The Suicide Effect | ✓

thirty-two

Farlan came round after school today. He raised an eyebrow at my poster-clad walls and bit his lip at the one picture of Becks and I that I hadn't had the heart to touch yet.

"Is that her?" he asked softly.

I nodded. I didn't look. I wasn't in the mood for crying again.

I knew exactly the picture that he was talking about - it was a photo from a few months back. The two of us had been so happy that day - we'd spent it out in the summer sun with daisies in our hair and music around our wrists.

And Becks had scar free arms.

"Do you miss her a lot?"

I nodded again. "Yes," I told him. "Every day."

"Oh," he said. I could tell that he wanted to say more, to ask more - and he had every right to because he didn't know her and he hadn't tried once to degrade her memory (not like some others had).

I breathed in deeply. "Ask me anything you want to," I told him. "Today - and only today - I will talk about Becks."

I turned to look at him and was met by a small smile.

"What was she like?" he asked. "What did you love and hate about her?"

I laughed softly, preparing myself. "Everything," I told him. "I loved the way she never shut up; I loved how easily I could make her blush; I loved how we just clicked." I paused, exhaling hard. "I loved how she never let me down." I could feel Farlan's gaze on me; I could feel the waterfalls pooling in my eyes and the mountain strangling my throat. "I hated that annoying way that she always looked perfect in pictures; I hated how she used that irritating laugh around a guy that she liked... I hated how she kept the most important things a secret from me and how she let me let her down." I stopped then, finally looking up. Our eyes met briefly. "But she was my best friend - so ultimately, I loved her."

"She sounds like quite a character," he said.

"You would have liked her."

He thought for a moment, nodding in agreement. "What's your best memory with her?"

I shook my head. "I don't have a single one," I whispered. "We met when we were ten and every day since then has been a memory." I laughed breathily. "There was this one time that she put a plastic spider on our teacher's desk - we didn't realise that she was a complete arachnophobe. She screamed and Becks burst out laughing until we were all crying on the floor. And then there was the time when we got 'drunk' on the feeling of being happy and she told me that if I ever needed to be happy again I should just lie on the floor because everything was funnier when you were lying on the floor."

A tear escaped my eye: I had been desperately trying to hold it captive.

"It's too bad that she didn't take her own advice." I paused, wiping the water from my lashes. "And then there was her sixteenth - just a few months ago - where we went to the beach and talked - just talked - and - can you believe it? - it was one of the best days of my life because we were happy and free and life was good. Neither of us expected this - well at least, I didn't."

Farlan sat next to me on my bed, placing a warm arm around my shoulders as I cried again.

"I'm sorry," I choked.

"Don't be," came his immediate reply. "You've got nothing to be sorry about."

I just wished that he knew how wrong he was.

A silence overcame us: a thick, heated silence overflowing with my guilt and his comfort.

"Do you know why she did it?"

"No," I found myself whispering. "But I think it was because of me."

I felt him freeze - stop breathing. I swore that I could almost hear his thoughts: she made her best friend kill herself; I have my arm around a murderer; what have I gotten myself into?

"Why?" was all that he said aloud.

I inhaled deeply, the air feeling more as though it was suffocating me that liberating me. I prepared myself for the worst - for confessing it all to someone who would just push me away.

"Because I wasn't there when she needed it," I admitted. "Because she didn't tell me. Because she didn't let me help." I paused, shaking. "Because I said some stuff to her that I shouldn't have. Because I teased her when she asked me not to. Because I didn't hug her when she needed it most." I stopped then, stealing a glance at Farlan, my eyes pleading him to understand. "Because it was my fault."

"Oh Gayle," he said, hugging me tightly into his chest as I cried and cried and cried.

He didn't tell me not to be so silly. He didn't tell me that Becks wouldn't have wanted me thinking like that.

He knew that I was right - and right then, that was exactly what I needed.