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"Ben lived next door. His mother and sisters still do. Plus I work at Ben's mother's clothing store, so I see them all the time. If I felt him at college, it's even worse here. Seeing his family, remembering all the times we hung out here, all the places we went around town. It's a lot, but also somehow easier than college because at least I can also remember being happy here."
"And you weren't happy at college?"
"No. Whereas before, Ben had to keep up pretenses for his family, once we moved away from them, unless he was being the clown for everyone, it was just me and him, and he got to be himself. Which meant he got to actually be depressed. I was constantly having to force him out of bed, to go to classes, to study, to do anything really. It wore on me. At least when we were here, he kind of didn't have a choice to do those things because then his family would have noticed, and he did everything he could for them not to."
"Callie was the exact opposite. Although I got the sympathetic stares and stuff at school, it was no great surprise to anyone at college that Callie killed herself. She was like a ghost at school. Hardly spoke, dark circles under her eyes, and kind of just shuffled from one class to another. At home, even in high school, she would sleep all day, barely mumble a word, barely eat, stare blankly at the TV, and my parents saw it all. One time I had to physically wrestle a knife from Callie and I begged my parents to get her help. They said depression wasn't real, that she did it all for attention, and they weren't going to give it to her. That they weren't going to feed into her theatrics. I got her into therapy on my own, but as soon as my parents saw the charge on their insurance, they went ballistic, yelling about what if someone had seen her going into the office. She only got to have three sessions, but I could swear they helped. It didn't matter to them though. They refused to believe what was right in front of their eyes. Until it was too late. Now depression is all they talk about, feelings this, and emotions that. It's exhausting and only makes me see them for the hypocrites they are even more."
"I know it seems horrible, but I wish Ben's family had seen him that way. I wish they knew even a little of what was going on behind closed doors. Maybe then they would believe he meant to kill himself, and let go of what they want to believe. Even when I brought them his stuff from the dorm, his mom had this smile on like nothing was wrong. It was infuriating, and just...sad."
"My parents haven't moved a single thing out of Callie's room. Her bed is made, all her pictures still hanging up, book on her nightstand open to whatever page she was on."
"That's...disturbing."
"Tell me about it."
"I haven't been able to go into Ben's room at his house yet. It's the last in the hallway, so easy to avoid. I can't see it yet, to see if they changed it to something else, or if they made it into some type of shrine. I don't think I want to know."
My phone suddenly rings out, and I jump.
Elijah smiles. "You really are a scaredy cat."
"Shut up before I make us watch some killer clown movie."
He throws his head back with laughter. "Low blow, Jolie. Low blow. Alright let's see what else we have here."
I lean over to get my phone out of my purse on the floor, already knowing who's calling. My parents. They call again as I hold the phone in my hand and I swipe to reject it. I open a text instead.
Me: I won't be coming home tonight. I'm fine and am somewhere safe.
Mom: You are to come home this instant. You're behaving very irrationally. We already called your job and know you're not working tonight. Wherever you are, you are to leave and come home right now. And we will finish our conversation tomorrow.
Me: There's nothing to finish. It's already done. I am not moving. And I'm not coming home until tomorrow.
Knowing my mother is far from done, and my father will probably be texting or calling any minute as well, I power my phone off and put it back in my purse. Then I sit back in the bed.
"Everything okay?" Elijah asks.
"Yeah. Telling my parents I won't be coming home."
The raise of his eyebrows tells me he's starting to understand just what that means in my household, in my family. But he doesn't say anything else about it.
"Another movie?"
I nod.
He goes through the movies until we settle on an action one, and he hits play. Somehow we end up laying down, my head on his chest and his arm wrapped around my waist. Heat suddenly rushes through me when I realized how tangled up in each other we are. My leg thrown over his thigh, his fingers stroking the little bit of skin from my shirt lifting up.
"We still have a conversation to have," I say low. "About those thoughts that had you smiling."
His hand tightens on my waist. "Are you sure?"
"Sure I want to hear them? Absolutely."
His fingers begin stroking again, pushing my shirt higher this time. The warmth of his hand soaks into me, almost making me shiver.
"As I recall," he begins, and I love how I can feel the vibration of his words through his chest. It goes with the music that is his voice. "We were discussing ways to keep you busy during spring break. All my ideas of how to do that include us being in this bed."
I smile. "Interesting. Clothes or naked?"
