Reasons to Live

I guess you’d think that after you die, things would all change. And maybe it does, while everybody’s remembering that that chair was yours, that squeaky locker that was always sounding off a minute before the late bell rang, was all yours, and that that sound won’t ever be heard again until some newbie or freshman comes unwittingly into that territory.

But after awhile, that stuff starts to fade. The teacher changes seats a couple weeks later, your locker-neighbor gets used to the silence. Everybody moves on.

Whenever I thought about suicide, I always believed nobody would ever notice I disappeared. It’s hard to disappear when you’re invisible. I was right and wrong. For those first couple weeks, I was noticed, but only because I wasn’t there to notice. A name on the attendance sheet didn’t get a reply, bringing attention to it where it had never been, because I’d always been there. Then you get the announcement, that a student died in a car wreck. Even in that, I wasn’t really out of the norm. High schoolers die in car accidents all the time, so I wasn’t really a tragedy. I was a “shame” and my death a “waste.”

But there was one person who apparently didn’t think so. And she was sitting in my lap.

Okay, so I may not be willing to take liberties with Pine, but Sandra is a total other matter. I clench my little butt muscles on that leather seat and watch her sit through my intangible self, and derive a certain satisfaction as she shudders. She will never know I’m here, never know that there’s an honest-to-God reason that she never felt quite comfortable in Pine’s car. And I’m fine with that. I’ve never been the kind to relish another’s pain or anything, but I can only imagine how she relished mine.

But why me, right? If I was so invisible, why would she want to kill me? And how would I even know about it? Honestly, I don’t know. When I got into my car that day, there had been a note on a library receipt pinned under my windshield wiper—inked, and on a rainy day. I remember, because even as I peeled it off in disgust, the message “HE’S MINE” was still on the window where I could read it, even when the paper was gone. I didn’t really get it; I just figured some catfight was being waged on the wrong car. I didn’t even notice my brakes were out until I was speeding down the road, since I always just used the manual gears to slow me down until I would hit an honest stop sign. But that stop sign wasn’t heeded when I died, and I flew off the hill going thirty into open air. I guess it’s true what you always hear—it’s not the fall that kills you, but the landing sure will.

The ironic thing was, when I floated above my corpse, I was more sorrowful over the mangled form that was my little Honda. I never really made the effort to try and see my shattered body; like at a funeral, refusing to go to the open casket, because you’d much rather remember the person alive and breathing. My self esteem has never been good enough that I want to see myself looking like something from Red Asphalt.

I think I’m getting off point. So Sandra sent me off the hill. But how do I know? Because her brother felt guilty about it. He went to find her in the parking lot, as I floated above my parking spot to see if something had fallen out of my car. A kinda stupid attempt at discovery, I know, but it’s how I overheard how guilty her brother was, that he said she’d said it was a joke, but he didn’t want her to kill anybody, and that’s what had happened. So I drifted a little closer as she hissed about how her boyfriend had been eyeballing a quiet little girl with brown hair and glasses. That the “little bitch” had dyed her hair blonde for him had just clinched it, and she couldn’t bear to lose him.

So I guess I do know why she went after me and all, but I can’t believe she felt threatened by me. And I’d never even known I’d gotten Pine’s attention until after I was gone. And to think I’d been contemplating suicide anyway, just before I died. Maybe, if I hadn’t died…my life could have finally turned around.