17 Things I Found In Your Bedroom

Chapter 3 Part 1

Loosing someone you love is like the hail stones turn to bullets, and you lost the keys to your locked house.

It's like everything you ever had is gone, in one moment; one moment changes everything.

Like your chest is caving in permanently, and there's no way to fix it.

"I brought you some soup, Claire." I faintly hear my mum say, as I stare blankly at the wall. Yesterday, they found his body, and after a completely restless night, mum said I could stay home. She wouldn't have let me go in even if I did sleep, the wall is speaking to me. "And some water." She adds slowly, as if I'm a child. "You need to eat something, honey. He wouldn't want this... you can't shut down yet." I blink, ignoring her. Any other day, she would scold me for giving her sass.

The dip in the bed disappears again and, with a sigh, she leaves the room. I'm left alone with my thoughts.

Every time I try to stand up to go to the bathroom, or attempt a shower, I find something that reminds me of Ace. Like his hoodie on the back of the door, or the dress I wore when we were at the Bench the other day, or a pack of cards. So I gave up after a while. It's not like anyone important who cares about my appearance is going to show up. The Queen isn't going to parade up the front path and give me her condolences.

The mocking cover of the book Ace left me is now lying on the bedside table, with a cup of cold tea resting on top of it. I don't remember picking it up after Mrs Quinn's office yesterday- then again, I don't remember much after that.

I'm fighting an internal battle on whether or not to read it. He said I would understand if I read it in his suicide note, thing is, I don't know if I want to understand. Some things are better left alone.

Maybe it was just sudden, and random. Maybe he had a fight with one of his friends and it was a surge of the moment type thing.

But... what if it was more than that? What if he killed someone? His dad died? He was diagnosed with cancer?

And anyway, why would he give me his notebook? Why not his mum, or dad?

I make jerky movements, stretching my legs in front of me and grabbing the book from the side. It's a smallish notebook, with music notes on the front, covered by a panel of pale blue, on which there is a title written:

17 Things in My Bedroom

For: Claire Johnson

Love: Ace Coals

I run my hand over the front cover, and close my eyes. To think, a dead person's hand wrote this. The lettering carefully in scripted by my suicidal boyfriend.

What secrets are you hiding, Ace?

I drag my finger over the side of the book to separate the first page from the rest, and start to lift it.

Okay, you can do this, Claire...

Suddenly, the door bursts open and I'm snapped out of my thoughts.

"Claire! Oh my God, if you were ill you could've at least texted me! I thought you died or something! And you left me in economics and business class with that dick wad green eyes, I swear he's gotten more ugly and arrogant since last Friday when he threw a gum ball at my ear- that's not what friends do! I'm gonna hack your Tumblr account so bad, you won't even be able to- " tears start leaking from my eyes again as I take in my best friend Carli. She has black skinny jeans on with a white shirt and the purple infinity scarf I got her last Christmas. The expensive black wedges on her feet are designer; adding height to her 5'3 frame, and giving the illusion her wavy, dirty blonde hair is longer than it actually is.

"Babe, what is it?" she asks, concerned, moving closer to the bed and sitting on the edge of it. "I was kidding about Tumblr..." she adds. She must not know about Ace, or else she would be crying to. She would always hang out with us as a third wheeler, and yell if we ever held hands, claiming it was PDA.

God, I'm already talking about him in the past tense, and it's only been a day.

"Where's Ace?" she whispers, as if she can tell what I'm crying about. "Claire?" she pushes. I try and breathe through my tears.

"Carli... he's dead..." I whisper, barely audible. I realise I haven't stared at the wall for a while, so I do.

"What?" Carli stands up from the bed like a lightning bolt on steroids. A lump forms in my throat and I fight to keep the tears down. On the outside I may appear arrogant and selfish, but I don't want to break down again. I can't.

"They said it was suicide." I frown and stroke the wall, its cream paint simple and bland. It looks so endless right now... it has no pain. Why couldn't someone take away mine? For fuck's sake, I hate the pain. It hurts... it hurts too much.

"This would be a great time for that Vine, Claire. Why the fuck are you lying?" her voice is shaky and angry. Suddenly, I feel my own anger rise to the surface. Why can't she let it be, leave me alone and let me disappear? I stay silent and try to breathe past the arising tears- not that there is any. I've cried more in the last twenty two and a half hours than I have in my whole life. "Penny for your thoughts?" she asks sarcastically. And then I explode.

"I'm not lying, Carli! He's gone! Not here anymore! Dead!" I yell, standing up on the bed with trembling legs, and watching as her lip quivers and she moves to lean against the dresser. I whisper the next bit lowly. Having to say the truth out loud isn't only going to hurt her. I haven't told anyone yet. "He killed himself; drowned in a stream, and he's never coming back..." I breathe heavily as loud, hysterical sobs fill the room. The door opens, and mum walks in panicking. She's wearing sweats, and her hair is tied back in a high pony tail, making the bags under her eyes excruciatingly obvious.

"What's going on?" she questions, walking over and hugging Carli as she cries on the floor, then dragging my hand and pulling me towards her so we're all sitting on the floor hugging. She doesn't ask any more questions. She doesn't need to.

I spend the rest of the next week in silence. Mum deals with the media, and the people giving us flowers and charity in an attempt at a 'sorry'.

Every time I go to sleep, it's an escape. I don't dream very often, and that hasn't changed, so memories don't come to me when I sleep like they do in story books. Although reliving old times with him seems better than waking up and realising all over again that the man I love is gone.

Sometimes I imagine what I would be doing if he was still here. I would be at school, and we would be hanging around at his locker. Since his Grandma died, he hadn't come to school a lot. It started improving within a month or so. I get him now- I wouldn't be able to face school like I am now. I don't even remember what the square root of nine is anymore.

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Song: One Dance cover, VIGR