I fold my skinny jeans, BLACK jacket, and purple T-shirt into small little squares and tuck them safely away in my purse. (My crush likes purple. No one understands it.)
I skip down the stairs. "I'm leaving!" I call out. The dance is tonight. My last chance to say good-bye to my friends. And everyone else.
"That dress looks good," my father grunts. He always grunts compliments like that, I note with a twinge of annoyance. The ones even he realizes are an obvious lie.
"Yes, it does." My mother is obviously trying to look sincere. They aren't nearly as good at lying as me.
"Thanks!" I let the word slip out of my mouth, fly over my shoulder, and enter their ears. The door closes quietly behind me as I run to Kierra's house. I have to change. This dress is hideous.
I knock four time, in the syncopated, jerky rhythm we practiced over and over. I count to five and the door opens. She always takes five seconds to run to the door when she hears our knock.
"What are you wearing?!" she exclaims.
"New dress. I've gotta change here. Can I come in?" I pant, breathless from the run.
"Sure," she replies, a little uncertainly. This is not the weirdest moment ever, but it's still a bit strange.
I run up the stairs to her room. She waits by the door. After I've changed, I glance to the window, then shake my head.
After I've slipped into the normal outfit that stowed away in my purse, I join Kiki at the door. "Ready?" I ask her.
"Let's go." She opens the door and leaps over the steps, landing gracefully on the ground. I try to do the same thing and fall down.
We walk to the school and through the front doors. The music blasts into my ears and it's way too crowded here, but we still come. For fun. It doesn't even make sense to me.
Ki and I split up and walk around, her in the middle of the mob, me around the edges, playing tag with my other friends and stuff. I keep an eye on my crush so I can find him at the slow dance.
Then the slow dance starts. I tap his shoulder softly. He turns. The music fades to a minimum as I pass into a dreamlike state. "Do you wanna dance?" I stand there, waiting for an answer.
"Yeah, I was actually looking for you," he replies.
Chills shiver down my spine. I put my arms around his shoulders. He puts his hands on my waist.
"I'm leaving tonight," I whisper. He's not surprised; my friends already know about the move. The whole school knows.
"I'll miss you," he whispers back.
I bury my head in his shoulder until the song ends. When it does, I say good-bye and walk down the school hall. I pull the paper clip out of my pocket and pick the lock that lets me go left down the hallway. When I'm sure I'm alone, I turn on the light and cry.
On my way back, at the end of the dance, I click the lock closed and stop in the bathroom, correcting my mascara. My eyes don't get very red when I cry, so no one can tell.
I put on my most cheerful mask and my most bubble-headed voice. " Let's go!" Ki looks at me weird.
"Okay..." she says, carefully. I guess I seem too cheerful.
When we get to her house, I change back into the dress. I walk out of Ki's house and to the bridge near mine.
The river swims by below my feet. I kick one of my shoes into the river. It splashes down and is carried downstream by the current. The other shoe follows it.
I take out my cell phone and send a text to all my close friends. There aren't a lot of them. I send it to my parents too.
Then I set my cell phone on the bridge and jump into the waves.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The text message.
I have sunk down into the depths of depression before, and I will not allow it to happen again. Good-bye.
Spoiler
The story behind the whole thing:
The main character in this story had been depressed before. She was adopted, and it ran in her genetic family. The smallest trigger, some unremembered argument or something, pushed her down. (It's almost like falling through a trapdoor and drowning in the life below.)
She finally found her way back to the surface and climbed back into the real world.
She felt herself sinking when she first learned of the move, and she refused to fall again. So she killed herself.
That's what I was trying to say, but I didn't want to write a very lengthy back story.
The main character in this story had been depressed before. She was adopted, and it ran in her genetic family. The smallest trigger, some unremembered argument or something, pushed her down. (It's almost like falling through a trapdoor and drowning in the life below.)
She finally found her way back to the surface and climbed back into the real world.
She felt herself sinking when she first learned of the move, and she refused to fall again. So she killed herself.
That's what I was trying to say, but I didn't want to write a very lengthy back story.
