Come Back to Me (24 page)

I chose to
be calm through it.  There was a difference.  I couldn’t control the fear, but
I could steer my reaction.  I stayed tough helping Kyle.  I imagined my
strength pushing out of my fingers and into Kyle’s.  I wanted him to feel it,
too.

So when the
emergency vehicles left, and I was alone, I made my way down to the tiny
beach.  I gazed out at the water one more time before narrowing my focus on the
rocky wall and the spot where Kyle finally broke.  He would go to rehab.  I
would see him around Bloom again, over holidays, at Bloom Town Center, but the
quarry would always be the last place Katie passed between us.  At the top of
the quarry, we finished talking about Katie, our last words falling below us,
becoming a part of what lay beneath the surface.  Taking whatever had been Kyle
and me, into the water’s wake.

So that was
my state of mind when I decided to finish what I started at Gosley.  Adrenaline
mixed with the melancholy of loss somehow made it okay to climb the quarry wall,
without carabineers and ropes.  Without a partner.

It was
stupid, careless even. I closed my eyes, envisioning the climbers I watched in
the gym that day.  I focused on the hands and the feet taking a grip on the
next hold.  I ignored the slips, the dangling as my pulse quickened at the
thought of dropping into the water below—or worse, the dirt packed, rocky
beach.  But I wasn’t afraid.  I didn’t know if that was good or bad, probably
bad considering what I was about to do.

I looked at
the wall.  This time, I was going somewhere.

I focused on
the treetops above.  A bird cawed.  I couldn’t see it, but I imagined a bird of
prey circling, waiting for my descent, or demise.  It screeched again.  So I
focused on the sounds of my breath, which came short and jagged, like the
footholds I found.  When I saw the outcropping, I knew I was at the top, and I
blew out a deep, gratifying sigh.  I smiled, then my phone rang, breaking my
concentration.  I looked up toward the sound.  I’d forgotten to pick up my
phone after the ambulance showed up.

It didn’t
matter because I realized at the same moment that there was nothing left for me
to grab on to.  The ledge was mostly dirt and grass, a few wispy root ends.  I
had one good shelf for my right foot, but the rest wasn’t so great.

I peeked down,
past my sequined Converse. My position directly straddled both the water and
the beach.  Perfect, so if I fell, half my body would flop on to hard land, and
I’d break in two.  But I’d be easy to spot with my sparkly, shiny shoes.

My phone
rang again.  Then the damn bird shrieked again.  Only now, it sounded like the
bird was calling my name, mocking me.  I groaned, only it seeped out of my
throat high and panicky.

My body trembled. 
My muscles protested.  I leaned my forehead on the rock.  Would it be possible
for me to reach for my phone?

My right toe
slid off its foothold, and my whole body moved a couple of inches, in the wrong
direction.  I swallowed, but my mouth was mostly dry, and the attempt made it
seem like there were sharp corners in my throat, surrounding what felt like my
lumpy, lodged heart.

Again, I
imagined the hard ground below, and again I wasn’t afraid.  I waited for my
body to disagree. But I seemed to be stuck in neutral.  No increased pulse or
trembling muscles. I probably maxed out my fight or flight responses.  Instead,
I found myself contemplating what it would be like to let go.  Air,
weightlessness, my body soaring on the breeze like a bird.

Freedom.

My fingers
were numb.  The rock they held on to felt fused to the pads, like if I let go,
I would take it with me, plunging to the hard beach below me.

I thought again
of Gosley, specifically of Amber.  She got checked in because she tried to kill
herself—twice.  I remember Shauna asking her why she’d cut her wrists
horizontally.  I thought it was a stupid question.  Was she looking for tips? 
Writing a book on suicide methods?

Plus it
seemed insensitive.  I always thought people who committed suicide were
delicate, people so tangled up in the romance of life that only grand gestures
could suffice.  Like Dave Keller.  Obviously, his life didn’t measure up to his
expectations, and his only option was to make a swan dive off the edge of the
quarry.  Oh but there were so many ways that could go wrong, like a broken,
mangled body that still managed to breathe.

But maybe
that was, in a way, romantic, in the dramatic, impractical sense.  Amber,
cutting her wrists horizontally because she didn’t really want to die—that was the
slow way to bleed. It gave the person time to be saved and the attention they sought.

Again,
romantic.  Was that what I was doing?

No, I was
far too practical, right?  Okay, so hanging off this wall of rock wasn’t so
practical.  Neither was drowning myself in alcohol or living like a hermit. 
Besides who was coming to get me?  And what if the universe wasn’t ready to let
me go, then what?  I’d spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair hooked up to a
ventilator?  There were plenty of things I had no control over, and determining
when it was my time to leave this planet wasn’t fool proof.

Karma might’ve
wanted to screw with me.

Like Katie. 
She wasn’t ready to go.  One mistake and wham—that was it.

It was her
“time.”  If Katie were hanging off this rock—she would never have—but if she’d
been here that night instead of driving past the exit ramp, and lost her
footing…

She would’ve
broken into a million pieces.

Because it
was her time.

Or if she’d
taken a razor to her wrists (also never would’ve happened)—even horizontally,
Katie’s body would’ve bled until she was empty.

Because it
was her freakin’ time.

It was far
too sensible, not at all some dreamy, dramatic gesture.

Was it my
time?

I didn’t
know, but it wasn’t like I
wanted
to die.

My grandmother
came to mind.  She wouldn’t have known if I was gone—I was pretty sure of that—but
thinking of her, I felt embarrassed.  Because she didn’t choose to gradually
lose her memories, to die slowly, brain first.  If given the choice, my
grandmother would’ve been living in her house, tending to her garden, and
looking forward to the possibility of great-grandchildren.

Tears pooled
in the corner of my eyes, and I squeezed the rock in front of me.  So I wasn’t
privy to whether or not my life would be short or long, but I knew I wasn’t
ready to find out.

Dave
Keller.  Every time we came out to the quarry, Katie mentioned him in some way.

“I guess he
used up all of his hydrogen,” Katie said to me while we sat on a big flat rock
near the pebbled dirt beach.  I think we were freshman.

“Huh?” I
asked, because she’d been trying to convince me to put
sleep in a haunted
room
on our eighteen things list.  But she was back on the subject of Dave
Keller.

“When a star
nears the end of its life, it gets hotter and hotter, using up all of its
gas--”

I snorted. 
“Gas?”

Katie rolled
her eyes and tossed a rock into the quarry.  “I’m serious.  I’m talking about
Dave Keller’s life.  When a star uses up all of its gas, then it explodes into
a supernova.”

“Okay,” I said,
carefully.  Katie may have been easy with the subject of death, but I never
knew when or if I was going to offend.

“Well, a
supernova, if it’s a very large star.” Katie stared out at the other side of
the quarry.  The side with no public access, the side Dave jumped from.  “But
if it’s not so big, then it turns into a white dwarf.”

Then Katie
laughed and looked at me.  “So, yeah.  He ran out of gas.”

Maybe she
was trying to connect with me—share her grief.  Maybe it was easier to talk
about Dave Keller than the subject of her mom.

Maybe.

Now I hugged
the rock and slowly lifted my foot until I found another ledge.  I wasn’t far
from the top at all, just an arm’s length.  But I was hardly moving an inch at
a time.

A sound
pierced the quarry, and my nerves crackled.  It sounded like the bird again,
calling to the fates.  My left foot wavered. The muscles in my calf objected to
the overuse.

“Whitney!”

Not the bird. 
Someone called my name.

Instinctively,
I opened my mouth.  “Help!”

I didn’t
know how many times I screamed it, but at some point, an arm appeared above me.

Evan pulled
me up.  Once we were over the fence, he grabbed me in a hug.  He didn’t say a
word, only held my head and pressed his face into my neck.

“Whitney,
what the hell happened?  I thought you went to the hospital with Kyle.  They said,
you stayed behind, but did you fall?  Why were you on the rock?”

“You went to
the hospital?”  I stepped out of his arms.  “You were looking for me?”

I could hear
the desperate edge in my voice, and I felt sick, especially when Evan’s mouth
gaped. “Are you kidding? Yes, I went looking for you. You sounded frantic in
your voice mail. I wanted,
needed
to make sure you were okay.”

“But I
thought…  After, well, you didn’t answer your phone.”  I stopped, because it
sounded stupid after all this frenzied life and death stuff.  Then my body shook,
realizing what I’d just done.  From holding on to Kyle’s hand to my stupid
suicide rock climbing mission.

“Let me take
you home,” he said, leading me through the woods to his car.

My hands and
legs quivered, quickly losing strength.  Evan set me in the passenger seat,
buckled my belt, then shut the door.  The silence tugged at my ears.

The quiet
continued on the ride home.  My hands turned clammy, cold.  I shoved them under
my thighs.  Did Evan come to help out of a Good Samaritan obligation or because
it was me?  I didn’t know, but I needed to fix things between us.  “I don’t
want to go home, Evan.”

He glanced
at me.  His brows furrowed.  Again.  Great.  He would get early wrinkles
because of me. I was burdensome.  But his gaze was back on the road before I could
really figure out what he was thinking.

“I want to
go to TEA,” I said, the stress of the moment pumping through me, making me desperate
for closure.  I was in the middle of a major low moment, so I wasn’t above
begging.  I wanted comfort, and right then that meant the lumpy chairs and
spicy, sweet smells of TEA.

But I wanted
Evan there, too.  Of course I did.  It rounded off the complete ass
package—reckless and pitiful.  It was the perfect time to discuss where we
stood and where our supposed relationship was going and all. 
Yup, might as
well sign me up for the next season of the Bachelorette, because I’m the next
rating spike train wreck.

“Please,” I
said.

Evan nodded,
and I closed my eyes in relief as he drove to TEA.

* * *

We sat
across from each other, each in an overstuffed chair.

Neither of
us spoke for a few minutes. I held my breath, imagining that this was probably
going to be our last conversation.  It was my fault.  I was all over the place,
a drama tornado.  Why couldn’t I just be normal and chill?  Then maybe we would
be having one of those special moments.  The kind that meant we were together,
where he grabbed my hand and we jumped into the big unknown, taking a chance on
the crazy awesomeness that mysteriously drew our hearts together.

“That was
risky,” he said.  “Why did you do that?”

I bristled
because he sounded like my parents, but at the same time, I figured it meant he
cared.  Still, I didn’t know how to respond.

“Are you
punishing yourself?” he asked, and I clenched my jaw.  “Because you know you’re
probably going to make a million more mistakes.”

“Thanks.” I rolled
my eyes and pushed my shoulder blades deeper into my chair.

“No, Whit,
I’m serious.”

“I see
that.”

“Crap is
going to happen, and life is going to beat you up.  There’s no reason for you
to do it to yourself, too.”

“I know!” I
looked down at the table, staring at the grains, the watermarks, the wear and
tear.  I didn’t want to be having this conversation with him.  It was uncomfortable.
We definitely weren’t holding hands and jumping into something wonderful and
exciting together.  It reminded me of Katie ending our friendship, and it
sucked.  I was alone again, falling into the unknown.

“There’s
something I need to tell you.”  He leaned forward toward the tiny table between
our feet.

My stomach
bottomed. Here was the big good-bye.

“Whit?”  His
voice was almost a whisper.  “Do you remember the word abnegation?”

My head
snapped up.  I tried so hard to recapture my broken memories, to cling to the
wisps of laughter and scraps of happiness—all because I thought that they were the
way to shine light on darkness.