mother, because her grandmother’s name was Eleanor and she had recently died, and her mother would have a
fit,
an absolute
fit,
and Oh, wow, Charlie, your arms. Did you do that? It’s kind of beautiful. It makes me a little scared, but it’s kind of beautiful. I met this guy named Mikey yesterday at Hymie’s. The record store. You ever been there? Of
course
you have, look at you. He invited us over. You wanna go? He’s got, like, these
angelic
blue eyes.
And in her room, with the wild blue walls and so many posters and solar system ceiling, I could tell her anything, and I did.
Charlie, Charlie, you’re so beautiful, so fucking angelic.
Her hand in mine. She wore white flannel pajamas with black skulls on them.
And that was that. My secret keeper.
I did have this teacher once, in the fourth grade. She was totally nice, even to the bullies in class. She never yelled. She just let me be, really, she never made me go out to recess if I didn’t want to go, or to gym. She’d let me stay in the classroom and draw while she worked on grading or looked out the big square windows. Once, she said, “Charlotte, I know things are so hard right now, but they’ll get better. Sometimes it takes a while to find that special friend, but you will. Oh, gosh, I don’t think I had a really good-good friend until I was in high school.” She fingered the little gold heart on a chain around her neck.
She was right. I did find my special friend. But nobody told me she was going to fucking kill herself.
Every night, Louisa scribbles away in one of her black-and-white composition books. When she’s done, she caps the pen, closes the book, and bends over the side of the bed so that her hair tumbles over like a waterfall and I can see her neck, unscarred and pale, faintly dusted with down. She slides the book underneath the bed, says good night, and pulls the bedspread across her face. Tonight I wait until I hear her breathing flatten into sleep before I creep out of my bed and sink to my knees on the floor.
I peek under the edge of her bedspread. Underneath her bed are dozens and dozens of those composition books, all her secrets piled neatly into black-and-white rows.
I should make a
correction.
I don’t want to be
mis
leading. I say that Ellis killed herself, but she did not
die
die. She isn’t in the ground, I can’t visit a graveyard and drop daisies over well-tended grass or mark an anniversary on a calendar. There were
drugs,
there was the
wolf boy,
and she slid very far from me, the wolf taking up all of her heart, he was that greedy. And when the wolf was done, he licked his paws, he left her
gaunt,
my Ellis, my
plump
and
glowing
friend, he took all her light. And then, I guess, she tried to be like me. She tried to drain herself, make herself smaller, only she
messed up.
Like Mikey said, cutting wasn’t her
thing.
I imagine her room
soaked
in blood,
rivers
of it, her parents fighting
upstream
to get to her. But there was
too much,
do you
understand
? A
person
can only
lose
so much
blood,
you can only
starve
the brain of
oxygen
for so long, or you can suffer
anoxic brain injury after hemorrhagic shock,
which emptied out my
friend
and left only her
body.
Her parents
sent her
somewhere, a place like where I am, but far, far away, across whole states, and
tucked
her into her new home full of
soft sheets
and
plodding, daily walks
and
drooling.
No more hair dye, no more fucking, no more drugs, no more iPod, no more clompy boots, no more fishnets, no more purging, no more heartbreak, no more
me,
for Ellis. Only
days
of
nothingness,
of Velcroed pants and
diapers.
And so I
can’t can’t can’t
do what I am supposed to do:
touch
her, make it
better,
brush the wild hair from her face, whisper
sorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorry.
I have to do something or I will explode.
Talking to Evan, finding Mikey, waiting for him to come visit me, thinking of Ellis, I miss miss miss so
much.
I find them all in Crafts, bent over the long
fit,
an absolute
fit,
and Oh, wow, Charlie, your arms. Did you do that? It’s kind of beautiful. It makes me a little scared, but it’s kind of beautiful. I met this guy named Mikey yesterday at Hymie’s. The record store. You ever been there? Of
course
you have, look at you. He invited us over. You wanna go? He’s got, like, these
angelic
blue eyes.
And in her room, with the wild blue walls and so many posters and solar system ceiling, I could tell her anything, and I did.
Charlie, Charlie, you’re so beautiful, so fucking angelic.
Her hand in mine. She wore white flannel pajamas with black skulls on them.
And that was that. My secret keeper.
I did have this teacher once, in the fourth grade. She was totally nice, even to the bullies in class. She never yelled. She just let me be, really, she never made me go out to recess if I didn’t want to go, or to gym. She’d let me stay in the classroom and draw while she worked on grading or looked out the big square windows. Once, she said, “Charlotte, I know things are so hard right now, but they’ll get better. Sometimes it takes a while to find that special friend, but you will. Oh, gosh, I don’t think I had a really good-good friend until I was in high school.” She fingered the little gold heart on a chain around her neck.
She was right. I did find my special friend. But nobody told me she was going to fucking kill herself.
Every night, Louisa scribbles away in one of her black-and-white composition books. When she’s done, she caps the pen, closes the book, and bends over the side of the bed so that her hair tumbles over like a waterfall and I can see her neck, unscarred and pale, faintly dusted with down. She slides the book underneath the bed, says good night, and pulls the bedspread across her face. Tonight I wait until I hear her breathing flatten into sleep before I creep out of my bed and sink to my knees on the floor.
I peek under the edge of her bedspread. Underneath her bed are dozens and dozens of those composition books, all her secrets piled neatly into black-and-white rows.
I should make a
correction.
I don’t want to be
mis
leading. I say that Ellis killed herself, but she did not
die
die. She isn’t in the ground, I can’t visit a graveyard and drop daisies over well-tended grass or mark an anniversary on a calendar. There were
drugs,
there was the
wolf boy,
and she slid very far from me, the wolf taking up all of her heart, he was that greedy. And when the wolf was done, he licked his paws, he left her
gaunt,
my Ellis, my
plump
and
glowing
friend, he took all her light. And then, I guess, she tried to be like me. She tried to drain herself, make herself smaller, only she
messed up.
Like Mikey said, cutting wasn’t her
thing.
I imagine her room
soaked
in blood,
rivers
of it, her parents fighting
upstream
to get to her. But there was
too much,
do you
understand
? A
person
can only
lose
so much
blood,
you can only
starve
the brain of
oxygen
for so long, or you can suffer
anoxic brain injury after hemorrhagic shock,
which emptied out my
friend
and left only her
body.
Her parents
sent her
somewhere, a place like where I am, but far, far away, across whole states, and
tucked
her into her new home full of
soft sheets
and
plodding, daily walks
and
drooling.
No more hair dye, no more fucking, no more drugs, no more iPod, no more clompy boots, no more fishnets, no more purging, no more heartbreak, no more
me,
for Ellis. Only
days
of
nothingness,
of Velcroed pants and
diapers.
And so I
can’t can’t can’t
do what I am supposed to do:
touch
her, make it
better,
brush the wild hair from her face, whisper
sorrysorrysorrysorrysorrysorry.
I have to do something or I will explode.
Talking to Evan, finding Mikey, waiting for him to come visit me, thinking of Ellis, I miss miss miss so
much.
I find them all in Crafts, bent over the long
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