Going On

Noelle

“Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.” 
― Albert Camus

The house smelled like cleaning products.

It had been two weeks since the last time I was hope, working on my grand list of suicide ideas. Now, walking back into the over-sized two story house, it looked like my parents had scoured every inch of the house to clean everything. Almost as if they were trying to wash the bad memories of what had happened out of the very floorboards out of our house. I wondered how well that had worked out for them.

I walked straight up the stairs, my mother following closely behind me. When I reached my bedroom, I pushed open the door, and stared at the clean, spacious room. Nothing was where I left it, and my room looked nothing like me anymore. I noticed that the pile of magazines and newspapers on the ground lied neatly on my desk, but my scissors and paper cutter were nowhere to be seen. All my candles that I lit every evening had been taken as well.

Anything that could possibly be seen as dangerous was gone.

"We safety-proofed your room a bit..." my mother trailed off.

"You didn't last time," I said duly.

My mother didn't respond to my remark. "You can only have your scissors back if you're under supervision."

I didn't say anything.

"I have to go return some calls. Get yourself settled again. Dinner will be ready in an hour."

And with that, my mother was gone.

I sat down on the floor of my bedroom, staring at my neatly piled magazines and newspapers. On a normal day, I would come home from school and sit here on the carpet, cutting out pictures, quotes, and words that I liked and gluing them to the wall. My wall was messy and covered completely in my various cut-outs, and that was the way I liked it.

But now, my scissors were gone.

I looked down at my phone, wondering what I could possibly say to make it all okay. After two weeks of recovering in the behavioral health clinic, my parents had finally been able to take me home. I never got the chance to tell Theo that I was leaving; he was likely there right now, demanding to see me.

I didn't know how to tell him that I'd been released, and hadn't told him yet.

What was there to say?

But it had been too long that I had been agonizing over small things like this, and in the end, I decided to just go with my gut.  

I picked up my phone and dialed his number.

"Noelle? Thank god! They've been telling me that you're not here anymore..."

I swallowed shallowly. "I'm... not. They released me three days ago."

"You didn't tell me?"

My throat grew tight.

"Noelle?"

"Do you want to come to dinner at my house tonight?" I blurted out.

There was a small silence.

"I would love that."