The Suicide Effect | ✓

thirty-six

Despite the fact that I really didn't want him to, Farlan followed me around today, tagging along wherever I went.

"Gayle," he said again and again and again. "What did I do wrong? I'm so sorry for whatever it is, Gayle."

And that was my cue for an outburst.

"You shouldn't have said that!" I cried. "Any of it! You're wrong, Farlan - I'm not blind. I know that it's my fault - I don't think, I know! Becks thought that she had no choice - she thought that it was the only way out for her. I understand that. She wasn't selfish, Farlan. And if I think that she should have stayed purely because of me, then I am the one being so selfish. I am.

"She ran out of choices, Farlan," I said again. "She ran out."

He shook his head firmly. "No," he said. "Look Gayle - I know that when she actually jumped, sure, she didn't have a choice. But she made lots of choices leading up to that. She chose to go and stand there on that rooftop - that didn't miraculously just happen, Gayle, she made that choice. She chose to leave you and and she chose to leave everyone who loved her despite the consequences, despite the countless people who have mourned her death every day since.

"She knew, Gayle and she still did it.

"She chose to do a lot. I mean she probably chose to do a lot of other things that I don't know, but the point is that this wasn't an accident. Becks knew and she still chose to do it.

"And I don't understand why you still make excuses for her - why you still don't see it, Gayle. I don't get it."

"Because she was my best friend," I said.

And then I stopped talking to him.