Stained by Invisible Ink: A Virgin's Suicide Note

FIVE

“I can’t believe she’s dead,” my voice was the one break in an atmosphere of ice, “It just doesn’t seem real, you know? Nothing makes sense anymore. I mean, Jessica is dead. I just… I can’t comprehend it.”

A week had passed since the news of Jessica Tamra’s suicide, and the funeral had been mere hours ago. The service was as bland and normal as any mother of a depressed teenage daughter could hope for. It was an open service, and so as a grade, we made our way into the church. Dressed in the usual macabre black, we took our seats in the pews of the old Catholic church. I didn’t even know she was religious, but apparently her parents were devout. I could see them from where I was sitting. Her mother clutched her youngest daughter around her shoulders. She didn’t even look sad, she simply looked numb. Like all the life, the laughter and the happiness had been drained from her body. She looked like an empty shell of herself. Her father was the complete opposite. I could see the tears streaming down his face before the funeral had even started. I had no idea how he was going to last until the end. When the pastor (I think it was a pastor, he wasn’t wearing what the priests wear in the movies) started speaking, his words fell heavy in the air. She spoke of how Jessica was a beautiful girl, a young girl taken far too soon from this world and how she was in heaven now, where there was no suffering for her to experience. One by one, more people got up and began to talk about her. They all said they same things, that Jessica was a beautiful girl; that she was so smart and it was a terrible shame she had to leave our earth. It was only when Holly rose to speak that the words suddenly changed. She stood at the makeshift lectern with her two pieces of paper shaking in her hands. She put them down slowly and looked out at the audience, looking into the eyes of everyone who was looking, including my own.

 “It’s true, Jessica was a beautiful girl,” she started her piece with confidence and grace, “She was my best friend. I could tell her everything. There wasn’t a thing in this world that I hadn’t told her, and she knew that. I really wish she knew how much I missed her right now though,” Holly sniffed and looked down at the papers again. When she looked up, she was crying, “If there’s one thing I regret in life, it not telling her more how much I need her, and how much she means to me. I wish with all my might that I had told her to talk to me; that I had gotten her to tell me what was on her mind. I had no idea what she was going through, and I thought I never would until now. I feel completely empty without her. A day won’t go by where I don’t think about Jessica, and about how my best friend took her life because of a stupid rumour; a rumour that had no truth to it whatsoever.

“Jessica, if you can hear me now, I want you to know I am so sorry. I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there for you enough, that you felt you couldn’t talk to me and that you felt you had to take your own life. I’m so sorry you felt like you had no other options. I’m so sorry. We’re sorry. We’re sorry, and we love you. I hope that wherever you are, you don’t feel the pain that you did walking this earth; the pain that I feel in the darkest depths of my soul right now. I love you Jessica, and I miss you. I miss you so much.”

Holly left the lectern and raced down to the back of the church where she promptly left. She didn’t stop to talk to any of Jessica’s family who were holding out there arms, she just ran. I could relate to Holly, that need to run was almost irresistible most days. I think Jessica’s family understood too, because when the service had ended, they didn’t stick around to talk to any of their fellow mourners. They simply packed up their things and talked to Holly on the front steps of the church. After a few moments, they were all piling in cars and heading up to the cemetery where Jessica’s body would be laid to rest for good. We all followed suit, jumping in our own cars. We created a conga line of cars behind the Tamra’s. We were a real life funeral procession. I looked out the passenger window of Rosie’s car to see the people on the street look down our line of cars, and the realisation on their faces when they realised what was going on. One by one, summer hats were removed from head and streets cleared to make way for us. If there was one thing I loved about my town, it was the amount of respect people showed towards the dead. Never once were our cemeteries desecrated. There was an unwritten rule that the dead must remain at peace, and for some strange reason that brought me peace as well.

 Both Mr and Mrs Tamra cried as Jessica’s casket was lowered into the ground. It didn’t take long, and soon, we were leaving the Tamras and Holly to say their final goodbyes. There was so much sadness, I couldn’t help but feel a little comforted. At least they finally had an understanding of what I felt on a permanent basis. As we retreated towards the safety and comfort of Rosie’s Ford, I grabbed onto both Rosie and Sharnae’s hands and gave them a squeeze. Rosie and Sharnae both wrapped their arm around my hips and I did the same to them. We hugged, and we comforted, and we remembered. We remembered who Jessica was, and how she really was beautiful. She was probably the most beautiful person I’ve ever met. At my request, Rosie dropped me off at Elliott’s house and I let myself in. I knew he would be home soon, as I saw his car leave soon after ours. Something told me that Elliott would need more comforting than anyone else today, and so I sat on his bed, and I waited.

Ten short minutes later, Elliott walked through his bedroom door. He caught my eye, closed the door behind him and sat on the bed beside me. In seconds, his eyes were welling up with tears and I was holding him close to me. I could feel his sobs through my whole body. I ran my fingers through his hair and squeezed him tighter. He burrowed his head into my neck and this is how we stayed; frozen in our misery and grief. Crying over lost friendships, lost love, lost opportunities and lost futures. I positioned us so my back was on his wall and Elliott sunk down so his head was on my lap. I kept running my fingers through his hair. I didn’t know why, but it was calming him down. When he had finished crying, we would talk, and we would get to the point where we were now. Where we were both lying on his bed and I had just spoken my true feelings about Jessica’s death, and my inability to process it. But that point was still many strokes of his head away, and so there we stayed, him crying and me stroking his head until his mum called us down for dinner. When Elliott got up, he couldn’t see straight. His eyes were so red and swollen from crying you could have easily mistaken him for a drug addict. His hair was a tussled mess from where I had been running my finger through it and his shirt was crinkled from where he had been lying down. I got up after him. I smoothed down his hair, straightened his shirt and wiped away the excess tears from his eyes before giving him a quick peck on the cheek. He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed quickly. He pressed his lips to my ear and breathed a quick thank you. I squeezed him back as a silent “you’re welcome” and looked him in the eyes. He tried to smile to reassure me, but it failed miserably. Shoulders sagging, he made his way down the stairs, only to turn around and wait for me expectantly; more like a puppy than a person. It was the most heartbreaking thing I’d ever seen.