Don't Cry for Me, Katie

I sat on my bed, staring at the wall, covered in pictures. I reached for the only thing that could comfort me, a stuffed teddy. I picked him up and hugged him tight. Praying for this to all be a sick dream.

Three years. Three full years. Since she had told me she liked me. Since she had told me that we couldn’t be together. Because school was hard on both of us anyway, three years since I had first kissed her.

And now all I had left was memories. I had worthless old memories. And nothing more. She was gone, taken away from me. A long time before she should have been. And it was my fault.

That one kiss had done it forever. One kiss and our world came slowly tumbling down around us. First, she hadnt been allowed to see me outside of school. Then, she would come to school, looking as if she hadnt slept. Hair a mess. Something was wrong.

I asked, I asked so many times what was the matter. But she never said anything. She just went quiet and stopped speaking altogether. I stopped asking after a while. I knew I would never get a straight answer from her. Then she stopped eating again. At first, I didn’t worry, not anymore than usual. She did this every now and then, just didn’t eat much. But this was different, she never ate. She got thinner, deathly thin. But just as I was about to say something about it, she started to eat again. I just figured she had gone abit further with it than usual.

Things were fine then, kind of. She did put back on some weight. And she came to school, looking better but it didn’t last. Two months later, the same thing happened again. She would show up with her hair messed, her clothes dirty, not herself….

I had never been religious, never. I never believed in the thing you would call God. Not until that day, that stupid, day where all I had was my teddy and a wall full of memories. I didn’t want them, I just wanted her. To hold her, and smell her warm smell. Like washing powder and her perfume. To feel her hair in my hands. That wonderful, red brown hair that I loved. And to see her huge hazel eyes. To know she was still there, to know she was still living and breathing. But no matter how hard I prayed. Not matter how long I sat there, hugging my teddy, and praying to God, Allah, Buddha and anyone else that was up there, she still didn’t come back. She was still gone.

It got to the point where she collapsed a few times. She ended up in hospital, the last time. They said she was malnourished, dehydrated. She hadnt been eating. And anything she had eaten, her body was just rejecting it again. They stuck her on a drip feed. And hoped she would get better. It seemed to work, for a few days. Her vital signs got stronger. She woke up. But always complaining of pain.

The doctors didn’t know what it was. They ran test after test. Sticking countless needles into her beautiful arms. She didn’t like that. She tried to pull them back out. They just tied her down. She got stronger, started eating food again, proper food. But still complaining of pain. The doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with her, except for a few bruises on her back and sides. From when she collapsed we all figured.

They let her go home. To her parents. A quick kiss in the hospital lobby before they left with her, that’s all I got. A murmured goodbye. And she was gone, home. I left too. Knowing I would see her tomorrow, but still with a sinking feeling in my stomach. I didn’t know why.

“Katie,” someone says. Coming into my room. My mother. No, she shouldn’t see me like this. I wasn’t supposed to cry. “It’s time to go. Are you ready?” she sounds as if I’m a psycho. Talking the way they always do on tv, or in a movie when the psycho killer is on screen. I get up from my bed and follow my mother downstairs and to the car. Still carrying my teddy.

I had went home. My parents, who knew where they were. Work, a restraunt? I never asked. Never cared either. Too busy hoping she would be okay. Toast and tv, watching a stupid program on Discovery something. Not really paying attention to it. My mind on other things. Emily, mostly.

More toast, more stupid documentaries. It got dark. Parents not home. Not caring.

My phone beeped. A text message from someone. Her I hoped.

New text from Emily xo.

My heart jumped as I read that. I quickly hit the open button.

A flower, a single yellow flower, laying in the dirt. A picture she had taken at least a year before. But one that I loved, even if it did make me sad when I saw it. I scrolled down, to get to the actual message.

Don’t cry for me Katie. I love you, I really do. Goodbye honey. Emily xo.

“What?” I asked. To nobody in particular.

I tried to ring her, no answer. I tried her house, no answer there either. I tried calling her mom. She answered second ring. Told me that she and her husband had gone out to get some things from the store. That I shouldn’t worry about Emily, I was just being paranoid. I hung up and sat back down, trying to convince myself what they said was true.

“She’s fine. Just being paranoid.” I muttered to myself, over and over. Trying to make it sink in. But it wouldn’t.

“Screw it,” I shouted after a while, I grabbed my coat and dragged my bike out of the shed. Cycling as fast as my unexercised legs could send me. Covering the mile between her and my house in ten minutes. The back door of her house was unlocked. Always was. Nobody inside. I called for her.

“Emily?”

No answer.

“Emily?”

Still nothing.

“Please be okay.” I mutter.

Into her room. It’s oddly devoid of her. I leave her room and walk towards the bathroom. The door is closed but unlocked…

“We’re here honey.” I my mother says, rousing me from reliving it, over and over. For the past week and a half. Every time I closed my eyes.

“Okay.” I murmur, not sounding like myself. As if I were one autopilot. I get out of the car, everyone stares. They’re dressed in black. Traditional for a funeral. They give me dirty looks. Me the lesbian, the reason she had died, the reason she had killed herself.

Em?” I ask, opening the door of the bathroom. If she’s in there she doesn’t reply. The door hits something. Something big. I squeeze into the room between the gap. Pills everywhere, her meds. My eyes move from left to right, avoiding looking at her. On the bathroom floor, in her favorite pajamas. Pale, and not breathing. I check for a pulse, nothing.

A note on the floor, in her tidy writing. I don’t read it. I cant bear to read it.

The funeral happens quickly. Readings, prayers. All that ceremonial crap. Her mother gives a speech, saying they didn’t know why Emily would have done something like that. LIES! She knew perfectly well why she had done it. People file out at the end, making their way after the hearse to the graveyard. Where they bury her. I don’t go, I cant do it. I breakdown in the car park. After everyone else had left. Just me and teddy.

She was gone. Because of me, because of the stupid fact that I loved her. Because her parents found out. Because they put her through hell. So she gave up, the strongest person I knew, and she gave up.

I took my phone out. And found her text message.

Don’t cry for me Katie. I love you, I really do.

“I love you too Emily.” I whisper to my bear. I don’t know why, it just feels like the right thing to do. “And I always will.”