The Suicide Diary: Chapter 2 Part 1

A/N: Read the prologue! :)

Three Months Later

The whispers followed me everywhere. They clung to my skin and my ears, filling my mouth and pushing the air out of my chest. They weren't even talking about me. They were talking about her.

Sage.

But it might as well have been me they were talking about. Sage was me, but at the same time, she was everything I wasn't. She was funny and smart and pretty and adventurous. Next to her, I felt boring and plain. Like unflavored Greek yogurt. I mean seriously, who compares themselves to Greek yogurt? That's right. Me. 

"Miss Shepard?" I jerked my head up from where it lay on my desk. Mr. Anders looked at me with a disappointed look on his face. I rubbed my face as I realized I probably had a red mark on my cheek from where it rested on the desk as I slept. I felt my cheeks heat up, everybody's eyes were on me.

"Are you feeling okay? Do you need to go to the Nurse?" I nodded, clearing the sleep from my eyes. 

He wordlessly handed me the hall pass as I left. It was the same thing at least twice a week since school started the month before. I'd fall asleep in class or I'd show up late because I overslept. I was already failing all of my classes. Well, except math. But how do you fail art and not math? Who does that? You guessed right, folks. Me.

I walked to the Nurse's office, not wanting to get busted by an administrator. It would be just my luck.

Ms. Webster was in there as usual, sitting in what passed for her office. It was really the size of a closet. There was a bookshelf right by the door, next to her desk. Squeezed against the opposite wall was a cot with medical equipment at the foot of it. There was just enough space between the cot and the desk for one person to walk. 

"Hey, Ellie," she said smiling, and I was surprised she even remembered my name. Ms. Webster must've been at least 70 years old. She usually missed six weeks out of the school year for some surgery or another, but the woman refused to retire. 

"Did you fall asleep in Mr. Griffin's class again?" She asked, her wide smile blinding me.

"Yup." One word, one syllable. She probably thought I was stupid or a druggie. Most likely a combination of the two. I didn't particularly care what the school nurse or any of my other teachers thought of me. I was done trying in school.

"Well just lay down there and take a nap. Lord knows they overwork you guys." I laid down but knew it would be impossible to sleep. Ms. Webster never shut up, she just yapped and yapped about the long classes and long homework assignments and how the stress wasn't good for our health. The only benefits of going to see Ms. Webster were the possibility of chewing ice, faking and going home early, or being instantly woken up by her high energy levels. She must've had a coffee pot hidden in there somewhere because that woman just never quit moving.

Thoughts bounced around my brain as I lay there and tuned out her constant narration. Sage. Sage was gone. My best friend, my other half. She left me. And even her parents had left, too. They moved three weeks after the funeral to a big, bustling city. I guess they hoped to forget their daughter. The daughter who made the decision to leave this Earth and they refused to recognize that fact. 

My fists clenched at my sides, fingernails digging into my palms until they went numb. Nobody recognized it. Sage was smart, beautiful, funny, outgoing. The master of creating and getting herself out of awkward situations. She wasn't exactly popular but her friends loved her and her teachers adored her. She was happy, and I guess nobody wanted to spoil that pretty picture. But I knew she wore a face. I just never thought it would go that far.

I felt my cheeks dampen and I sat up, interrupting Nurse Webster's constant babbling as I walked right out of the office and into the school parking lot. The sun shone down on me, but it was a cool autumn day in late September. The leaves had turned from puke green to gold and red and a comfortable breeze swished through the trees and tangled my hair. It was one of those perfect days. Where you could wear a long sleeve shirt and no jacket and just walk. For miles. As far as you wanted.

That's exactly what I did. I walked It was about a half an hour walk from the school to my house and about a twenty minute walk to my subdivision. I felt my throat tighten as I crossed the street where she died, hit by an SUV than 100 feet away from a crosswalk. I walked on autopilot. My mind wandering to the trees and to the changing season. But it wasn't until I stopped in front of her house that I realized I'd never intended to go back to mine.

Her house. Her. Sage. The windows were empty and black, the gray paint that was once tasteful now looked ominous, the lawn was brown and dead. The flowers in the flowerbed had wilted, as if they had died along with her. There was a master lock on the door, the kind realtors use to stop squatters. That made no difference to me.

I walked around to the side of the house with the tall privacy fence and dragged the plastic bin with the wind up hose until it was pushed up against the wood. Then I hopped the fence. We'd done it tons of times, going out in the middle of the night just to walk in the warm summer air. And then I walked around to the sliding glass door which was, of course, locked. But I knew what the realtor didn't. That if you lifted the door of the handle just right and then jiggled until the angle was just right, the bolt would come free so you could inch your way in. 

The house was mostly empty and it was strange. We used to filch snacks to bring upstairs to her room when her parents weren't looking and now the pantry and the cupboards were empty. There were little remnants here and there of things they couldn't sell or take with them. A toaster, a blender, a rogue fork or two hidden out of sight beneath the cupboards. 

I inched my way through the house and to Sage's bedroom, walking toe heel so I wouldn't squeak on the hardwood floors. It was unnaturally cold in there, even for the fall. The wall the stairs were located on was empty. Gone were the photographs, the memories. The creepy portrait Sage's parents had drawn of her when she was 4. There were a few pieces of glitter stuck to the floor underneath where her old pictures from Kindergarten used to hang and it was strange to look up and not see the smiling stick figures next to a rocket ship. As I continued up the stairs, the house just felt more and more empty. 

I eventually reached her bedroom door which was wide open. That felt all wrong too. We would sit with her dog behind the closed door and gossip about people at school and tell each other secrets, complain about parents, speculate about things like drugs, sex and politics. This room was just as familiar to me as my own, and now everything was gone. Including Sage. For a moment, I let my back relax against the wall and my eyes wandered out the window. One summer we'd even opened the window a crack and meowed at people who would pass by on the sidewalk, quickly ducking down under the window sill and giggling at the possibility of getting caught. 

I moved to her closet, stepping onto the carpet. I couldn't see very well in the dark but I thought I saw the faint outline of something. So I moved forward, my hands out in front of me as I inched along in the dark. My hands finally touched the object, it was rough, like cardboard.

I pulled it out into the light of her vast bedroom window. This was a box full of Sage's things, probably forgotten by the movers who packed up her room as her parents couldn't bear to do it themselves. I inhaled sharply, the smell of dust overwhelming me as I fought away the tears that threatened to come leaking out. 

My fingers lingered on the flaps of the box. I desperately wanted to know what was inside but the truth scared me as well. I knew that if I opened that box, there would be no going back. And this box could very well contain the answers I'd been looking for.