I let the music take me away for a while, losing myself in the light and sweetness of spring as Duckie drove us down a crumbling paved road and then turned onto a dirt one. He drove about a mile before he pulled into an overgrown, mostly forgotten parking lot connected to an old elementary school. Weeds had filled the cracks in the pavement, and rain and sun had washed and bleached away the painted lines. The building still stood, but most of the windows had been boarded up. The outside was home to spray-painted words. Apparently someone named Jesse had been here at one point—the graffiti said so in big, red letters—and I had a feeling I knew which Jesse it was. But the building didn’t matter. It wasn’t our destination. Where we were going was behind the old elementary school, to the place where Duckie and I first met.
The playground looked pretty much like it had back in kindergarten. Only there were more weeds now and the equipment was rusting away. At the center of the playground stood the massive metal climbing dome. Behind that were the teeter-totters and the basketball court. To the left were the swings and the slide that Duckie had fallen off in the third grade. He’d broken his arm and cried harder than I’d ever seen him cry before or since. I’d signed his cast “I-L-Y —B.” Last I knew, he still had the cast.
Duckie sat on one of the swings and pushed back with his feet, swinging forward. The chains creaked under his weight, but held. He said, “Come on. Let’s swing.”
Doubtful about the equipment’s ability to remain in one piece under the strain of two teenagers, I slowly sank into the swing beside him and looked at the back of the school. “Do you remember when they built the new elementary school on the other side of town? We were so mad. You staged a protest.”
He smiled in remembrance. “I was a pissed-off fourth grader. You don’t mess with routine at that age.”
I offered a halfhearted shrug. “The new school wasn’t so bad. I mean, it was okay.”
“Not great, though. Not like this one.” He was right, and we both knew it. The last time I could remember being truly happy was when we were attending this school, swinging on these swings, not caring about tomorrow or the years to come. All we had back in those days were songs by Queen, games of tag, and arguing over the last chocolate-peanut-butter treat in the cafeteria. Life was simple then. Just Pokémon, building forts, and wishing on stars.
I looked at the main building, at the boarded-up windows. Someone had spray-painted a Nazi symbol on one of the boards. What an asshole. “You were the best part of this school for me.”
The wind blew gently, and a large, white cloud moved overhead, casting a shadow on us before moving along and leaving us in the sunshine again.
“Can I ask you something?” Duckie wasn’t swinging anymore. Nor was he looking at me. I knew what he was going to ask before he even opened his mouth again. I wished he wouldn’t. “Why’d you do it?”
It. The word was so much easier to say than asking me why I’d attempted suicide. But I understood. Just the word suicide made people uncomfortable. Hell, it made me uncomfortable—but I’d rather people just ask me outright than pussyfoot around it.
I drew a heart in the dirt with the toe of my shoe, then stomped on it, leaving an imprint of my sneaker in the middle. If I didn’t answer him, he’d just keep asking. That was always his way. So I took a slow breath into my lungs and said, “I can’t tell you why. Because you wouldn’t understand. It’s not any one thing. It’s just . . . everything.”
I could feel him looking at me, willing me to meet his gaze. But I refused, instead focusing on all the weeds that had grown up around the playground. How did such an awesome place become so used up and worn out? “You’re speaking in present tense. Do I have to worry you’ll do it again?”
I pushed back with my feet and lifted them up, letting myself swing back and forth for a minute.
Finally Duckie grabbed one of the chains of my swing and stopped me. “Brooke. Seriously.”
I stared forward, my eyes locked on that stupid Nazi graffiti. For a moment, I felt more robotic than human. “No. You don’t have anything to worry about.”
He didn’t believe me, and I was waiting for him to call me on it. We both knew that killing myself was still very much on my mind. But I’d deny it to the very end. I think we both knew that too.
To my amazement, he dropped the subject without so much as an argument. For the moment, at least. “Prom’s coming up. You going with me or what?”
“That’s a hell of a way to ask someone to be your date to prom. Some people propose such a thing in grand gestures that make the askee swoon. I get asked on a decrepit swing set with ‘or what?’ attached.” I nudged him with my elbow, but he didn’t smile. So I tried a different approach. “I thought you were going to ask Tucker.”
His eyes lit up at the mere mention of Tucker. “And risk having my heart broken by a pretty boy with brown eyes and a dashing smile? Nah. I’d rather go with you.”
“Liar.”
“That makes two of us, doesn’t it?” Suddenly the lightness of the moment was gone. Duckie was done with casual conversation. He was done pretending that everything was roses and rainbows with me, the way my mother had pretended on the drive home from Kingsdale. He was ready to talk about what I had done that night at Black River, whether I was ready to or not. “Look. I know you don’t want to hear it, but you scared the shit out of me, and I’m worried about you. Since your mom’s phone call from the hospital, I’ve been going over all sorts of things you said or did in the past, looking back to see if there were any signs you were that close to the edge. Then I remembered the bandages on your arm. You were cutting, weren’t you? Just tell me.”
My jaw tightened stubbornly. “Take me home now.”
“Not until you tell me what really happened. I wanna hear it from you, Brooke. Not from whispers in the hall. Not from carefully worded medical descriptions. I want to hear what exactly you were thinking, feeling, doing that night. From you. My best friend.”
“Fine. I’ll walk.” I stood up, and he immediately caught my hand in his.
“I’m sorry. I just . . . I can’t pretend that it didn’t happen.” He wouldn’t have to, but he had no way of knowing that. “Come on. Stay. We can still have fun.”
But the fun was over. The stolen moment of peace and reminiscence had been tainted. “Just take me home.”
The drive back to my house was long and silent. And when we finally pulled into my driveway, I got out with my backpack and shut the door hard behind me. Duckie didn’t say a word, but I could feel his apology hanging in the air. I moved up the walk and let myself in without looking back at him.
I arrived home an hour earlier than I would have if I’d stayed at school the entire day. No one else should have been home, but as I started heading up the stairs, my dad cleared his throat to get my attention. He and Mom were sitting in the living room, waiting for me. That was never a good sign.
Dad pointed to the couch, and I begrudgingly took a seat but said nothing.
Mom began. “The school called today.”
Shit.
“They said you missed your last two classes and that you were seen leaving school grounds in Ronald’s car.” Her mouth was a thin, angry line. “What do you have to say for yourself?”