And Never Again

A short story about the devastation following a suicide.

The last time I saw her, she was crumpled over her kitchen table. Facing me, knowing it would be me to find her. Under her impossibly small elbow were three folded pieces of yellow paper separated with such care by three pictures. Three notes. She had a habit of putting pen to paper and bringing the world to a stop, and I knew these words, sentences, paragraphs and stories she had left behind would be no different. Those so seemingly insignificant pieces of paper, pieces of goodbye forever, they screamed at me. “Look at you,” they yelled silently, “all she will ever be now is in your past.” And they looked at me, and they accused me and they dragged me down with realization.

When I could lift myself from my knees, I took the papers and the pictures and I shoved them in my pocket, so desperate to silence the rebuke of their existence. Her eyes peeked out from the picture she had tucked in the note written for me, so implausibly happy. I imagined she’d like the idea of only ever being able to be that happy like in that picture.

I shielded myself with my quivering hands as they took her away. I considered if it would hurt more to see the paramedics sigh and unpack the zippered bag. My deep breaths couldn’t talk me into looking, and so they pushed the stretcher out the door and they talked about lunch as they lifted her into the back of their ambulance. My hands stayed glued to my eyes as the cacophony of the tires abated and the silenced siren lights stopped flashing through the door. All of the emergency had left her, all the fight and frustration polished away far before they drove her away. Her body. Not her, not anymore and never again.

So, there I was, surrounded with a horridly sudden, gasping silence; crushing in its quickness. So I stood, maybe for hours. I heard cars drive by and saw the muted magnificence of the sun’s last breath of the day. Time passed outside of my world, but that place became timeless when she left; nightmarish in its certainty, in its finality. The thick jail cell walls of her apartment kept me there, screaming at me memories of finding her half-foot hanging over the edge of a chair, of frequent occasions of attempted rescue and my petulant rage.

Her parents were there when the moon made its appearance, the sound of the gravel driveway broadcasting their uninvited arrival. They came and went and they took what was left of her, her books and her pencils with no erasers, the necklaces I had made her and the ones she made herself. They took her shirts, her stuffed cows, her rose perfume and they left nothing for me. She was gone and I had nothing but a note and a picture, nothing but remembering. Remembering how her hands drew into fists when she slept and her persistent habits of a person always fighting a losing battle. She said she couldn’t stop it, even there: even in her dreams. “I’m sorry you can’t fix me with your poems,” she had mumbled in between lamentations one night, “but I’ll let you hold me up if you can talk me into it.” So when I told her I loved her, the corners of her mouth would drop a little lower and she would look into my eyes, searching for some sort of “Just kidding.” I sometimes worried that she would find it; she could turn the earth upside down with the sheer force of her vehement will.

As the sun rose and the rays of light bore into me with the fevered summer ferocity saved for those who hide in shadows, I pictured myself standing in the middle of her empty apartment as early July turned into late August and summer dimmed to fall. Standing, still, staring through the open door as dead leaves found their ways in on the wind and danced as if there were a single thing in the world worth being happy about. Standing and watching as winter threw itself through the streets and in through the door, wrapping itself around my fingers and my toes. Standing and wondering if this was something that could be waited out; if I could wait out the desolation, the desperation and the dread. I wondered if time would find her walking through the door again the way it had brought in the bright excitement of fall and the lazy chill of winter, the way it had coated me in spring’s bright yellow pollen. I imagined it would feel just like waking up when she came back, like the sun finally remembered how to rise and fall again and I would finally be able to shake the rigor from my bones.

My dreams went like that for a long time: A thousand different ways she’d come back and say she never meant to leave. That she never meant to leave me. And she would be there for a little while, blanketing me in this confused relief, in a desperate pained hope. Every night I tried to ask her to stay, “Stay this time,” I would hear myself whisper. But all I ever had to offer in return was a string of half-words choked out through sobs and bitten-back screams. I would wake up and wither as that small fortune of her return clawed its way out of my heart, and I would wish it away while I grasped for the strings of its return. I never could decide if it was me or her that left first in those dreams. I always wondered where she would go if it was her.

               The angry scribble of her words burned through me when I finally read the letter. I had braced myself for her accusations, curled my toes against the certainty of seeing that last thing she will ever say to me. All my preparations and hunched shoulders fell away. Her hasty words were tear-stained and heavy-penned. “I’m so sorry.” Sorry from someone who only said sorry without ever really saying it at all, from someone who was sorry for so much that she forgot what it felt like to not be sorry. “I’m sorry,” somehow seemed to disappear into harsh recriminations cleverly buried under apologies and her heavy-hearted written reminiscence on the inevitability of this moment. I read and I thought of the nights lying next to her when the green light of the alarm clock was almost enough to see her eyes clenching against the reality of her existence, when I was almost brave enough to reach out and snake my fingers through hers. Almost, but not quite. 

Author's Note

This is my first short story, help me out but be nice, please.

Reviews

[Emily Dickinson Jr.]

It was prett good but I did have some difficulty understanding certain parts the advice I give is to keep in mind the readers know not what you speek of so unless your aim is to be mysteroius then you must clarify