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The camera pans over to Denise doing some trick she learned, and Ben is barely still in the frame. But without the camera focused on him, he lets the mask slip, for just a few seconds. And my heart crumbles as I watch it.
His smile drops, pain etches his face as he lets his head drop back to the wall. His shoulders slump forward and the area between his eyebrows scrunches up as he closes his eyes. I know that look. The one he gives when he is just barely holding himself together. When everything inside of him is falling apart, and he's scrambling to keep the few scraps together until he can get to where it's safe to let those last few pieces go. When his world is too dark to see anything through the black mist, and he's about to spend the next few days, if not weeks, trying to find just a speck of light again.
And to watch it now, to watch my best friend try to hold it together as his mother somehow doesn't see the same thing I do and continues to drone on about how perfect and happy he was... It sets me down a road I know there'll be no returning from the moment the first word leaves my mouth.
"Can you not see?" I shout, standing from the couch.
Regina stops mid-laugh, shocked eyes coming to me. She pauses the video, and I look from her to the screen and back to her again.
"Do you not see Ben in this shot?" I point to the TV. "Can you not see the pain he's in right now?"
Her eyes slowly go to the TV and she looks for a moment. "He was just tired, I'm sure."
"Tired. He was tired half the time. You know why? Because he either hardly slept at all, or slept all day. You want to know what I remember about this day? What this video isn't showing, what Ben would never let show? That he was miserable at that party. That he cried the entire night over at my house talking about how no one understood him, wondering why his mother threw him a party full of people he hardly knew and just made it all the more apparent to him that he would never fit in, that he could never be normal like everyone there. That he could never be happy, not even to celebrate his life. Because it was a life he didn't want."
"Don't you dare," she hisses. "That never happened. You want to make this up, for what? So you could seem like you were better than Ben? How could you say these lies about him? You're supposed to be his best friend."
"I was his best friend. I did everything I could for him. I was the one he called every single time, and I dropped everything, no matter what I was doing, to go and save him. Every single time. I wiped his tears. I held him while he screamed and cried. I told him life was worth living every time he wanted to seek the peace that death promised him. So don't fucking tell me what did and didn't happen, or that I wasn't a best friend to him."
She rises from her seat, slowly, menacingly. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Jolie and my grandma do the same.
"You are a fucking liar," Regina spits. "My son was happy, he had his whole life ahead of him. Did you just see all those videos? Ben was smiling in every one of them, from ear to ear, enjoying his life, enjoying his family."
"And do you know what went on when the cameras weren't on him?" I cut her off. "When the mask dropped, Ben felt he was the screw-up. The only one in the family who got bad grades, who got drunk, who could hardly get out of bed most days. The only one who was different. Unless he could be the clown, he wondered who would want him around. He was going to college and only ever felt like it was a waste of your money because he didn't think he would ever make anything of himself. He was in pain, he felt like nothing would ever get better, and he just wanted it all to end. That's what the videos fail to capture."
"Then why didn't you tell us?" Mikaela croaks. "If all this was going on, why didn't you tell us, so we could help?"
"Because I felt I would be betraying Ben if I did. I was the only one he came to, and I feared if I told you guys, he would stop even coming to me, and then what? I realize now that I should have. That maybe it would have, could have changed things."
Regina's eyes snap to Mikaela. "Don't you believe a fucking word of what he's saying. It's all lies. Don't you, either of you, let him turn you against your brother like this."
"He's not lying Mom," Denise says low.
"What?" Regina shrieks.
"I found a note Ben wrote. He was sad, Mom. He was hurting. I don't know why we didn't see it, or why he hid it from us, but he was hurting. Elijah's right."
Regina shakes her head. "I will not listen to this bullshit another moment."
She begins charging at me, and I prepare myself for whatever she has to give. But Jolie steps in front of me, putting her hand out to stop Regina. Regina stops just short of running into her, eyeing her with disgust now.
"This has nothing to do with you little girl," Regina snarls.
"No,” Jolie agrees. “But if you think I'm going to let you hurt Elijah for speaking the truth, you have another thing coming."
"And you know I will not hesitate to whip your ass if you lay a hand on my grandson," my grandma adds.
I don't want, didn't mean, for it to come to this.
Regina eyes my grandma with rage and then her gaze snaps back to me.
"I have welcomed you into this house most of your life, treated you like family, and this is how you repay me? By spreading lies about my son? By trying to make me see him as some depressed crazy person who would actually jump off of a roof? My son would never do that."
“He was in pain Regina."
Maybe it's the rawness in my voice that finally makes her pause. Finally makes her eyes stare deeply into mine. Tears begin to fill her eyes, and all anger leaves me. Now, I just feel sympathy for a mother. Sympathy for Ben's mother.
"He was in too much pain for any of us to bring him out of. I'm not trying to make anyone feel guilty. I carry enough guilt for all of us. But I just want you to understand why he did what he did. Because yes, he did mean to jump off of that roof. He did mean to end his life."
