Suicide Notes

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Caleb-

Listening to the arguing downstairs made me want to throw my clothes into my bag and head back across the harbor to the loft I shared with the guys downtown. Guilt kept me from actually doing it. There was no way I could abandon Danica right now and leave her alone with my dad.

Fighting was one of the primary reasons I'd hightailed it out of this place as soon as I was able. I couldn't take the constant bickering. Living with my old man was pure hell, plain and simple. Bitter and angry had been his key attitudes since my mom left us, when I was little. How he even managed to find someone to marry him again, I would never know. Maybe Danica had been hoping to find someone to be a father to Jessi, but if that were the case then she'd struck out big time. My dad wasn't even a good father to me, his own flesh and blood, let alone Jessi.

Images from the night he beat up Danica flashed through my mind. I could still hear her protests ringing in my ears as I dialed 911. She didn't want to make my dad even angrier. I didn't care. He needed to pay for what he'd done. He served a year in prison, but she didn't leave him. She stayed and was a good mom to Jessi and me. That year was one of the happiest I remembered. Dad was released and never hit her again, that I knew of, but he was still violent. Yelling and throwing things across the room if things didn't go just the way he wanted them to, became the norm. I wondered if she would stay with him, now.

Even though I came back often, to make sure she and Jessi were doing okay, it was never a place I wanted to be. Glancing around at the shelves holding memorabilia from my high school days, I realized that other than taking my guitar and music, I'd left most of my previous life here in my room—abandoned. Now that Jessi was gone, I didn't think I wanted to ever be in this house again. There wasn't anywhere I could look and not see her presence.

Reaching for the notebook I wrote my lyric ideas in, I flipped to where I'd been working on my latest song, and froze. My hands trembled when I saw the folded piece of paper with my name on it stuck between the pages. I recognized the handwriting immediately. Opening it carefully, the first few words gave me pause.

"Caleb, please forgive me for what I'm about to do . . ."

It was a suicide note. Jessi had left one, right where I'd find it. She knew me so well.

Devouring the words on the paper, I thought my heart would explode as I read them; she was so upset, conflicted, and lost—trapped and confused with no way out. Tears fell down my cheeks, some dropping onto the handwritten letter, slightly blurring the words. It didn't matter though, the damage had already been done, her message delivered.

Whatever possible reasons I'd invented in my mind for her death were all wrong—every last one. It was all my fault. Her suicide was on my hands, the same as if I'd pulled the trigger and shot her. Crushing agony flowed through me—every word ripping me to shreds. Crumbling the paper into a ball, I held it tightly as I dropped to my knees and wept.

"Jessi, forgive me, please." I gasped, the ache inside tearing through my soul. "I didn't know! I didn't know!"

***

"Dude. I think you've had enough." Riley grabbed the bottle of Jack from me, emptying the small remainder down the sink. I was too drunk to even protest. Scrubbing my face with my hands, I let out a deep sigh and leaned over the island bar. "I'm surprised you can even stay on that stool with the way you've been drinking the last three days." He wrinkled his nose in distaste as he stared at me. "And when was the last time you took a shower?"