I Wrote the Sky
One
The first time April told me she’d been thinking of suicide was one of the best days I’d had in a long time. Not that she ever did kill herself, I should probably say. The sun shone down across us as we kicked aimlessly through a large, overgrown field. It was a Saturday, sometime in the middle of June, but I forget when exactly.
She had called me that morning on the number she’d saved in my phone as ‘Always Answer!!’, and demanded that I go on a walk with her. I’d spent the last few days in bed, alternating between occasional moments of genuine happiness, and hours of empty numbness. I hadn’t told anyone that, and at the time it was pretty hard to get my own head around. I was off school with a ‘stomach bug’.
I hadn’t spoken to anyone besides my dad in the 76 hours prior to her calling. She practically sang down the phone, unusually bright at 9AM (for someone not usually a ‘morning person’), and I just couldn’t say no.
I’d woken up feeling slightly lighter anyway, and I shuffled around my dirty bedroom floor, looking for something, anything to wear that wasn’t stinking. The only thought I had as I grubbed around on all fours for a clean vest was about how bad my fingers looked. Red nail-polish, chipping off at the tips, showing the greasy yellowed ends that I’d picked up from three days of solid chain-smoking.
Despite all of this, though, I felt almost content as I left the house. My dad smiled at me and hugged me before I left, and I pretended not to notice how glazed his eyes were. He was happy I was going out for once, even if it was with April. It was no secret (at least not to him, anyway), that I was a mess. April probably knew too, underneath her soft occasional humour and the perfume she liked to spray over her bust twice a day, she read people really well. And she’d known me for twelve years of my life at that point.
My own head was all over the place, but I generally had pretty good control over my life. My mum had fucked me up over the years, just like she’d done with Dad, but she'd been gone a while, and I was getting better. I slipped up sometimes, spent a day or five in bed, but I was quietly on the up.
The grass felt strange under my feet as I stepped through it. It was too long, crunching down under my weight into the shape of my plain shoes. I was half walking, half running to keep up with April’s fast stride. She ripped through the ankle length grass way too quickly for us to have a conversation, walking with a determination that made her purple bag bounce up and off her leg, hitching up from her shoulder.
Several minutes of silent marching later, April slid down in the shade of a tree. She slumped her bag off and leant against the tree’s trunk. She smiled at me as I sat down, carding a hand through her long blonde hair, and I tossed her the pouch of Golden Virginia without even looking at her.
I stared out across the field as she rolled, one for me, one for her. It was a Saturday, but the field was deserted. Just a stretched out piece of green, long grass and pretty weeds with no one enjoying them. And us. Us on the side, not even really on the field, just watching it stand still from the outskirts.
Not that I’d have wanted it any other way. I know I’m coating everything with this fine shade of black, like a shadow, but I was happy then, I swear. I remember being so. I was cross-legged on the cool shaded grass, watching the world not move. My life, for that moment, was the indie-film I’d always wanted it to be.
I heard April’s lighter click several times before I turned around. She had both cigarettes poised on her lips next to each other. One hand was wrapped around them, a wind-shield as she sparked the lighter again and again, trying to light them both at the same time. She was eventually successful, and she leant forward and passed me mine.
There was another moment of comfortable quiet as we inhaled, and then as smoke poured slowly out of her mouth, she softly made her casual conversation.
‘I’ve been thinking of suicide.’ The words fell as though it was something she was considering buying, picking up, or maybe even growing. The nonchalance dripped from her words, and she took another drag. I stared at her calm features, her dull blue eyes, not focused on anything.
‘Why?’ I returned after a pause.
‘There’s nothing else to do around here.’ She looked up at me, flicked the ash onto the grass, and put the cigarette back to her lips. Her fingers were yellowing, just like mine.
‘Oh,’ I said, and nothing more. Her words had such an innocence around them that it seemed as if it could just be a practical joke. But her innocence was calculated, and it was the same White Dress Pink Cheeks kind of air she’d had when she lied to her parents the summer before about still being a virgin.
She smiled, again, pressing her tongue against the gap between her teeth. ‘I think James is going to ask me out for coffee,’ she said in the same tone. Soft, almost to the point of apathy.
I didn’t know whether she was still ‘thinking of suicide’, as she’d put it, or whether her mind sped so quickly that she’d stopped thinking about it the moment it left her lips. We sat in the shade and chatted idly for the rest of the day, and I thawed out. Became more like me. Or maybe more like her.
We drank through a bottle of cheap wine and smoked sparingly because I was running out of tobacco, and her parents had confiscated hers. It felt like summer, and I felt like I was home.
She had called me that morning on the number she’d saved in my phone as ‘Always Answer!!’, and demanded that I go on a walk with her. I’d spent the last few days in bed, alternating between occasional moments of genuine happiness, and hours of empty numbness. I hadn’t told anyone that, and at the time it was pretty hard to get my own head around. I was off school with a ‘stomach bug’.
I hadn’t spoken to anyone besides my dad in the 76 hours prior to her calling. She practically sang down the phone, unusually bright at 9AM (for someone not usually a ‘morning person’), and I just couldn’t say no.
I’d woken up feeling slightly lighter anyway, and I shuffled around my dirty bedroom floor, looking for something, anything to wear that wasn’t stinking. The only thought I had as I grubbed around on all fours for a clean vest was about how bad my fingers looked. Red nail-polish, chipping off at the tips, showing the greasy yellowed ends that I’d picked up from three days of solid chain-smoking.
Despite all of this, though, I felt almost content as I left the house. My dad smiled at me and hugged me before I left, and I pretended not to notice how glazed his eyes were. He was happy I was going out for once, even if it was with April. It was no secret (at least not to him, anyway), that I was a mess. April probably knew too, underneath her soft occasional humour and the perfume she liked to spray over her bust twice a day, she read people really well. And she’d known me for twelve years of my life at that point.
My own head was all over the place, but I generally had pretty good control over my life. My mum had fucked me up over the years, just like she’d done with Dad, but she'd been gone a while, and I was getting better. I slipped up sometimes, spent a day or five in bed, but I was quietly on the up.
The grass felt strange under my feet as I stepped through it. It was too long, crunching down under my weight into the shape of my plain shoes. I was half walking, half running to keep up with April’s fast stride. She ripped through the ankle length grass way too quickly for us to have a conversation, walking with a determination that made her purple bag bounce up and off her leg, hitching up from her shoulder.
Several minutes of silent marching later, April slid down in the shade of a tree. She slumped her bag off and leant against the tree’s trunk. She smiled at me as I sat down, carding a hand through her long blonde hair, and I tossed her the pouch of Golden Virginia without even looking at her.
I stared out across the field as she rolled, one for me, one for her. It was a Saturday, but the field was deserted. Just a stretched out piece of green, long grass and pretty weeds with no one enjoying them. And us. Us on the side, not even really on the field, just watching it stand still from the outskirts.
Not that I’d have wanted it any other way. I know I’m coating everything with this fine shade of black, like a shadow, but I was happy then, I swear. I remember being so. I was cross-legged on the cool shaded grass, watching the world not move. My life, for that moment, was the indie-film I’d always wanted it to be.
I heard April’s lighter click several times before I turned around. She had both cigarettes poised on her lips next to each other. One hand was wrapped around them, a wind-shield as she sparked the lighter again and again, trying to light them both at the same time. She was eventually successful, and she leant forward and passed me mine.
There was another moment of comfortable quiet as we inhaled, and then as smoke poured slowly out of her mouth, she softly made her casual conversation.
‘I’ve been thinking of suicide.’ The words fell as though it was something she was considering buying, picking up, or maybe even growing. The nonchalance dripped from her words, and she took another drag. I stared at her calm features, her dull blue eyes, not focused on anything.
‘Why?’ I returned after a pause.
‘There’s nothing else to do around here.’ She looked up at me, flicked the ash onto the grass, and put the cigarette back to her lips. Her fingers were yellowing, just like mine.
‘Oh,’ I said, and nothing more. Her words had such an innocence around them that it seemed as if it could just be a practical joke. But her innocence was calculated, and it was the same White Dress Pink Cheeks kind of air she’d had when she lied to her parents the summer before about still being a virgin.
She smiled, again, pressing her tongue against the gap between her teeth. ‘I think James is going to ask me out for coffee,’ she said in the same tone. Soft, almost to the point of apathy.
I didn’t know whether she was still ‘thinking of suicide’, as she’d put it, or whether her mind sped so quickly that she’d stopped thinking about it the moment it left her lips. We sat in the shade and chatted idly for the rest of the day, and I thawed out. Became more like me. Or maybe more like her.
We drank through a bottle of cheap wine and smoked sparingly because I was running out of tobacco, and her parents had confiscated hers. It felt like summer, and I felt like I was home.