Underneath

four; summer suicide

Carla had always hated speaking in public. Now she had to give a eulogy in a stuffy, compact church full of Mickey's closest friends and family.

She held the folded piece of lined paper close to her chest for the entire ceremony. It was the only piece of paper that she had written on in the past couple of days that hadn't ended up angrily balled up in the waste basket.

It was only several days earlier that she had heard the seemingly improbable news: her best friend had died.

Some people hear that their loved ones died from doctors, from family members, from friends, but Carla heard that her best friend died the way some people strike up a conversation: the man sitting in the booth next to her at the local diner made a remark about the obituary in the paper to his wife.

"Look at this. A fifteen year old girl killed herself just yesterday. It's a shame that this can just about happen to anyone's kid these days," He said as he shook his head.

"There have been two in the past three years at the school," His wife noted. "What was her name?"

"Michelle Wheelan," He read from the paper.

With that the couple continued eating their breakfast whereas Carla felt sick to her stomach. Oddly, that was the exact moment her mother called to break the news that had already been broken.

She couldn't believe that Mickey was dead. She couldn't imagine that Mickey was dead. She had just seen her a few days ago. They had wandered around the woods together for hours; Carla was convinced that it was all just a sick prank Mickey was trying to pull on her.

For the next several days, she called Mickey's phone every hour and left a voice message. She was in a state of being on the verge of tears, but never actually crying.

"Mickey, please pick up. I'm going up to the rock in an hour. Meet me there," She managed to choke out the last message before the funeral.

There was place high up in the woods; a rock that they used to just sit on together, with their feet dangling from the cliff. It overlooked the entire forest, and was a great place to gaze dreamily at the stars or watch the sun rise and fall.

Carla waited at the rock, but Mickey never came. She broke down for the first time. She cried. She cried so hard. It felt like the time she went to summer camp, and she became severely homesick. Only this time, she was homesick for a person that she couldn't go to; a person that couldn't come back to her.

She finally knew what it felt like to be heartbroken. Her heart literally felt heavy in her chest when she thought of Mickey. She had so many questions that would remain unanswered for as long as she lived.

"Why didn't you at least leave a note!" She shouted to the treetops. Only her echo responded.

She cried until she ran out of tears. She took a deep breath, dried her tears and left to go get ready for the funeral.

She unfolded the lined piece of paper and took a shaky breath.

"A fifteen year old girl should be sleeping in her bed at eleven o'clock in the morning on a summer day, not a casket."