We Should've Seen It Coming

“My name’s Annabelle Greene. But you know that. Everyone knows me. I’m the psychotic bitch. Every school has one… The few friends I had are gone now; I blew it with them. I blow it with everyone, don’t I? Casey, Amanda… Jamie. Jamie, I want you to know that I still love you. You’re the most amazing man I’ve ever met. Casey and Amanda, I want you to know I’m sorry I drove you away. And everyone else? I’m doing you all a favor. None of you ever liked me in the first place…”

Those were the first words in Annabelle Greene’s suicide video.

I guess we should’ve seen it coming. She wasn’t the most popular girl in school; no one really liked her. She had depression and everyone knew it, so we did what most teenagers do when we don’t understand something: we made fun of her.

We should’ve seen it coming. She started acting out. We started seeing her at more parties. She’d get the most shit-faced out of everyone. In English, when we discussed Shakespeare, she’d take sides with the bad guy. Tybalt was her favorite character in Romeo & Juliet; she always justified his cruel, mindless actions. In other classes, she’d openly say she thought the teacher was a ‘fucking idiot who needed to get his facts straight and learn how to deal with teenagers.’

We should’ve seen it coming. She slowly stopped acting out. She’d be more subtle. Instead of seeing her with the boy she liked, Jamie, and her two best friends Amanda and Casey, she’d be sitting at the other end of the cafeteria, alone. In classes, she’d silently cry and put her long hair in front of her face so it seemed she was hiding. She never went to parties at all, and the rare times she did, she was sitting alone in a corner with some punch, watching everyone.

The day her video was posted on Facebook, the world had gone to hell for her.

Jamie and her had gotten into a fight. We all knew it because we all heard it outside our classrooms in the hall. The teachers had to come out and break it up, sending them both to the counselor’s office. They didn’t sort it out.

She had also gotten into a fight with her friends. No one knew about that while it happened, but we heard the two girls complaining about Annabelle and the fight they’d had earlier. They kept saying they were through with her mood swings.

The class before she ditched was the most memorable thing of that day. That probably should’ve been the key event for everyone to realize what was happening, but we were all too stupid. Even the teacher.

It was English. We were giving an oral report on Romeo & Juliet. When it came to be Annabelle’s turn, she stood up quietly and went to the front, holding some index cards to read off of.

We expected it to be boring just like every other report, but it wasn’t.

“Romeo’s a horny idiot and Juliet’s a naïve, lovesick kid,” were her first words. Everyone perked up then, looking towards the teacher to see what the reaction was.

“Both of the families, the Capulets and the Montagues, were childish and seemingly mentally deficient. But who am I to say what was going on between their families? Tybalt, the key ‘villain,’ was probably the smartest of them all. He kept what he knew close to his heart and acted on his impulse. He was human, unlike these idiots who believed in love. He saw Romeo for what he was and didn’t think any different because he saw all Montagues that way. He knew that humans are low-class, stupid, naïve, pointless, hideous things and he lived bitterly because of that truth.” Annabelle dropped her index cards then. “God, even that was bullshit. Do you want to know what I really think?”

Hell yes we did! But the teacher didn’t; he tried to stop her but she ignored his warnings and kept on ranting.

“Shakespeare didn’t write that to be a romance – he didn’t even write that to be a tragedy. He wrote it to be ironic. And realistic. All the other girls my age think it’s cute and sweet that they’d die for each other. But you know what? If you’re going to die, die for something that has meaning. Love is an empty, pathetic word that ruins you. Shakespeare knew that! It was because they ‘loved’ each other that they ended themselves. Love is a strong feeling, but it’s an empty feeling that was made by humans to give themselves hope in a world that’s bitter. Romeo and Juliet must’ve believed that it would be this great gesture, but if when you’re reading it, you see that they’re just dead. They’re not romantic, they’re dead. They’re not cute, they’re dead. They’re not making a gesture, they are DEAD!” Her voice was rising.

Around then, the teacher began walking up to the front saying firmly that that was enough, Annabelle. She should go back to her seat before she was sent to the office.

She only had her voice rise. “You know what? They were better off dead! They were idiots! When it comes down to it, everyone’s better off dead, aren’t they? You are, you are, you are” – she pointed to various students – “and even you are, Mr. Whatever-Your-Fucking-Name-Is!”

The teacher was now seething.

But Annabelle didn’t stop. Slowly, she winded down, though. “And you know what? You know fucking what? I am too.”

Her report was over and she silently went back to her seat as if she had given a normal report. Five minutes later she was sent to the office and given a talking-to by the principal.

She didn’t show up for her next class. We all knew she’d ditched. Someone claimed they saw her walking off the campus and to her car nonchalantly, but as soon as she got in they saw her scream and begin sobbing. Then she drove off.

Most of us found that funny.

I didn’t.

I was beginning to realize something was really wrong. But I laughed and joked and pretended all the same, feeling guilt flood my soul as I did so. I didn’t want to end up like her, hated and strange and wild.

After football practice – where my best friend noticed I was off, thinking about her – I was approached by the coach.

“Blake, you were out of focus today. You’re our star player and we have a big game tomorrow.”

Yeah, yeah. I replied that I was fine and that I hadn’t eaten all day and hadn’t slept much the night before. In truth I’d slept well and ate every hour or so.

When I got home and signed on to Facebook, Annabelle’s video was on the top news. In the thumbnail picture she was on her bed, her cheeks tearstained and her eyes already dead as she looked into her webcam.

I didn’t know what else to do except press play.

“My name’s Annabelle Greene. But you know that. Everyone knows me. I’m the psychotic bitch. Every school has one… The few friends I had are gone now; I blew it with them. I blow it with everyone, don’t I? Casey, Amanda… Jamie. Jamie, I want you to know that I still love you. You’re the most amazing man I’ve ever met. Casey and Amanda, I want you to know I’m sorry I drove you away. And everyone else? I’m doing you all a favor. None of you ever liked me in the first place…”

I slowly felt my heart sinking into the pit of my stomach; I didn’t quite understand what she was saying but I knew that she was going to do something. Something bad.

“Everyone’s going to wonder what the big thing was that sent me over the edge. The thing is, there isn’t one. This isn’t a teenage angst movie; there isn’t one event that made me do this. It’s all of you. This is what all of you have done to me. So when people say ‘Annabelle Greene took her own life,’ I want you all to correct them. I want you to look them dead in the eye and say ‘No, we killed her.’”

It hit me like a ton of bricks. She was going to kill herself. For all I knew, she was already on the bathroom floor, her eyes wide open and hear breathing slowing down with an empty bottle of pills in her hand. Or maybe a gun. Or a razor. Or she could be hanging limp from the ceiling of her room. Or she could be lying in her bathtub fully drowned.

“So… what I want to say is… bye, I guess. Bye to my mom and dad and little sister, bye to Jamie, bye to Amanda and Casey, bye to all of you who did this to me. Keep smiling you guys, keep whispering about me. This isn’t going to affect the way things are. I’m still a loser bitch psycho. The only difference is that I’m not breathing.”

The video ended then.

I went onto Annabelle’s page and looked under her about me. I wrote down her address and jumped into my Jeep, speeding down a couple of blocks until I was at her house.

No one was home; there wasn’t a car in the driveway and I could only see the light of one room: probably Annabelle’s. Her sister would still be at school.

I opened the unlocked door and yelled out her name.

No response.

I ran up the stairs and into her empty room. Lacey underwear and band t-shirts were strewn across the floor. I was surprised to see such a girly room, but I couldn’t think of that at the moment – I had to find Annabelle…

“What the fuck are you doing here, Blake?”

I spun around to see Annabelle lying beside on the floor, practically under her bed. I was surprised I hadn’t seen her before. Her voice was weak. She looked tired. Bleeding arms were staining the floor.

“Annabelle—”

Her voice sounded faint. “How did you find me?”

I didn’t answer her, just pulled her out from under the bed and picked her up, laying her on the bed and sitting beside her. “Where are some paper towels?” I asked stiffly, unsure of what to do.

“No, Blake. You never liked me anyway… Why are you…” Her voice faded out and she started to close her eyes.

I ripped my shirt off and applied the pressure to her wrists best I could. Frantic, I told her it was going to be alright.

“I know… I’ll be dead…” Her voice was getting fainter and fainter.

“No you won’t.”

“Go home… Blake…”

“No.”

“Go home… you hate me… you helped make this… happen.”

Those were Annabelle’s last words to me before she died on her bed, me above her trying to keep her from slipping away. I didn’t know what to do. I was dead silent, staring at her fresh corpse.

I flipped through the desk after about an hour of sitting there, finding her mom’s number. “Mrs. Greene? You don’t know me, but my name is Blake Jameson. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I… your daughter… Annabelle killed herself an hour ago.”

Her mother screamed and the phone went dead. I heard sirens. Cars began pulling up. I just sat there, silent, numb, unsure what to do. It would hit me later and I would cry harder than anyone, but for the moment everything was in slow motion and nothing was happening. It was all surreal.

I think I blacked out, because I don’t remember anything after that. I don’t even remember the weeks before her funeral. I think I might’ve thrown that game coach had been talking about. I got kicked off the team when that persisted. At least I think so, because I’m not on the team anymore. I don’t remember anything that happened at all before her funeral.

The guy giving the speech said ‘Annabelle took her own life,’ and before I knew what I was doing I stood up and corrected him, looking him dead in the eye. “I’m sorry, sir, but you have the information wrong. All of us killed her, sir. It was all us. It was a murder, sir. Not a suicide.”

I think that’s when everyone started thinking I’d cracked.

And that’s when I ended up like Annabelle had been. An outcast with two friends, quiet, talked about. Whispered about. I did the things she had done in the weeks prior to her death. Act out. Quiet down. Repeat.

I was practically a zombie. I was the male version of everything Annabelle had been. I became depressed, but I refused to go on meds.

Maybe that’s why I lost it only a year later; it took me a lot less time than Annabelle.

Because now, I’m lying partially beneath my bed, my wrists slit, feeling the world slip away from me. I’m blacking out. I’m dying. I am Annabelle, I feel her inside of me, I feel myself disintegrating, rotting, turning into nothing.

The only difference between Annabelle’s death and mine?

No one’s trying to rescue me.