn’t make me feel good or bad. “Sort of like vanilla ice cream,” I said.
Then he asked me the same thing about guys. I got kind of embarrassed, because I’ve never talked with anyone about how guys make me feel. But finally I said that when I think about going out with a guy, it makes me feel all kinds of things. I feel excited and scared at the same time.
“Sometimes we don’t know why we like certain things,” Cat Poop said. “Or at least we can’t put into words why we like them. We just know that we do. Being gay or straight—or something in between—is often like that. We just like one thing or another because of how it makes us feel.”
That still didn’t answer my question, and I said so. I asked him how I would know for sure that I’m gay. “Maybe it’s just something I feel right now,” I said.
He said that maybe it was, which didn’t make me feel any better. “The only thing you can do is listen to your feelings,” he said. “If you’re honest about what you feel, you’ll know what’s true about yourself.”
I swear, sometimes he’s like one of those weird old guys in martial arts movies who show up and say all kinds of crazy crap that the hero has to figure out so he can find the sword or save the girl or kick the bad guy’s ass. You know, like, “Find the whistling pine tree and ask it for the key,” or something.
I guess I know what he means, though. It was like the night I was with Sadie, when I knew I couldn’t have sex with her. It just didn’t feel right. Yeah, maybe it would feel different with another girl, but I don’t think so. With Rankin I knew. Even though he wasn’t the right guy, being with a guy
felt right to me. Everything about what we did was scary and weird, but I knew it was what I wanted. Not with Rankin, and definitely not here, but someday with someone else. Someone I like.
Then Cat Poop brought up the idea of telling my parents. I said I wasn’t sure if I could do that or not.
“So you’ve never talked about it with them?” he asked.
“We don’t talk in my family,” I said. “We assume.”
“What do you mean by that?” he said.
“I mean my parents assume,” I explained. “They assume that Amanda and I will ask them if we have questions about anything. Otherwise, they assume it’s all good with us.”
“And do you ever talk to them?”
I gave him a look. “You’ve met them,” I said. “What do you think?”
Now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t think my parents have any gay friends, at least none that I know of. So I don’t really know how they feel about the whole gay thing. Besides, I think it’s different when it’s your kid you’re talking about and not some stranger. I know my mother is all into the idea of having grandkids someday, and my dad teases us about how he’s going to screen everyone Amanda and I bring home when we start dating. I can’t exactly see him sitting my date down and asking him what his favorite football team is.
I asked Cat Poop if he would tell my parents if he was me, and of course he said he couldn’t make that decision for me. I figured he would say that, but it was worth a shot. So then I asked him if he had any advice on how to decide whether or not to do it.
“You could practice telling them,” he suggested.
“You mean walk through it in my head?” I said.
“No, I mean with me,” said Cat Poop.
“You don’t look much like my mom,” I informed him. “Even without the goatee.”
He smiled. “I could play your dad, then,” he said.
“I don’t know,” I told him. “That’s kind of weird.”
“Well, think about it,” he said.
So now I’m thinking about it. I’m imagining sitting down with my parents and actually saying, “I’m gay.” And you know what? It makes me a little mad. I mean, straight guys don’t have to sit their parents down and tell them they like girls. Everyone just assumes that they do. But if you’re gay, everybody makes this ginormous deal out of it. You practically have to hold a news conference and take out an ad in the newspaper. Why? Just because it’s not what most people do? That doesn’t seem fair.
Why should my parents know? So they can get used to the idea of not having a daughter-in-law? So they can practice imagining me walking down the aisle with a guy? I don’t get it. Why is it that you have to warn people about who you are? Why can’t it just be something that happens?
I know why. I’m just blowing off steam. It’s a lot of pressure, telling someone something like that. It’s like you’re committing to it. “Mom, dad, I’ve thought about it a lot, and I’ve decided I’m gay.” Like you’ve read all the brochures and comparison shopped. Or finally decided what college to go to. Only if you’re wrong, you can’t exactly get a refund or switch schools. Well, I guess you could, but then you’ve gotten everyone all excited for nothing.
Day 40
Funny, Rankin has been gone for almost a week, and nobody has asked where he is or what happened to him. I asked Cat Poop about him today, but all he would say was that Rankin had been transferred somewhere else. Like he got a new job or something.
He also read me Sadie’s suicide note. I didn’t even know she’d left a note. Cat Poop said he’d waited for some time to go by before telling me so that I wouldn’t be as upset about it. I told him that was big of him.
So he read it to me. It was his voice talking, but what I heard was Sadie.
“Hey, everyone,” she said. “I guess by now you know I won’t be around anymore. Maybe some of you will miss me, and maybe some of you won’t. I’ll miss you guys. It’s been fun. But it’s time to go. No one can save me this time. Not even Sam. I’ll see you all on the other side, I guess. Love, Sadie.”
That was it. Nothing about why. Nothing about what was going on in her head. Nothing about . . . me.
“What the hell kind of note is that?” I said. “She didn’t say anything. It’s just stupid.”
Then I got mad. Really mad. “Who does she think she is?” I asked Cat Poop. “She goes and kills herself and all she has to say about it is ‘see you on the other side’? That’s completely fucked up.”
“Maybe it’s all she could say,” said Cat Poop. “Maybe she didn’t really know why she was doing it.”
“How can you not know?” I said.
“Why do you think she did it?” he said, pulling the old answering-a-question-with-a-question bullshit.
The thing is, I didn’t know. But I was afraid I did. I was afraid it was because I couldn’t sleep with her. I was afraid it was because she felt rejected, the way I did with Burke. And with Allie. If that was true, then I knew why she wanted to kill herself. I knew exactly why.
“What are you thinking?” Cat Poop asked me.
I couldn’t say it. I just couldn’t. If I said it, I knew it would be true. But as long as I kept it inside, as long as it was a secret, it couldn’t be.
“You’re afraid it was because of you?”
Goddamn it, I don’t know how he does that, but the doc always manages to ask you the one question you really don’t want him to.
I nodded, but I still didn’t say it. I didn’t let it out. Finally, when I couldn’t stand it anymore, I said, “Do you?”
When he shook his head, I almost threw up. “No,” he said. “I don’t.”
“Then why the fuck did you ask me?” I practically yelled. I only say “fuck” when I’m really pissed off. Otherwise, I think it kind of ruins the effect. But right then I was really pissed off. Fucking pissed off.
“Because I had a feeling you might be thinking that,” he said.
I glared at him. “You’re a real asshole,” I said. “You know that?”
He ignored me. “There’s something else,” he said. “She wrote a poem.”
“A poem?” I said. That was totally not a Sadie thing to do.
Cat Poop handed me the letter. Down at the bottom, after the note, Sadie had written:
Seven little crazy kids chopping up sticks;
One burnt her daddy up and then there were six.
Six little crazy kids playing with a hive;
One tattooed himself to death and then there were five.
Five little crazy kids on a cellar door;
One went all schizo and then there were four.
Four little crazy kids going out to sea;
One wouldn’t say a word, and then there were three.
Three little crazy kids walking to the zoo;
One jerked himself too much and then there were two.
Two little crazy kids sitting in the sun;
One took a bunch of pills and then there was one.
One little crazy kid left all alone;
He went and slit his wrists, and then there were none.
“So this is what we were to her,” I said. “Just a list of problems.”
“I don’t think that’s it,” said Cat Poop. “I think she wanted to believe that you all had something in common.”
“Being crazy?” I said.
He nodded. “It probably made her feel better about herself.”
Maybe so, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. In fact, I’m even madder at her than I was before. I’m mad because she turned out to be such a phony. She wanted me—and everyone else—to think she was so cool and nothing could bother her. She wanted us to believe that she really had it all together. And we did. Or at least I did.
But she wasn’t together. She wasn’t cool and strong and smarter than everyone else. She was afraid. She was afraid we’d all see the real her one day and that we wouldn’t like it. Well, I don’t like it. I don’t like that she lied to me and made m
e think she was someone she wasn’t. I don’t like that she pretended to be cool with everything but was really running away. I don’t like that I want to be sad about her dying but I can’t because I’m too mad at her.
First Allie and now Sadie. They both left me. And even though Sadie never said it, part of me still wonders if it’s because I’m gay. Allie couldn’t handle it. Maybe Sadie couldn’t either.
So now it’s just me, Juliet, and Martha. The last three little soldier boys. I guess everyone waiting behind the velvet ropes to get in decided to go to a different club or something. Tonight after dinner, me and Juliet were sitting in the lounge. I don’t know why, but I asked her, “Did you like Sadie?”
Juliet put down the book she was reading. “I liked her the way you like a hurt dog,” she said.
“What do you mean?” I asked her.
“You feel sorry for it, and you want to help it, but you’re not sure it won’t bite you when you’re not looking,” Juliet said.
Now I know Juliet says some weird stuff. But sometimes she gets it exactly right, like occasionally her craziness goes away long enough for her to really see you. I knew what she meant. Sadie was kind of like that. She was always wagging her tail and making you think she liked you, but I’m not sure she really liked any of us any more than she liked herself.
“What about Rankin?” I asked Juliet.
She shook her head. “I never liked him,” she said. “Did you?”
As far as I know, she doesn’t know anything about what happened with Rankin and me. I think only Moonie, Goody, and Carl know, and I don’t think they would say anything. I guess they’ve seen so many crazy things that they forget about them pretty fast or at least get really good at pretending to.
Suicide Notes Page 16