After You

Jacob

Dear Alfie,

What a waste of my time.

Walking out of that courtroom, I actually felt like I should apologise to all the people who turned up. "Sorry, folks! No gory details here, just some bloke stating the bleeding obvious!". I thought they'd talk about messages you received or sent or anything they found in your room that could have given an idea as to your motive. A note, at the very least?

After the coroner got up and said "Cause of death, suicide by overdose", I walked out. I could have told them that. What is it with all these so-called professionals who are paid all that money just to state the obvious? We needed answers and motives and reasons and all they've done is told us what we knew, and now they can go back to their cushy homes and easy lives and roll in the money they make from other people's misery.

Everyone else is still in there, so maybe there is more to it than that. I tried to get back in, but security wouldn't let me. They didn't want me disrupting the inquest. To be fair, I did just spend the last ten minutes pacing the floor and muttering about what a fucking joke the whole thing is. I guess I won't really miss anything if it's all stuff that we already knew.

I was so sure that there would be a reason. There has to have been something – a comment made, or an incident, or a message you received or something – to make you take every pill you could find in the medicine cabinet and wash them down with some Jack Daniels. Sometimes people overdose on painkillers or whatever and they do it by accident, or because they're feeling shit about things and no-one is listening, but that isn't you. You had so many people around you who would have listened, and yet you went out with a bang.

Oh, there's one thing the coroner said. Your death would have been "prolonged and painful, over a period of hours". Thanks. So we get no new details about why you did it or what the catalyst was, but we get to know that you suffered. Isn't that kind of him?

So, when did you do it? You went upstairs at eight that evening. Did you take them then? Mum would usually check in on both of us when she came up to bed, but by whatever fluke of nature, she fell asleep on the sofa that night and didn't knock on your door at eleven. When Dad found you in the morning, you weren't cold or stiff. He did CPR until the ambulance turned up; they carried it on in the ambulance. They didn't pronounce you dead until they got you to the hospital. If you'd died early in the night, they wouldn't have even tried that. I researched it, when I was in shock and trying to process it all.

I hate the thought of you dying alone and in pain for hours. I was right next door to you; why didn't you knock on my door or on the wall or something? I could have called an ambulance, or at least called Mum and Dad. Even if you didn't want me to do that, I could have sat with you, so you wouldn't have been alone. So much for twin telepathy.

Jacob