Linger: A Novelette

Marcy

Stepping into the damp air of the outside, I pull my lightweight jacket tighter around my body to block the chilly air from entering.

Gray clouds were the only thing left from the recent storm that had just come through. I remember the first pitter-patter of rain turning into heavier droplets as I sat inside the house. The clashes of lighting and low rumbles of thunder only added to the gloom I had felt while still in the house. I knew right after the storm died down I would have to escape; the crushing weight of depression in that house was slowly suffocating me to death.

Headlights shimmered on the rain slicked streets.

Hoodie covering my head and my eyes trained on the ground, the streetlights were the only thing guiding my path.

A small part of me regrets not taking my mom's offer to drop me off and pick me back up, but I didn't know that it would pour as hard as it did. On the plus side, walking will help me think and clear my mind. But on the down side, my house was so far away and someone might spot me.

Now, this never bothered me before, but things were different back then and if anyone were to see me now they might not even recognize me at first. I wasn't in my usual state-of-mind. My hair has often gone undone, my makeup rarely put on- and when done, with feeble effort, I traded my thought out outfits for dingy but comfortable sweats.

It's been a downwards hill for me recently. A double whammy.

News four days ago was of Kellie's suicide while in the mental ward. Just yesterday I got wind of Ty's untimely death- also a suicide. It was hard enough to grasp the death of one friend, but two more was virtually unbearable, in fact unfathomable. Two of the three done in suicide.

I've made small but significant connections between the incidents. Kellie and Ty were there when Lester died, both ended up in suicide.

A small part of me feels anger towards Kellie and Ty. To leave me to deal with this grief, this burden all by myself, to go out the cowardly way. I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye- they didn't even say goodbye. Gone, just like that.

With all these sudden deaths and bottled up emotions, my mom tries to coax me to see a therapist, but I don't want to end up like Kellie. Locked up inside a mental institution with a group of looney tune girls who I have to sleep, eat, and talk with while forced to hear their messed up lives and listen to them whine and cry at night. No thank you.

Continuing with my connections, I've thought about how three of the five people that day are dead- two of the four witnesses dead- and it makes me wonder if some dark, mysterious force is at work. It makes no sense that both Ty and Kellie would kill themselves like that. I understand the burden of losing someone to such a tragic accident, but to just give up like that doesn't sound like something they would do. I guess you never know a person's true colors until something drastic occurs.

Still, this makes me on edge. I've never told anyone about this paranoid fear, this fear of my own untimely death- even suicide. Maybe I'm just tired and this could all just be a coincidence. Everyone would agree. Just an unfortunate chain of events.

But the fear still gnaws at me.

To distract this, I busy myself trying to comfort others. It also helps me appear to look normal and convince everyone I'm coping with this in a nondestructive way.

But even this is wearing on me.

After just coming from seeing Lester's family I already feel like falling apart.

I was so used to seeing a busy, energetic family, every time I visited the Kennett household, that it was a shock to walk into a dark and lifeless house.