Picture Us In The Light(37)

Talk to her, I tell myself. Do it now.

The bell rings. “I’ll meet you guys,” Regina says, getting up. “I need to stop by the office first.”

Harry lifts his hand in a wave goodbye, then grabs his backpack kind of roughly and jostles it onto his back. When the rest of our group trickles out into the crowd he lets his public smile, the one with the crinkle around his eyes, slide from his face, and then he just looks tired after that.



It was March of last year, March seventh, that Sandra died. We found out in first period. It was a Wednesday, so it was a block day, and I was in AP English. When we came in and sat down we could tell Ms. Lee had been crying. When the bell rang she sat on the edge of her desk, a piece of paper in her hand, and said, “I want you to know that I love every one of you.” Then she read the letter from the principal: Dear Monta Vista community, it’s with deep sadness that I have to inform you that junior Sandra Chang died yesterday by suicide. Counselors are available to help you process the news. Please notify a staff member immediately if you are having difficulty coping or if you believe you might harm yourself. That was the whole letter, and when she finished it broke open a wall of silence that froze us in place.

Regina was whisked away by one of the counselors and we didn’t see her the entire day. After school we all ended up at Harry’s. Both his parents were gone on business, his mom in Taiwan and his dad in Singapore, and a steady stream of people trickled into his front room. Ahmed was there already, and he stood up when he saw me.

“What are you doing here?” he said, his voice hard. I’d never seen him look so angry. “You weren’t even friends. You’re just here because everyone else is, or what?”

I felt my face burning. “No, I’m—look, man, I’m sorry, I know you guys were—”

“You didn’t even like her. Why’d you even come?”

Before I could answer—and what would I have said?—he’d turned away. He set himself down roughly on the couch, and said to Lisa Teng, who was sitting next to him, “He’s never even liked her. He wants everyone to think he’s this deep sensitive artist, but all he is is some asshole who can draw.” Then he buried his fist against one of the cushions so hard the sound, even swallowed by the leather, made a sickish thud I felt in the pit of my stomach. I recognized the look Lisa gave me: she felt bad, or at least awkward, but also felt trapped by the moment, and that look was all I’d get from her. Harry was seeing Aaron and Maurice in at the door, and I don’t think he heard. I escaped to the bathroom, my face stinging, my heart carved into shreds. I washed my face and toweled it off and stared at myself in the mirror. My eyes were red.

When I came back I settled myself on one of the leather chairs in the far corner of the room, opposite the couch where Ahmed was sitting, Regina next to him. Harry was standing by the wall, still shell-shocked. Susan Tung had taken a bottle of Xanax from her backpack and was passing it around. I took one. My parents had been calling, and I was ignoring the calls.

Later more details would trickle down to us—how she’d taken pills, how she’d been drunk at the time, how it was late at night. But that day it was all a gaping mystery. No one knew why. That was what we talked about. We knew she was worried about next year, we knew she sometimes seemed unhappy, we knew she had it pretty bad at home. But then everyone was worried about next year, everyone was sad sometimes, so many of us had problems at home. And even if it was worse for her at home than for almost anyone else—which I’d believe it was—we couldn’t make that somehow fit cleanly up against death.

We still tried, though. All afternoon we kept trying to come up with some way to force the world into making sense.

Regina was staring at the wall, blinking rapidly, her face a mask. I watched her from across the room. There was an aura around her, something like a force field that made you afraid to get near her. Even Harry wasn’t near her, although I guess constantly having to get up and open the door was his excuse. Next to me Susan was shaking so hard she was struggling to put the lid back on the bottle of Xanax. I reached for it and twisted it on and then touched her hand a second, which she didn’t react to. It’s a strange and uniquely painful thing when you try to reach someone and instead you pass right through them, like a ghost; it makes you feel not all the way there yourself.

After ten or twenty minutes—or maybe it was shorter than that, maybe it just felt like an eternity—Regina jumped up and announced she’d make everyone coffee. I followed her into the kitchen. She was a whirlwind, flinging open cabinets and pouring water and staring daggers at the coffee maker while it dripped, pouring the coffee into cups roughly, so it splashed over the side. I touched her elbow and said, “You need help?”

“No.”

Her hands were trembling. I took the coffeepot from her, and even after I set it down the coffee still sloshed up the sides for a few seconds. Regina leaned against the counter and folded her arms against her chest.

And she almost said something to me. I could see how much she wanted to, and I was afraid I knew exactly what it was. She had the words formed on her tongue, and I could see them, and I put my hand on her elbow and I was ready for whatever it was she was going to say, I was determined to hear it and face it, and then she stopped herself. I could see her deciding not to tell me, deciding to hold it in. She took a deep breath that looked like it ached. “Open the cabinet over the oven, will you? Get me a tray and I’ll put the coffee on it.”