What they say is true, I guess. And by they I mean those who see us as statistics, as numbers, rather than as human beings. While programs like Fathoms have so much potential to help pave a path toward healing, there’s still the possibility, after everything, that someone will commit suicide anyway.
“I prefer to say ‘die by suicide,’” Jake said once. “Commit implies on purpose. In your right mind. Suicide is the result of an illness, Brooke. I don’t believe anyone really chooses it in the end.”
I imagine Hope. There in her bathroom. The pills she took sit on the edge of the sink. Her face is streaked with tears. She considers flushing the poison for the briefest moment. She glances at the door. She looks at her phone. She waits.
But Hope was tired of waiting.
She texted me that day—the day I toured Berkeley. I didn’t respond. I couldn’t bring myself to read the message until two days later. I guess a part of me feared it would be a cry for help. Something that might have altered her decision had I answered. But it wasn’t.
I turn on my phone now and read the text again. I’ve read it so many times, tried to find some sort of secret code, a hint between the lines. But no matter how much I deconstruct it, I find zero significance in her words.
I think I’m converting. Jess isn’t right for Rory. Team Logan for the win.
Had I replied, I would have argued that of course Jess was right for Rory and how could she think otherwise? I’ve thought about sending the text anyway, though I know she’ll never respond.
Even now, I shake my head and smile. Gilmore Girls? That’s what was on her mind the day she stopped fighting? I love and hate her for it. Why didn’t she call me? Why didn’t she text me a thousand times until I picked up?
She didn’t want to be stopped. There was a time I felt the same.
I know how difficult it is when the world becomes overwhelming or the thoughts of numbness, the end of pain, take over. For Hope, it was too much. And no matter what I did or said or how much better things got, there was still the chance she’d choose to say good-bye.
Third time’s a charm, I hear her say in my head.
I scowl at the dark joke I know she would have told to lighten this morose day. Her favorite times to laugh came during the most inappropriate moments. I want to scold her in her twelve-year-old body with her fifty-year-old mind. I want to scream her name and tell her this isn’t fair and how could she and why is this happening again?
This hurts worse than the first time I lost someone this way.
Because, this time, I allow myself to cry.
This time, I feel it all the way down to my drowning, bleeding soul.
Thirty-Nine
Merrick
Merrick kicked himself. Then he punched a throw pillow and threw it across Grim’s living room.
He’d blown it. Big-time. Rather than confiding his doubts and frustrations in the one person who understood, he’d done the very thing Coral did to him. He’d run. He’d run so far and so fast he didn’t know if he could find his way back.
Maybe she didn’t understand him after all. She hadn’t even given him a chance to explain. Coral assumed the worst. She’d use whatever excuse she could if it meant she didn’t have to feel pain.
“She’s infuriating!”
“Who’s infuriating?”
Merrick looked up.
Maya stood at the bottom of the stairs. Completely dressed with hair done and makeup on. She looked way too old with so much dark, dramatic gunk on her face. “Where are you going?”
“Do I have to be going somewhere to get ready for the day?”
“Have you been taking selfies?”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
“And posting them online?”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Myyyy-uh.”
“Merrrr-ick.”
Make that two females who infuriated him. “You know you’re not supposed to be on social media.”
“You’re not my dad.”
“Thank the universe for that.” He regretted the words before they had completely left his mouth. “I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry. You know I love you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for earlier too.”
“Yeah. Sorry.” She crossed to the kitchen counter and picked up the lighthouse book he’d brought home. “What’s this?”
“A book I found. I thought the picture on the cover seemed familiar.”
“This looks like the painting in my room.”
Merrick rose from his place on the couch and moved beside her. “What painting?”
“The one in my room,” she said again. “The one of the Lighthouse Inn.”
He watched her. Dark circles not even makeup could conceal lined her blue eyes. Her hair was curled but clearly hadn’t been washed in days. Maya was spiraling. And Merrick could do nothing to stop it.
“We’ve been there before,” she said.
Lighthouse Inn? He racked his brain but couldn’t remember ever having gone. “Mom used to take us there?” he guessed.
Maya shook her head. “No, but Dad did once.”
Merrick couldn’t picture his father ever taking them anywhere that didn’t benefit him.
“You don’t remember?”
He usually tried to forget any time he’d spent with his dad. He couldn’t remember it ever being pleasant.
“I was five. You were thirteen. Mom wanted to come here during spring vacation. We stayed at our old beach house. The one Dad sold a few years later?”
How did she remember all of this? Nothing sounded familiar.
“Mom had a meltdown the second day of spring break.”
“Probably because Dad pushed her into one.”
Maya pursed her lips. “I remember you took me down to the shore to search for seashells until she stopped crying.”
His father had probably said something to make her that way. The man was heartless.
“Dad came and found us on the beach,” Maya said. “He took us for a drive along the coast and we stopped at the Lighthouse Inn. We had lunch and went to the museum. He even showed us the spot where he proposed to Mom, right at the top of the lighthouse. I can’t believe you don’t remember. That was the best day ever.”
Merrick sat stunned. Dumbfounded. Had he suppressed that memory? He remembered the seashells and his mom crying now that Maya mentioned it. But he’d completely blocked the part about his dad taking them for the drive.
Why?
Maya picked up the book. She said something but it didn’t register.
Merrick blinked. “What?”
“Can I have this?”
“Yeah. Sure. Go for it.”
She tucked it under one arm and headed upstairs while Merrick stared at the wall.
The place where his dad proposed.
It was too easy. Too close.
All this time?
He wanted to call Coral. He wanted to ask her to come with him. She might not respond, but there was no one else he’d rather tell.
Merrick texted Grim. Will you be back soon?
The response came quick. Later this evening.
He drummed his fingers on the counter. Grim was with Nikki. Later this evening could mean midnight. He texted Coral. He didn’t want her to feel used, but that’s how she would feel, especially after how he’d treated her. She overthought everything and it drove him crazy and made him want to scream.