A Paper Cut Is The Least Of My Worries

APCLW - Chp 26

Fiona’s POV

                I stared blankly at the TV as the reporter once again talked about Vincent’s recent suicide. It was rather depressing; Vincent killing himself was depressing in itself, but having to hear about it over and over again just depressed me even more.  I grabbed the remote beside me and turned the TV off, preferring to just sit in silence rather than hear anything more about Vincent’s suicide right now. It had been two days since it happened, and two days since I’ve seen or heard from Kim. I decided just to skip school for the rest of the week. I didn’t want to be around anyone at this point. I hadn’t lost just my friend, but I lost the love of my life, and he cried out for help, and I hadn’t done anything about it because I didn’t notice the signs at the time. He was telling me goodbye when he was holding me like he was, and I was stupid enough to not pick up on it. I held my head down in anger directed towards myself. If only I had known the signs…

                But I couldn’t beat myself up. I didn’t know and that was that. Experts always say that the people who were closest to their loved one who committed suicide blamed their selves for the loved ones death, and I could never understand why before. I mean, why would you blame yourself for someone else’s death? They decided to end their lives, and it was out of your hands. Truth was that I didn’t feel like it was out of my hands though; and now I totally understood why people blame themselves. There was no doubt in my mind that Kim felt the same way too. Not that I was wanted it to happen or was hoping for it to happen, but whatever chance there was of Kim and I being more than friends ever again were gone. I knew there was no chance, I mean, how would that look to everyone else? Everyone probably thought we were some triangle trio that had threesomes on the regular or something, but we weren’t. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure if we would be close friends. We would most likely just be acquaintances after this whole ordeal was over; the funeral, high school, graduation.

                It sucked in a way. I thought that Kim and Vinny would be those people from high school that I always kept it contact with. My parents and older people in general always talked about how they would lose contact with the majority of their high school friends, and I wasn’t going to let that happen with Kim and Vinny, but things had changed now. I was starting to think of Vinny almost as a future husband, and he was gone; and Kim—well we pretty much had a broken relationship—friendship and the suicide that Vinny committed had all but crushed any hope of us putting the pieces back together. Sometimes when you love people you just have to let them go, no matter how hard it is. That was what I knew was going to happen to Kim, I was going to have to let her go. I was young, I’d definitely make more friends, but there wouldn’t be any more like her. I felt at fault for us getting this bad though because of the huge secret Vinny and I were keeping from her, but that was gone now and there was nothing I could do. I just wished I would’ve gone about it differently—or that we, Vinny and I had gone about it differently. Maybe things would have been completely different.

                Tired of sulking in my self-pity, I got up and went into the kitchen, making myself a bowl of popcorn. Facing forward, I leaned against the counter as I listened to the popping of the corn in the microwave. I was counting the tiles on the floor when some feet suddenly entered my vision. Looking up, I saw my brother Aaron with a bowl of cereal in his hand. He gave me a merciful look as he chowed on his cereal, and I attempted to smile in a thank you sort of way, but I couldn’t even pull that off. There was nothing for me to smile about. The one guy that I knew I wanted to be with was gone forever and not coming back. I might be young, but I knew that he was the one for me and there would not be anyone for me out there. Aaron coughed awkwardly, trying to cut the tension in the room.

“It’s a nice day to go bowling.” He suggested.  I blinked at him. Did he really expect me to go out right now? He put his empty bowl into the sink and washed it. “It’s boring inside the house, don’t you think?” I shrugged and popped the microwave open when I heard it go off. I split the bag open and dumped it into a bowl that was on the counter. “Fiona, I know how you felt about the guy—I mean Vinny—Vincent,” he corrected himself. I was glad that he did, because I was going to fuss at him for not using Vinny’s name instead of just saying ‘the guy’. “I saw how happy he made you and it was obvious that it was mutual, but sulking around the house isn’t going to bring him back. For your counter argument, going bowling isn’t going to bring him back either, but I doubt he’d want you to sulk over him. It’d be selfish of him if he wanted that, and even though I didn’t know the guy very well, I know for a fact that he wouldn’t want you to sulk over him. So in conclusion, it doesn’t really matter what you do.” I didn’t answer as I popped some popcorn into my mouth.