Ms. Ricks thanks her for sharing that when she knew it was probably pretty scary to. She tells her how proud she is for still being here, still fighting.
I’m not, though.
All of a sudden, I’m back in the doorway of a different room, a different time. Isabelon the floor. Watching her not be here anymore, even though her body was right in front of me. I can still physically feel the pain, the regret I instantly felt because I should have been there to stop her; I should have done something.
I see Lydia lying on the same floor next to her. The girl who did make it, the one I was able to get to, who’s here now, telling her story. A story that breaks my heart and makes me want to take it from her and carry it instead. Things I wish she never had to go through…but things that I know have shaped her into who she is, and who she’ll become. I can’t take that from her, as much as I wish I could remove the pain from the story. It’s hers.
“Bash,” Ms. Ricks says, turning to me. “Anything you want to add before we round this up?”
My mouth opens. Nothing comes out. I shake my head once, not to say no, but to say give me a minute. “I—uh,” I say, but it’s all gravelly. “I just need a second. I remembered that I—”
I have no real excuse, and everyone knows it. I get up, and I try not to look at Lydia, but my eyes betray me on the way past. When they land on hers, it’s like stepping on a nail. She knows. She sees this hitting me, and the last thing I want is for her to think she has to make room for my feelings aboutherfeelings.
Outside, the air is colder than it should be. It’s what I need, though. I need the cold to shock my system. I lean against the brick, put my forehead to it for a second, and try to stop the anger. I’m angry at this universe and at the devil for thinking it was funny to load a kid’s life with that much loss and then dare her to try sobriety on top of it. It’s hard to wrap my head around what it would be like to go through all of that. Hard to figure out why I feel so strongly about it, why it hits so close to my own pain, but also makes my pain seem so small in comparison.
When I go back in, I stand behind everyone instead of sitting back down, and listen like that forthe rest of the night. People talk for a little longer, and then we close out. Two guys catch me afterward to ask about some of the other groups on campus and resources. I answer them, but my eyes keep tracking the back of the room where Lydia is slipping out.
I hate myself for what I do next—excusing myself mid-conversation. “Hey, I’m going to pass you off to Ms. Ricks; she normally has the full list of campus resources,”—but I do it because I need to talk to her.
I slip out of the room and try to find her, hoping she’s not too far. Then I spot her pretty quickly.
“Lydia,” I call out.
She stops in the middle of the hallway, and I jog over. “Can you…could you stay a minute?” I sound like I forgot how to be normal. “I need to finish up with Ms. Ricks. I just…if you have time, I wanted to…talk.”
She stands there for a moment, assessing me. “Okay,” she eventually says. “I’ll be outside.”
I go back in and do everything I need to finish up with Ms. Ricks before I head back out.
Lydia’s sitting on the bench when I walk out, phone in her hand but not really looking at it.
She looks up at me, and I extend my hand out to her. “Wanna walk with me?”
She takes it, and I help her up, even though she didn’t need it. I think we both just needed the contact. Something safe. Something that was nothing but doesn’t feel like nothing. We fall into step beside each other, walking on the sidewalk that leads to the middle of campus.
“I’m proud of you,” I tell her after the silence lasts a little too long. “That was a lot back there. You didn’t have to share any of it, but you did.”
She gives me a look I can’t read fully. “Is that why you ran off? Because of what I said?”
I bite down on the truth. “No,” I say. “And…yes. But not because—” I rake a hand over my hair and exhale. “Not because it was too much, or because you were too much. It just…hit me, and hurt a little.”
“Why?” she asks, curiously.
Because I care about you in a way that has rules wrapped around it. Because I hate that the world did this to you. Because I know what some of those rooms look like, and I would bulldoze you a better one if I could.
But I swallow all of that.
“Because I care when any person’s story sounds like that.” The second I say it, I hear how safe it sounds and hate it. “I wish I could take those kinds of things out of the world. People don’t deserve it.”
“Oh,” she says. The corner of her mouth kicks up like she wants to smile and doesn’t. “Just…any person? Any stranger?”
I know what she’s asking…and screw it. I can’t say the thing outright, but I can tell the truth around it.
“It’s not quite the same asanystranger,” I say, smirking. “But I can’t technically say that…so I said it how I had to.”
She lets that sit.
“Hm, yeah…that’s how I felt hearing about your sister. I hated that pain for you…I mean, the only experience I have with suicide is a traumatic one and then my own…but I still understand in a lot of ways. I understand your pain, and I understand hers…”
