Suicide // Haylor AU

Chapter 8

SATURDAY, MARCH 16
22 days left

Harry asks me to drive up to Crestville Pointe. Crestville Pointe is a park that sits on these huge hills above the Ohio River. The edge of the park is made up of rocky cliffs, and Harry has it in his head that it's the perfect place to die.
I'm not so convinced.
"What if the impact doesn't kill us?" I ask. "We could be alive for at least an hour in the water, whimpering and in agonizing, blinding pain. It could take a long time for us to actually die. I don't want a long, painful death. That's not what I signed up for."
"You are seriously twisted. Do you know that?" he says as he walks along the trail. We're trying to find the easiest way to access the cliffs. The park rangers try to make it difficult. Mostly because they don't want teenagers to cliff dive for fun because they'll probably die. I just hope that the chance of death is more than probably.
"I've been thinking about this longer than eleven months," I tell him. "Sure, I'm twisted. But I also have more insight."
"Don't give me that eleven months crap. I want this just as much as you do. Besides, you have no idea what it's like to live with this kind of guilt." Harry's voice is cold and he doesn't stop charging up the hill. He's practically jogging and I'm struggling to keep up with him.
"You're right. I don't. But you don't know shit about me either." I barely spit out the sentence. I lean over and grab my side, panting heavily. I really should get out more. The cool grass tickles my ankles, sneaking into the open space of skin between where my jeans should meet my sneakers. My jeans are a little too short for me, but I'd rather swallow glass than go shopping with Mom and Kendall. I figure I can make it another few weeks without new pants.
"I don't know anything about you because you won't tell me anything," he says. He doesn't seem to be winded at all. Damn him.
I motion toward a grass clearing. "I bet if we cut through here, we'll get closer to the water."
He follows me through the grass. It's hard to see where we're going since it's now dark, and I wonder if in some ironic twist of fate, we'll soar over the cliff without even realizing it. Like the universe's final joke: you can't plan your death, even when you try.
The grass clearing slowly turns back into forest. Dark, thick tree trunks surround us, and our shoes crunch over leaves and twigs. I almost trip on a bumpy root and Hadrh steadies me. The thing about the Ohio River is it doesn't make a noticeable sound. No frothing or burbling. But I can still tell when we're getting closer—I can smell and practically taste the dank, musty water.
The ground turns from a muddy forest floor to gravelly stone. We've arrived at the edge. We both stare out at the river; the only sound around is a few warbling birds.
"I don't get why you won't tell me anything," he finally says.
"Why are you so curious? Does it even matter why I want to die?"
"Kind of," he says.
"Why?"
"Because if it's stupid, I'd try to talk you out of it."
I laugh. "No, you wouldn't."
"Yes, I would."
"You wouldn't because then you'd lose your ride, remember? You don't have the ability to get away from Mommy Dearest. You never did explain that, by the way."
Even though the sun has set, he does that thing again where he cups his hands over his eyes as he looks out at the sky. We're standing close enough together that I can see the holes in the collar of his black T-shirt. His collarbone is sharp and visible beneath his skin; he's thinner than I realized.
He catches me staring at him and takes a few steps away from me, creating space between us. "After Jade died, I was sent to therapy. Lots of therapies. The doctors suggested to my parents that I lose my driving privileges because they were worried about my ability to stay present in the moment. They also suggested that I never be left alone unsupervised. Apparently being completely alone tends to make people more depressed but as far as I can tell, how I feel about Jade's death doesn't change whether I'm alone or not."
Therapy. Right after my dad went away, my school made me visit with the counselor three times a week. But the meetings weren't productive. I just sat there, hummed a classical tune, and stared at her excessive collection of potted plants. Eventually she gave up on me.
"What?" he says. I must have made a face.
"Nothing. I once got sent to a counselor, so I found it funny that therapy didn't work for you either."
"Funny?"
"Not funny. Ironic."
"Not sure that's the right use of ironic, but you seem to be smarter than me so I'll trust you."
"You'll trust me?"
He doesn't answer. He sits down by the edge and leans his whole body back. He cradles his head with his hands and fans out his elbows. I sit beside him. I don't lie down, but I pull my knees to my chin.
"Do you want to die in the water because that's how she died?"
He closes his eyes and gives me a small nod. "It only seems fair."
"We can do it here, if you want. I'm just nervous about it." I unwrap my knees and reach out to feel the ground. The rocks are rough on the palm of my hand.
"I'm pretty sure it's a normal reaction to feel nervous."
I exhale loudly. "I'm not nervous about the act of it."
"Oh, you're such a hard-ass that the idea of jumping off this cliff doesn't make you the least bit nervous?" Harrh props himself up on his side so he can look directly at me.
"Okay, maybe I'm a little scared. But I'm more scared about what comes next."
He goes back to lying flat on his back. "You mean like what happens to us when we're dead?"
I pick up some of the gravel and let it sift through my fingers. "Don't you ever think about that? What if this isn't the end and we just go on to a place even worse than this one?"
He sits up and grabs a stone. He tosses it over the cliff's edge. It seems to disappear before it hits the water—too small to even make a splash. "Any place has to be better than this one."
"But do you think it's really possible to die?"
His face hardens, his jaw muscle tightens, and his eyes glow like they're burning. I wonder if Harry used to look different before Jade died. With his chestnut-colored hair and clear skin and strong jaw, he's definitely classically good-looking. You know, good-looking in an obvious way. Like he's the type of boy who gets cast in back-to-school-shopping commercials. You could see him anywhere and you'd know from looking at his face that he was popular in high school. Yes, Harry is one of those people.
But the longer I look at him, the more I start to realize there's something different about him from the Niall Horan and Zayn Malik of my world. I take back what I said when I first met him—Harry does have a frozen quality. All of his movements and facial expressions have a tension to them, like he was carved out of stone and locked in a chamber of ice and recently brought back to life. I don't know how to describe it, but the more I stare at him, the more I see his grief wrapped around him like shackles he can never take off. I try to imagine him without the grief, without the heaviness, without the frozenness, but it's hard to see him as anything other than desperately sad. Yes, he looks like someone who was designed to be popular and successful, but he also looks like someone who was made to wear grief.
He wears it well.
"How can you even ask that?" His voice brings me back to reality. "Obviously it's possible to die. Jade died. She's dead. She's gone."
I shrug, rubbing my palms over the gravel. The stones' edges tear at my skin. "I've been thinking a lot about the energy of the universe. And if energy can't ever be created or destroyed, only transferred, what do you think happens to people's energy once they die?"
He shakes his head, stands up, and walks farther away from me, closer to the edge. I follow him. Looking down at the river, I try to imagine what it will feel like when I hit the water. The Ohio River moves so slowly, there's no churning or sputtering, only a lazy flow. Maybe the water will hug me tight, squeezing all the air from my lungs. Maybe it will feel like I'm being rocked to sleep, maybe I'll get pulled under and everything will turn black and it will be like dreaming. Maybe.
"You can definitely die," he repeats his argument from earlier. "Jade is dead. I don't see her energy anywhere."
"Just because you can't see it doesn't mean her energy is gone."
His hands jump at his sides. He picks up another rock and throws it over the edge. "You have to stop talking to me about this. It freaks me out."
"It freaks me out, too," I say softly.
"I need to think that when we die, we're going to be dead. I can't think about anything else."
"Okay." I agree to stop talking about it, but that doesn't mean I can stop thinking about it.

We both go back to looking at the river in silence. We go back to imagining our watery deaths.