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“And if he asks me why?”
“You tell him you don’t know why. Don’t commit to anything. She’ll have to work that out starting tomorrow.”
“You’ve thought this through, haven’t you?”
“It was a busy drive over.”
“What if he doesn’t care? What if he doesn’t believe her?”
“Then you grab his keys and drive to the nearest hospital. Bring the journal with you.”
Hearing her say it, it all makes sense.
She sits back down on the bed.
“Come here,” she says. But this time we don’t kiss. Instead, she hugs my frail body.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I whisper.
“You can,” she tells me. “Of course you can.”
I am alone in Kelsea’s room when her father comes home. I hear him throw down his keys, take something out of the refrigerator. I hear him walk to his bedroom, then come back out. He doesn’t call out a hello. I don’t even know if he realizes I’m here.
Five minutes pass. Ten minutes. Finally, he calls out, “Dinner!”
I haven’t heard any activity in the kitchen, so I’m not surprised to find a KFC bucket on the table. He’s already started on a drumstick.
I can guess how this usually works. He takes his dinner into the den, in front of the TV. She takes hers back to her room. And that marks the rest of the night for them.
But tonight is different. Tonight she says, “I want to kill myself.”
At first I don’t think he’s heard me.
“I know you don’t want to hear this,” I say. “But it’s the truth.”
He drops his hand to his side, still holding the drumstick.
“What are you saying?” he asks.
“I want to die,” I tell him.
“C’mon now,” he says. “Really?”
If I were Kelsea, I’d probably leave the room in disgust. I’d give up.
“You need to get me help,” I say. “This is something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.” I put the journal on the table, shove it over to him. This might ultimately be my biggest betrayal of Kelsea. I feel awful, but then I conjure Rhiannon’s voice in my ear, telling me I am doing the right thing.
Kelsea’s father puts down the drumstick, picks up the journal. Starts reading it. I try to decode his expression. He doesn’t want to be seeing this. Resents that it’s happening. Hates it, even. But not her. He keeps reading because even if he hates the situation, he doesn’t hate her.
“Kelsea …,” he chokes out.
I wish she could see how it hits him. The look on his face, his life caving in. Because then maybe she’d realize, if only for a split second, that even though the world doesn’t matter to her, she matters to the world.
“This isn’t just some … thing?” he asks.
I shake my head. It’s a stupid question, but I’m not going to call him on it.
“So what do we do?”
