Buckle

A short story I wrote for my portfolio for college. Sam was in love. Jamie knew too much.

Jamie had never been someone who kept secrets.  Everyone knew that.  Jamie was an open book.  You could flip through his pages freely, so I never expected to get a paper cut.

            He saw too much.  He knew too much.  I never even noticed him, yet suddenly, he was everywhere.

 “Why did you do it?”

“What?” I stammered.  I was taken aback.  The guy hadn’t said anything to me before.  That was the first thing he decided to ask me?  I waited for him to elaborate.  One strap of my bag hung in the air along with a thousand questions.  He just looked at me expectedly.  “Look,” I began.  What was I supposed to say?  I ran my hand through my hair.  “I didn’t even know it happened until it was over.”  I made a point to look at him after noticing I’d been looking at every possible spot in the room to avoid meeting his gaze.  He didn’t look satisfied. 

He didn’t say anything else, yet I heard a hundred questions that I couldn’t answer.  He’d only asked me one question, and I couldn’t even answer that.  He put his bag down on the desk to his right.  I let mine slip off my shoulder as I struggled to think.  He must’ve meant what happened with Nina.  What was I supposed to tell him?  I don’t even know what happened.  It’s not like she’s spoken to me since.  His total composure made me uneasy.  He stood there silently, looking at me. 

“She gave me this,” he said.  He slipped a leather bracelet next to his bag on the desk.  

As soon as I saw it, I knew it was mine.  I walked over towards Jamie, as if asking for approval, and grabbed the bracelet.  She bought us a matching set on our trip to New York.  She finally took hers out of the packaging on the flight home.  She waited to take it out of her bag until we boarded because she was so scared she’d lose it before we got back to Williamsburg.  I put mine on right away.

I only knew I was crying because of the teardrops hitting the leather strap.

I’d give anything to remember that night.  I’d give anything to be able to say anything other than an apology.  I would’ve reached out to her if I could have. 

I was sucked into some kind of trance when I thought of her.  I noticed Jamie turn his back to me and walk towards the chalk board in the front of the classroom, but I couldn’t focus on it.  I pulled out the seat next to my bag and slumped onto it.  I looked out the window at the dimly lit parking lot.  I could see her car parked in my old spot.  The sky was cloudy but moonlight peaked through the cracks.  I thought of her.  I hadn’t thought of her in a year.  Suddenly, she inhabited my mind as though it had always been hers.  My chest hurt.  I couldn’t close my eyes.  Every time I blinked I saw red hair and brown eyes and freckles.  Her laugh flooded through my ears and down my throat.  I was choking on her again.  She wasn’t even there, and she was suffocating me.  I saw the shadow of Jamie disappear through the door and it hit me that I was completely alone. 

“Sam,” she whispered.  I knew she wasn’t there.  Of course she wasn’t.  I heard her just the same.  “Sam.”  She was louder that time.  I stood up, and pushed the chair back. 

“Please don’t!” She cried. 

My head pounded

“Don’t tell them.  It’s better this way,” she pleaded.

I climbed atop the desk and unbuckled my belt. 

“Sam, if you really loved me, you’d let me go.”

I slipped the brown leather off of my waist, and unclenched my fist, letting the small leather strap fall out of my hand. 

I thought of Jamie.  Why would he ask me that?  What did he know?

I played with the belt in my hands as I contemplated my actions.  For the first time in my life, I called Jamie Henderson.  Nina’s voice sounded on loop in my head.  After four rings, he answered. 

“Ja-J-Jamie,” I shuttered.  He said nothing.  “What do you know?”

“It’s going to be better.”  She smiled softly with tears streaming down her face.  I held her hand in mine and cried.  “It’s almost over now.”

I didn’t know how long she’d been planning it.  I never imagined she’d do something like that.  I heard him sigh over the phone. 

“Jamie,” I let out as a breath. 

He hung up.

I secured my handiwork onto the ceiling fan. 

“I love you,” her voice floated softly into the air then dissipated into nothing.

“I love you,” I sobbed.

“You,” he started. 

“It’s okay.”  She lifted her hand to graze my cheek softly with her knuckles.  “Count with me.”  She closed her eyes. 

“Nina, No,” I choked.  I was always choking over her.  Maybe some people could find some sick sort of “tragic beauty” in this, but I couldn’t.

“Five,” she said weakly.  I repeated her in mutters.  “Four,” she winced as my hand brushed her arm.

“Three,” I whispered with her.  Her voice got softer as this went on.  She was growing progressively weaker.  She was fading. 

The once clear bath water was now rusted orange and brick red.  I kept checking my phone and looking out the window for an update on the ambulance.  Her wet red hair clung to the sides of her face.  Her brown eyes fluttered closed and reopened every so often.  Her face was soaked with blood and tears.

“Two,” she mouthed, and her mouth fell into a sad smile.  I felt my heart drop into my stomach. 

I looked forward at the chalkboard.  In thin white letters that seemed to mock me, it read

You let her die.

“One,” I whispered.  Her hand went limp in mine.  I let go.  Her arm dropped into the water.

“One,” I whispered.  My knees buckled and knocked me off of the desk and into fate’s grasp. 

“Sam,” she smiled at me.        

 

  

   

 

Author's Note

Serious trigger warning here. Suicide Trigger Warning