Suicide Notes From Beautiful Girls (19 page)

Chapter 41

June

It takes my brain a
few seconds to figure out what that strange, grunty, snorty sort of sound is, is supposed to be, and then I realize—it’s a neigh. Adam Bergan and his friends are neighing at Ryan.

It’s the next day at school, and everything is happening.

In the entire time we were dating, I never once saw Ryan uncomfortable, not even a little. He sailed easily from place to place, party to party, with the self-assurance that comes from being rich and tall and handsome and athletic with a normal family who loves you, a level of self-assurance which is almost
unfair
for
anyone
to possess, given how few people get all those advantages. But now, Wednesday morning, standing in the hallway, I hear a chorus of neighs. And Ryan looks like he’s about ready to drop down dead of embarrassment.

A few ballsy freshman girls are wiggling their tongues at him. And then, clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop, Chris McGimpsey gallops up and stops right in front of him. “Do me hard, you naughty, naughty farmhand, I nee-ee-ee-eeeeed it.”

How quickly things can change; how quickly everyone can turn.

“Screw you,” Ryan says in a tone that’s supposed to sound light. And then he shakes his head in what is meant to be a casual way. But I can tell he doesn’t feel casual at all. He thinks by not denying it, he’s not giving fuel to the fire. The thing is, some flames don’t need any, they will just burn and burn all on their own.

“Screw me? Nah, you wouldn’t like that,” Chris says, deadpan. “I’m the wrong species.” And then he gallops off.

Ryan shrugs like he doesn’t care, but when his eyes meet mine, I see what’s in there—fear, embarrassment, confusion, genuine pain. And I feel that twist of guilt.

But what can I do? I didn’t ask for this, and I can’t stop it. And besides, whether Ryan deserves it or not, far worse happens to people who deserve it less. Terrible things happen every day.

I go to homeroom and sit alone. Krista is trying to get my attention. But I avoid her gaze, put in my headphones, don’t look up.

Homeroom ends. My phone buzzes with a text from Ashling’s phone.

too good not to send. Delete!!! Xo D

Attached is a photograph of the TV screen, news channel 7. There’s William’s official headshot from the website of his hospital. And underneath, a caption:

Respected local surgeon arrested for methamphetamine possession, suspended from surgery, out on bail

Holy shit. It worked.

For the next few hours I float. English, art. It’s lunchtime. I want to leave school now, go back to the house. I’m only here at all because Delia said it was important that I keep acting normal. But really—would it look so suspicious if I skipped just one day? I hate the thought of what I’m missing now. I want to be part of it, to be there with them.

Because—and my stomach lurches when I have this thought—who knows how much longer they’ll be around for?

Screw it, I’m leaving. Delia will understand.

I start heading toward the door. I hear my name. I turn.

Jeremiah.

“Why did you and Delia stop being friends?” His eyes are rimmed in red. He looks like he hasn’t slept since the last time I saw him. “You said you hadn’t been friends in a while, but you never said
why
.”

Considering our last conversation, this question feels like a trick. I answer carefully. “We grew apart.”

“Nope! Try again. . . .” A muscle twitches in his jaw.

“That’s what happened,” I say.

Jeremiah shakes his head. “You stopped being friends because she banged your boyfriend.”

“No she didn’t.”

“Oh, but she did. Must have made you pretty mad, huh? Your best friend and your boyfriend, humping . . . So my question is, when did you find out about it?”

“Never,” I say. “Because it didn’t happen.”

“Don’t play dumb,” he says.

I take a deep breath. I have to stay calm.

“Delia and Ryan were banging for months right before I started dating her. She told me herself. It was like she was proud or whatever, got off on telling me about it until I forced her to stop.”

“She told you she had sex with Ryan?”

“She said there was a swimmer, rich and pretty. She told me when she was drunk, wanted to rile me up I think. I tried not to let myself think too much about who it was—I didn’t
want
to know who it was. But then you told me about her and Ryan. And the pieces snapped together. That’s who she was sleeping with. Thing is, I guess they never stopped . . .”

“They never started! I was wrong about that. I was jumping to conclusions and . . .” I’m shaking my head, a tiny tornado is inside my stomach swirling faster and faster.

He keeps going. “So here’s the thing. At first I thought you were covering up for Ryan. Maybe she got pregnant, he didn’t
want to be a father. He went nuts, but like an idiot you still loved him and didn’t want him to go to jail. That story kind of works,
kind of.
Except that Delia would have had an abortion in a second. But then I thought about it and I thought about it and I realized, wait . . . I have this backward.” Jeremiah pauses, then tips his head to the side. “Because, actually,
Ryan
is covering up for
you.
”

I keep my face still, but inside my entire body is vibrating. He is waiting for me to react. He starts talking again, more slowly, gently almost. “When you told me about Ryan, you were hoping I’d go beat him up, weren’t you? You were
using
me, June. Free muscle. That’s obvious now. The question I had, though, was
why
would Ryan cover up for you? He clearly didn’t care about you that much or he wouldn’t have been cheating in the first place. No, he didn’t give a
crap
about you. But I think now I get it. He was covering up for you because you knew about his dark secret, this freaky farm stuff. You blackmailed him and then you let this leak, maybe to show him you were serious. I’m assuming there’s more. You’re too smart to play all your cards at once. . . .”

I stare at Jeremiah. Holy shit. He actually believes this crazy story. He actually believes all of it. “That’s not what happened,” I say. “You’re completely wrong, about everything.” I want to tell him about the letter that will be arriving in the mail for him any day now. But, of course, I can’t. And now I’m realizing it
won’t even help. It’s not enough; it’s coming too late.

“You can tell it to the police,” Jeremiah says. “I’m sure they’d love to discuss it with you.” And with that, he shrugs, then turns and walks away.

I stand there, my insides on fire. I want to scream and shout, tell him he’s wrong. But there is nothing left for me to say, nothing left for me to do. Everything is going to come crashing down.

Chapter 42

Delia

Once upon a time there
was a boy named Trevor who did something bad but for very good reasons. To the wrong people, those reasons didn’t even matter, they just did not give a
fuck
about the why. So instead of sitting around waiting for the serious trouble that was coming, instead of waiting for them to
kill
him, Trevor drove off a cliff. And his body sank down, down in the water, so deep that no one could ever find it.

Trevor loved music, played a half-dozen instruments, and was a DJ. His old friends played songs at the funeral, a string quartet came, an electric guitar player. Then an urn with his name carved on the outside was buried in a hole in the ground. But it was only symbolic—there was nothing in there. “It’s as empty as my heart is now,” his mother said.

Now that boy’s name is Sebastian.

And today Sebastian has made a remix on his laptop.

Prominent surgeon, prom-prom-prominent surgeon. Meth-meth-methamphetamine.
The news anchor’s voice has been auto-tuned, and there’s a video of William tipping his head down away from the camera, over and over and over. We’ve been watching it on repeat. The tune is really quite catchy. We are giddy, all of us. Ashling is dancing, arms up over her head, shaking her perfect ass. I reach out and smack it. She giggles. We are high on power and rightness.

“Does it ever get old?” I say to none of them, to all of them. But I don’t need to wait for them to answer. This is the fun part; I’m nervous for what comes after.
But the reasons are everything. The reasons are what matter.

It didn’t take much convincing for them to understand what the next part must be. Ashling agreed right away—she wanted to claim it as her own idea, even. Evan, too. Sebastian was the holdout, but I put it in terms he could understand. What he did in his own life was hardly different at all. “What if the baby is a
girl
?” I said. “What
then
?” And that was enough.

But we don’t need to think about it now.

The song stops. “AGAIN!” Ashling says. And Sebastian smirks, almost smiles. He is watching the door. I know he’s waiting for Junie too. Well, get in line, pal. Get in the goddamn line.

And then it happens. I feel her before I see her, the bright blue light of her inside my chest, lighting up the dark parts. She
walks inside earlier than expected. “Junie!” I call out. My voice loud and rough. I could overwhelm her so easily—I need to not do that. I don’t throw my arms around her the way I want to, and Ashling is watching, anyway.

But when Junie turns, her face says everything and I feel a flickering inside, something flaring up in the bad way, in the scary way that I cannot always control.

She stands in the middle of the room, she takes a breath. “Jeremiah thinks . . . he thinks I killed you.”

Her voice is low, hollow, terrified. I feel a flood of relief. I thought it was going to be something bad for
real.
Jeremiah is a pigeon, a donkey, a fly. A tiny candle so easily blown out.

“It’s okay,” I say to her. I want to pull her toward me, to stroke her like a sweet little rabbit.

“No, you don’t understand,” she says. She is looking at me, saucer eyes vibrating back and forth. She is more freaked out than I realized at first. I am feeling her feelings inside my skin. “He says he’s going to the police.” I pull her to me, and she’s shaking. She feels cold. I let the fire inside me warm her up. “He’s out of his mind. He told me . . .” She pauses then, like she doesn’t even want to say what she’s about to say.

“What is it?” And now I’m scared too, scared I know what’s coming, and scared I don’t.

“He told me that you were sleeping with Ryan before you and Jeremiah started dating. He said you were sleeping with a swimmer who was rich and pretty and that you told him that,
and he decided that must be Ryan. But is it true you did that? With a swimmer, I mean?”

Her words come out in a jumble. But here’s the worst part, what terrifies me: She says Jeremiah is crazy, only she doesn’t think so, not completely. What she’s scared of isn’t just the police, an investigation. She’s scared he might be telling the truth.

The flame inside me grows bigger, hotter. I can’t let myself breathe, the oxygen will only feed it. I close my eyes. I wait for the blood to pound in my ears, for my body to scream out, to beg for air. I’ve passed out like this before, trying to starve that inside fire. I feel it going down, shrinking. When my vision starts to cloud, I finally open my mouth again.

“He’s lying,” I say, and my voice sounds almost like a regular voice coming from a regular mouth. “You must know that. If he thinks you did something to me, maybe he’s just trying to get you upset. He’s hoping you’ll crack and then reveal things without meaning to. But I will
take care of it
. Jeremiah can’t hurt you.” I don’t even bother saying “we” this time. Me. I will do this. No one else, all on my own. I will do what I have to do.

I put my hands on her cheeks. The fire comes right back, greedy and starving, I feel the sickest I’ve felt in a long time. “It’s okay. It will be okay. I
promise
.” I hold her face and look deeply into her eyes until I feel her coming back to me.

I nod slowly. She nods too. We have to get out of this house, to go do something else, somewhere normal.

“Let’s go out,” I say. “Shopping. I need clothes.” I turn to Ashling. There is a bag of cash in the closet, so much of it, it looks like play money. Ashling dumped it all out on the bed and made me fuck her in it once. We laughed the whole time, because it was so ridiculous. “Some pervert would pay a lot of money for a video of this,” she said. “But we obviously don’t need it.” And she shoved fifty in her mouth, and then, because she was drunk and she could, she ate it.

They get it all sorts of ways. Evan’s skills come in especially handy for that. There’s so much of it, it almost doesn’t mean anything. Money is only as useful as what you can buy with it, and for a while there was nothing I could imagine wanting. But there is now.

We have to pretend we’re normal people living in the regular world, but better. We have to show her how good all of this is, can be. If we don’t, I will lose her completely.