Corrosive

11:58 AM

The judge, an old friend of my mother's, begins the court case punctually. Jason slumps in the box, and when the judge asks him how he pleads, he answers not guilty to murder. He has no other answer, his lawyer tells the judge. I sit at the back with my friends, Dad further ahead. The evidence begins to be presented, but I hear very little of it, as a young red-haired woman stands up from the end of our row and leaves quickly. I stand quickly, too, and run out of the other door.

The red-haired woman is about to go down the stairs. 'Louise!' I call.

She stops.

She turns.

She is beautiful. Tall, clear skin, freckled. And crying.

'I found Milly's book.' I continue.

'She never let me or anyone else read it, or even see it for long. It was in code.' Louise answers shortly.

'I cracked it.' I responded. There is an awkward pause. 'She loved you.' Louise sobs. 'Where are you going?'

'I don't want to know why she killed herself. That Jason guy is right. He's not guilty. If Mill ran, she'd still be here. Did she write why in her...' Louise chokes back a sob, bristling with sudden anger now. 'Why in her PRECIOUS book?!'

She turns away, her chest heaving. Stunned, I murmur, 'Mill? You called her... Mill? Only I called her that...or- that's what I thought.'

Louise turns around again. We gaze at each other. Each of us imagining our Mill.

And then I answer her question. 'She was stressed... Couldn't imagine a future for herself. But she loved you.'

'She loved you too.' Louise says distantly, hollowly. 'But she was brave, so, so brave. Every day she got up and faced her demons and went right on smiling. Everyone relied on her to be happy. Tell-'

Suddenly it's as clear as day to me. 'Everyone relied on her to be happy. So when she got stressed and couldn't be, she thought it better to end herself than let them down.'

Louise nods miserably, slowly. 'Tell them I wanted to be brave too.'

Louise walks to the banister of the wide arching stairs again. She vaults over it before I realise what's happening. I start to run, the hall too silent as I wait for the inevitable crash. I run in apparent slow motion, and reach the banister just as, with a dull clunk and a loud crack, Louise hits the marble flour of the court house. No crash or upbeat techno or angels singing. I peer down and see Louise, still, with one leg bent at an impossible angle, but no blood. And I run back into the courtroom, to report the cowardly leap. The fall of a woman desperate to follow her idol.

~*~

The front door slams shut behind me. My exams are over, on the hottest day of the year, so far. I came home to get changed. Tonight there's a party in Stacey's house. Jess invited me.

The house is silent and empty. I have gotten used to this empty house, my parents to coming home to just me. The stairs creak beneath my feet.

I open my window and change out of my sweaty clothes. A light wind is welcome as it breathes into my room. On my desk sit Mill's two copies, moments and code, and mine, side by side by side. The breeze turns the pages of the code copy. Lifting the cover, showing the code, turning the page to more words. I cross and pick it up. More words, arranged in verse, in plain language. A poem.

Corrosive

Today, the school burned

beneath a firework display,

and young, drunken stupidity.

Today, an old woman

put up an umbrella,

to block out sunlight.

How long

have friends

corroded us?

How long have

we let them

destroy, corrode us?

Why, why

do we

let them?

We let them

because we love

them. Don't we?

Corrosive friends.

Corrosive lovers.

Corrosive world.

And so this, this is what I remember Mill by. What she hid. I love her.

I heard recently that every time you think of a memory it fades a little, and this is how we forget stuff. I think of Mill as little as possible, to avoid corroding her in death, as she was corroded in life.

THE END.