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"What if I had answered his text? What if I had found him on that roof, had been able to talk him down? What if I had tried to get him help, made him seek help? What if I'd gone to that party with him? What if I'd made sure he came to my room instead of going there?"
"What if I had come home earlier? What if I had stayed home from school that day with her? What if I had taken those pills out of the cabinet and hid them from her? What if I'd realized her sudden silence for what it was the night before, when she decided she would end her life the next day? We'll never have the answers to those questions. No matter how bad we seek them, no matter how much we search the void for them. We will forever be denied explanations, and somehow we have to find a way to deal with that."
"If your sister had texted you that, would you have gone?" I ask low, needing the answer for some reason.
"I really don't know. Because I understand all too well why you didn't go to the party, why you ignored that text. You want to be there for them, be their strength in times of weakness, be their rock, but it's so draining. It hurts so much to watch someone you love be in a pain you can't heal, you can't fix. You stay up with them because you're too afraid to leave them alone. You leave situations you do want to be in to go be with them because you fear what you not being with them could do. You cancel other plans, you call out of work, you miss school, and in the end it never truly seems to make a difference because you always end up right back where you were last time, wondering what more you can do? What more can you say, to make things right or better for them." She takes a deep breath. "So, I really don't know if I would have, Elijah. Because God knows I was so tired of being needed, but all the while knowing I was the only one she felt she could lean on. I would ask myself how much longer I could put my life on hold just trying to sustain hers. But she was my sister, so what else could I do? We all have guilt. Yours is that you didn't answer that text. Mine is that I could feel, in my bones, that something was wrong that morning when I left, with her, with the look in her eyes, but I'd been up half the night with her. I just wanted to go to school, come home and sleep before I had to go to work. And I will always wonder if that cost me my sister."
I open my mouth to tell her it's not her fault, to, well...say all the same things to her she just said to me. That she did all she could, she'd been there as much as she could have been. So doesn't that mean if I want to tell her all those things that maybe I should apply them to myself? Believe them within myself? I only wish I could.
We remain silent after that and I turn my hand so our fingers interlock. She leans her head on my shoulder, and I lay my head on hers. I smile at the smell of the hoodie, my scent mixing with hers. It's perfect.
"Thank you, for coming," I say quietly.
"Anytime you call, I will come Elijah."
Her statement makes my spine straighten, and she looks up at me with furrowed brows. "What?"
"Are we becoming like them? Needing other people to come and save us all the time?"
"No," she immediately answers, adamantly shaking her head. "They needed us to save them, from themselves. To be what kept them grounded when all they wanted was to leave this world. Me and you, we know that the other understands in a way that few others can. Me and you, we have a connection, so why wouldn't we count on one another when we're in need. It's not the same. We understand each other, but with Ben and Callie, we were there for them, we did the best we could, but we could never truly understand them, what they were going through. Or at least, I never could."
"I couldn't either. I saw his pain, but I could never truly comprehend the depth of it, I don't think. For him, I could tell it was endless, bottomless, this deep, dark hole that he felt nothing could fill. I don't think I wanted to understand a pain like that."
"Me neither. Not when I saw what pain like that did to a person. But Elijah," she puts her hand on my chin and turns my head to face her. "We are not them."
I nod, swallowing around the emotions in my throat.
We stay there a little while longer, until a few raindrops begin to fall again, the smell of it hitting the asphalt filling the air. One sorely needed tight hug and then we're running to our cars as the rain quickly becomes heavier. Neither of us drives away though. I sit in my car looking at her in hers. She smiles brightly at me, and it hits me how many times she's been the one to turn the conversation to happier topics, to smile and make both our pain disappear, to put on a positive face when that maybe wasn't actually what she felt inside. Like now. And I wonder how many she's had to do that before?
I don't want her to always have to do that with me. I want all her smiles and laughs to be because she means them, not because she feels it'll make the situation better.
She breaks our stare to look down. The phone casts a glow on her face, making it easy to see her small smile. A moment later, my phone buzzes in my pocket, and I look away from her to check it.
Jolie: Is it weird that I feel like I could go to sleep right here, in a car next to you, in the rain?
Me: No. I would do just that if I didn't think we might get arrested in the middle of the night.
Jolie: Good point. Sigh. I guess we'll have to spend the night together some other way soon then.
I look up from my phone to her to see her laughing in her car. Yeah, I want that laugh.
Me: Teasing, huh?
Jolie: Who's teasing?
Me: Interesting. Does this sleepover include that texting conversation we were supposed to have last night?
Jolie: Definitely.
Me: I look forward to both then.
Jolie: Text me when you get home.
Me: Unless you get home first and text me.
Jolie: It's a race then.
She takes off and worry fills me for a second at the sound of her tires screeching. But then she slows down as she eases out of the parking lot, and I shake my head as I follow behind her. We turn our separate ways. I'm just pulling up to my house when I get her text.
