Undone(4)

I was sure I wanted to die. There didn’t seem to be any other option.

Every day I woke up thinking that today would be the day, and every day I found some excuse not to do it. Every day Mum nagged me about going back to school, and every day I told her to leave me alone. Since I refused point blank to leave the house she even got the doctor to make a house call and she somehow persuaded him to sign me off school for longer than he wanted to. The school was fine with it as long as I kept up with my work, because (as everyone and their dog kept reminding me) it was GCSE year. Like I cared.

A month to the day after Kai’s death, I was finally ready. There was something poetic about the timing, I thought. I tried not to think about Mum or Dad or Noah, telling myself they’d get over it, in time. They’d understand. It’s amazing, the lies you can tell yourself. Even more amazing, the lies you can believe when you’re desperate enough.

I wrote a pretty standard sort of note: I said I was sorry, how much I loved them, told them they shouldn’t feel bad. It was painfully inadequate, but it was the best I could do. And it was better than nothing. Marginally.

For the past few weeks they’d been taking turns staying home, using up their holiday days in a vain attempt to make sure I didn’t kill myself. But their bosses were losing patience, so they’d eventually resigned themselves to leaving me on my own for a few hours a day.

Mum and Dad were at work and Noah was at school and I was going to be dead by the time they got home. I would get a glass of water, or maybe a bottle, because there were a lot of pills to be swallowed. I didn’t want to be ten pills down and suddenly realize I couldn’t swallow them because I was out of water. It would be disastrous if I passed out without finishing the job. That would mean being rushed to the hospital, having my stomach pumped, having to face my parents, having to face Noah.

Thinking about Noah hurt the most. He wouldn’t understand. He was only ten, and for some reason he still thought his big sister was awesome. He had yet to discover what the rest of the world thought of her. Emo. Loser. Goth. Freak.

Noah would be better off without me though. Mum and Dad would pay him loads of attention to compensate for the trauma of having a dead sister. He’d get spoiled rotten. He might even be allowed that mountain bike he’s been after forever. Those were the kind of lies I told myself.

After a long hot shower, I raided the fridge to make a sandwich. My last meal. I would have preferred something like Mum’s lasagne or a Chinese takeaway, but Mum hadn’t made lasagne since Kai died and it seemed crazy weird (even for me) to order up a Chinese banquet before I topped myself.

The sandwich was dry and tasted terrible, even though it had all my favourite things and plenty of mayonnaise. I didn’t even manage to eat half of it, probably because I couldn’t shake the image of what it would look like in my stomach – all chewed up and partially digested. There was a good chance that I would choke on my own vomit. That’s how you die, sometimes. The drugs knock you out, your stomach revolts against what’s in it, you spew, but you’re still knocked out, so you choke and drown in your own sick. Pretty disgusting, really.

I was regretting not considering this sooner, and carefully washing the chopping board, knife and plate, when the doorbell went. It was probably the postman; our stupidly small letter box means that only the slimmest of envelopes make it through.

The doorbell rang again and again. Go away! Go the f*ck away! I covered my ears with my hands to try to block out the sound. Why won’t they leave me alone? Why won’t everybody just leave me alone? I felt like stabbing myself with the knife then and there.

Then whoever it was started banging on the front door with their fist. The banging interspersed with the ringing made me reconsider stabbing myself and think about stabbing the mystery caller instead. Then there was a voice. A voice I recognized, shouting, ‘Jem! I know you’re in there so just answer the f*cking door, OK? I’ve got better things to do than hang around here all day. Jem!’

I froze. It was Louise. Shit.

I couldn’t ignore her. No matter how I felt about her, she was still his sister. Kai wouldn’t want me to ignore her. Kai would probably want us to reforge a friendship based on our mutual grief.

I trudged towards the front door to find her peering through the letter box like some kind of crazy stalker. As I was opening the door I heard her mutter, ‘About bloody time.’

I was slightly lost for words at the sight of her. It was like looking in a mirror. A strange sort of mirror. Of course we looked worlds apart – she hadn’t gone and dyed her hair black or anything. It was still way blonder than the natural, beautiful golden colour she’d shared with Kai. But she wasn’t wearing a scrap of make-up, which was pretty much unthinkable to the popular, slutty girls she was friends with. But there was something in her face that I recognized – something I’d seen whenever I’d looked in the mirror since Kai’s death. There was something hopeless about us both. Like we’d disappeared into a place that no one else could reach. I almost wanted to hug her (and wanted her to hug me). But that would probably have freaked her out. I’d steered well clear of her at the funeral to avoid a potential hugging scenario. And because I’d started having some kind of weird panic attack, which meant Mum had to escort me out of the church halfway through the service.

‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’ This was more like the Louise I knew.