Her voice followed me upstairs, drifting through my bedroom door. “Brooke, where are you going? I was just trying to talk to you.”
I spent the next several hours lying on my bed, wondering if Grandma still existed somewhere or if everything that had made her Grandma had dissipated into nothingness the moment her brain activity ceased. I wondered if after you died, you went somewhere with mansions and angels, if you just hung out and stalked the living without them realizing, or if you just . . . weren’t . . . anymore. I wasn’t sure what to believe, and it didn’t really matter anyway. All that mattered was that I would be free of this pain, free of this existence, and on to something else.
Once the silence of night took over the Danvers household, I slipped quietly from my room and began looking for something—anything, really—to use to kill myself.
I looked all over the house—even the garage—but nothing stood out to me as a tool to end the hurt. Finally, I slumped on the floor of my bedroom, resigned to the fact that I might just be stuck in this place of nothingness and pain for a long time.
That’s when I saw it.
It was as if I’d made a wish and someone or something had granted it. My parents had been very meticulous about removing potentially dangerous things from my room. But they’d forgotten one thing.
Peeking out, just barely, from behind my desk was the power cord that was plugged into the wall and attached to my MacBook Air. I crawled over to it and pulled my desk away from the wall a few inches. After unplugging it, I detached the smaller cord from the larger extension. With a deep breath, I gripped the thicker cord and gave it a good yank with both hands. It seemed pretty solid. Plus, it was just over five feet in length, so I was certain I could get a good knot around the closet bar, with plenty of room for my neck.
This was it. I was ready. Mom was sleeping down the hall. Dad was snoring in front of the television. I was alone. And I was mere minutes away from freedom.
A strange panic filled me. If I didn’t do it now, they might discover the cord and remove it. If I didn’t do it now, I would wake up tomorrow . . . and I just knew that my first thought would be one of regret.
I opened my closet doors and looped the cord around the bar, pulling it snug. Without thinking, without feeling, I tied the other end around my neck and stepped up on my hamper, thankful for such a tall closet. It was almost over—all my pain, all my anguish, all my absolute sorrow. I was one small step away from the freedom that I so longed for.
There was a moment, a brief one, when I wondered if it would hurt. I pictured the videos I’d watched on deeply buried sites online of people strangling themselves to death. They’d kicked and flailed, and I wasn’t certain if that was just the body’s natural reaction to strangulation . . . or if it was a sign of having second thoughts. I wanted to die, but I didn’t want to hurt. Not a lot, anyway.
As if in a response from the universe, my left foot slipped and I fell in a short drop, dangling in my closet. The pain was unbearable. I was choking, flailing, my tongue protruding from my mouth. Images from the videos I’d seen flashed through my mind, but still, I didn’t have my answer. Part of me knew that the pain would soon end. Part of me was struggling to be free of the cord, for what reason, I had no idea. Then there was a loud crash, and I slammed onto the floor. I coughed and coughed until air at last entered my lungs in a fiery gasp.
A pile of clothing and hangers covered me. The closet bar had broken. I coughed again, my lungs burning, my neck and spine aching terribly.
My bedroom door was flung open and my dad burst in, his eyes wide. “Are you okay? What happened?”
I waved my hand at him in a dismissive way, hoping I’d be able to talk. It still felt like the cord was squeezing my throat, even though it had apparently slipped free and was nowhere to be seen. When I spoke, my voice was hoarse, my throat on fire. “I’m fine. Just tried to reach something on the top shelf and put my foot on the bar.”
“Jesus, Brooke.” He looked at me in utter relief that I was all right. If only he knew. And the lines in his forehead suggested that he wasn’t quite certain if he totally bought my line of bullshit. His eyes scanned the closet, me, my room, but apparently his examination was enough to convince him I’d been telling the truth. “You know we have a step stool, right?”
I nodded. “I’ll remember that for next time.”
He wet his lips and sighed. For a moment, I thought he might say that he knew damn well what I’d been trying to do and then tell me he was taking me back to Kingsdale immediately. But instead, he said, “It’s late. I’ll fix your closet tomorrow. You should get to bed.”
After he left, I sat in my closet and cried from the very depths of my soul. I was alone in this, and no one could save me.
Not even me.
CHAPTER FIVE
I was exhausted when Duckie picked me up for school the next morning, and my throat still hurt like hell. I also had the worst headache of my entire life. It was going to be a long day, I could feel it. Made longer by my mom watching out the front window, as if to be certain I was going with Duckie, the way I was supposed to.
I slid into the Beast and shut the door, fighting a yawn and losing. Duckie didn’t put the Beast in reverse or anything. He just sat there, so I looked at him, already knowing what was on his mind. He said, “Are you mad?”
“No. I’m not mad.” Duckie was pretty intuitive. I was mad, but not for the reasons he might have thought. I was mad because I opened my eyes this morning. I was mad because I woke up in my bed, in my room, in my life. I was mad because I woke up at all. I wasn’t mad at Duckie, or anybody else—even my parents, really. I was mostly mad at myself and feeling lost and confused.
“You don’t have to talk about what happened that night at the river, y’know. Or even what happened in the hospital. I was just curious. I didn’t mean to—”
“Let’s just drop it.” I pulled my sunglasses out of my backpack and slid them over my eyes, dimming the morning light.
Duckie didn’t miss a beat. Unlike my mother, he knew when to stop. Generally. “Consider it dropped. Oh, by the way, I’ll be a little late to economics today. Drama committee meeting during first hour.”
“Can you give me a ride to my shrink after school?”
“Of course.” He leaned closer and squinted, examining my face with his eyes. “You feeling okay? You look like you aren’t feeling well. Are you sick or something?”
My throat was still burning, and the bruises around my neck hurt. Thank the fashion industry for decorative scarves. “Can we just go now?”
His jaw twitched slightly at my biting tone, and he turned the key in the ignition. “Ma’am, yes, ma’am.”
He was annoyed. Or hurt. Or some other thing that I didn’t feel like exploring at the moment. I rested my forehead against the window and dozed until Duckie pulled into his usual spot at the back of the school parking lot. No quick getaways today. Maybe because he was mad at me.
Still, he held the door for me once we reached the school. We headed to our lockers, the silence between us heavy. I fully expected to see “RIP” on my locker door, but the janitor had painted over it, just like Duckie had said he would. Sticking out of my locker vents was a small black envelope. I took it in my hand and shoved it inside my backpack before Duckie could see it. It was probably some new joke about me dying, which was going to get really old really fast. Duckie grabbed his books and shut his locker. He turned to walk away, but before he got four steps, he turned back again and mouthed “I-L-Y” to me.