I Was Here(35)
Author: Gayle Forman

Over the next week, more messages come:

“If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve.”—Lao-Tzu.

Do you know what that means? Letting go of the fear? Dying is not about ending something; it’s about beginning something. I keep thinking of the moniker you use: Repeat. It’s not accidental, I assume. But you realize, repeating is precisely what you’re doing. The same thing. It’s only when you’re willing to do something bold, different, that your life will truly change.

He’s proud of me. I can tell. Which makes me proud of myself. I know it shouldn’t. But it still does.

I keep waiting for him to ask for specifics. I’ve spent hours looking at the suicide shopping list, so, without intending to, I sort of planned how I might do it—or rather, I planned myself doing it as Meg did. Getting the fake business license. Ordering the poison. Having it delivered to one of those mailbox places. Writing a will. Packing up my room. Going to the bank to get a fifty-dollar bill for the maid’s tip. Composing an email. Setting it for delivery. Checking into a motel.

The information on the sites All_BS referred me to is so thorough that I know how it would feel to take the poison. The burning sensation in my throat, then my stomach; the tingling in my feet that would tell me it was starting to work; then the cramps, followed by coldness as the cyanosis kicked in.

I’ve imagined it so many times now, first with Meg, then with me, and it’s like how it always used to be, when I couldn’t tell one of us from the other—when I didn’t want to.

So I want him to ask me if I’ve thought of a method because if he did, I’d be able to tell him, and I think he’d be pleased.

But he doesn’t ask.

So I just keep planning.

x x x

One afternoon I’m getting ready to shower after work. I’m rooting through the medicine cabinet for a new razor when I see one of those massive bottles of Tylenol that Tricia buys from the warehouse store. I know from my research that Tylenol is a terrible, horribly painful, but inexpensive way to do it. I turn off the shower. I go into my room. I pour the white tablets onto my bedspread. How many would I take? How many could I swallow at once? How would I keep from throwing them up?

Staring at the pills, it seems so easy. Like something I could do. Right now. Swallow pills. Jump off a freeway overpass. Find someone’s loaded gun. You don’t want to die, I have to remind myself. But if you did, a little voice answers, imagine how simple it would be. . . .

The doorbell rings and I’m startled and red-faced with instant shame. I hastily put the pills back in the bottle and shove it into the medicine cabinet. The doorbell rings again.

It’s Scottie, holding Samson on a leash and kicking at some dried leaves that have bunched up under the mat. He looks at me in my rumpled, sour-smelling T-shirt.

“Were you sleeping?” he asks.

“No.” I haven’t been sleeping much lately, which makes me look as if I’ve always just been woken up. I’m still a little shaken by the Tylenol, so when Scottie asks me if I want to go for a walk with him and Samson, I almost leap out the door.

We set off into the dusky late afternoon. I’m hyper now, a one-woman small-talk machine. I ask Scottie about school, only to have him remind me it’s summer break. I ask him what he’s doing this summer, and he reminds me that he’s at the Y camp. I should know this because it’s what he does every summer, as did Meg when she was younger. I used to beg Tricia to sign me up too, but she said she refused to spend money on camp when she was free during the day, so summers meant me counting the hours until the Garcias got home.

Scottie keeps walking and I keep asking inane questions and when I run out of those, I’m about ask if he’s got any good knock-knock jokes. He and Meg used to make up the most absurd nonsensical ones—Knock, knock. Who’s there? Lie. Lie who? Lions lie—and they’d laugh and laugh until someone cried or farted. When I’d shake my head and call them gross, they’d say I lacked their stupid-humor gene, which I knew was them being silly but made me feel bad somehow.

So I don’t ask for jokes, and then I run out of small talk. By this point, we’ve looped through town and Samson has taken two shits, which Scottie has stoically scooped into plastic bags. “Are you looking?” he asks.

“Am I looking?” I repeat.

“For the person. From the note. Who helped her.”

I don’t know why I’m so surprised that he knows this. He’s the one who knew it all along.

My expression must give something away, because he nods slightly, like he understands. “Good,” he says.

At the corner of his street, Scottie lets Samson off his leash. “Get him,” he says. I think he’s talking to the dog, but I realize he’s talking to me.

When I get home, I take the Tylenol out of the medicine cabinet, dump the pills down the toilet, and bury the bottle in the garbage. A few days later, when Tricia gets her period and goes crazy trying to find the bottle, I play dumb.

27

The next time I go to the library, the front door is locked. Which is weird. I know the opening hours by heart. Closed Sunday and Mondays. Open Tuesdays from one to six. I check my phone. Tuesday, three thirty. I give the doors a shake and then, frustrated, a kick.

I come back the next day, when the library should be open all day, but it’s the same thing. Mrs. Banks is inside, though. I knock on the door.

“What’s going on?” I ask her when she unlocks it.

“There was a small electrical fire over the weekend,” she tells me. “We have to rewire, and there’s no electricity in the building until then. We’ve been warning them about the wiring for years.” She shakes her head and sighs. “Budget cuts.”

“What am I supposed to do?” I cry. The library has become my lifeline, my conduit to All_BS. It’s already been four days since we last communicated, and I’m strung out.

Mrs. Banks smiles. “Don’t worry. I’ve thought of that.” She goes back inside and returns with a shopping bag full of books. “You can keep them until we reopen. Shouldn’t be longer than a week or two. These are off the grid, so to speak,” she says with a wink. “So we’re on the honor system. But I trust you.”

x x x

The next time I have Internet access is Friday at Mrs. Chandler’s. But she’s there, so there’s no sneaking the signal. I’m desperate to hear from All_BS, desperate enough to explain to Mrs. Chandler about the library fire and ask if I can stay after work to check my email using her Wi-Fi connection. Mrs. Chandler looks at me a long time. “You don’t have Internet at your house?” she asks. I shake my head, embarrassed. “Of course,” she says. “Use it any time.”