What Happened to Always

The next day, Colie wasn’t at school.

That evening, my parents sat me down and told me what she’d done.

They told me that she’d overdosed on the sleeping pills that she’d been taking, combined with her anti-depression medication.

They told me that she died in her sleep.

They told me that her funeral was in a week.

They told me that she didn’t leave a note.

And after that I tuned them out.

Colie didn’t leave a note.

Colie didn’t say goodbye.

I ran up to my room, red-hot emotion coursing through my veins. I couldn’t tell whether it was grief or anger. Maybe it was a bit of both.

I grabbed the picture of Colie that was sitting on my bedside table and stared at it. At her long, pin-straight brown hair. At her wide grey eyes. At her shy smile and triple-pierced ears. My eyes were stinging. I didn’t realize that I was crying until I tasted salt on my lips.

“God, Colie, what the hell,” I choked out. “What were you so sad about? What happened? Why couldn’t you tell me what was wrong? Why did you give up?”

Her last words to me were “You wouldn’t understand.”

Maybe the night before I wouldn’t have been able to understand how intense sadness might drive someone to the point of suicide.

But that evening, crying for the first time in almost twelve years, unable to rip my eyes off of the picture of my girlfriend, my girlfriend who killed herself, I understood.

I walked around in a haze of sadness for a long time after that. I called Colie’s cell phone just so I could hear her voice again.

“Hey, this is Colie! I can’t get to the phone right now, but you can leave a message if you want. Unless you’re like a telemarketer or something. In which case, erase my number from your files or whatever, I’m not interested. Anyhoo, to all you non-telemarketer types, leave a message and I’ll get back to you!” But then her parents got their phone bill and canceled her service.

I didn’t talk to anyone more than I had to. It was too hard. Everything reminded me of Colie. The grey of the clouds matched the grey of her eyes. The girls laughing in the hallway on the way to my classes sounded like her. The dark green sweater she bought me for Christmas mocked me from my closet. I kept finding little notes from her, in my coat pockets and my textbooks and my folders and, once, in my underwear drawer, which made me laugh and cry at the same time. Colie had been so funny and sweet and full of life. What had made her so sad? I didn’t understand.

I was angry at her for a long time. And I was depressed. It was nearly impossible to just keep going through the motions. But somehow I managed.

Six months after she died, I was finally starting to feel a little bit happy once in a while.

And then I found a new note.

She had hidden it in the back of the picture frame that held a picture of her. I wouldn’t have found it, except I had been looking for my iPod and happened to spot the corner of the white paper sticking out of the back of the frame.

I pulled it out of the silver frame and sat staring at it awhile.

Then I opened it, and felt that pain again, fresh and immediate.

Her handwriting was narrow and slanted, the dots of the i’s floating above the next letter, like they were in a hurry to get somewhere.

I took a deep breath and began to read.

Hey, Nate.

So. You’re probably not too happy with me right now. And I’m sorry. The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you. But I couldn’t do it, Nate. I just couldn’t. I was so sad. It was all I ever felt. The meds weren’t working, and I couldn’t sleep because I had nightmares all the time. I was never happy. I don’t even remember what happiness felt like. The closest I got was when I was with you. And even then, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking, “This won’t last, this can’t last, we’re going to college next year, I don’t deserve him, blah blah blah.” I started cutting because I needed to feel something. And I did feel something. And I loved feeling something.

But then you got suspicious, and I was so scared that you would find out, and write me off as a lost cause, because who wants to date a psycho freak? So I stopped cutting. And then I just got so tired of not being able to feel anything, and I was so sad and I couldn’t do it anymore.

And so I made a plan. And I’m doing it tomorrow night.

Unless I somehow feel something other than this awful black nothingness that is my all-the-time emotion between now and tomorrow night.

Somehow I doubt it.

I’m so sorry, Nate.

I’m not sorry that I’m doing this to myself, but I’m sorry that I’m doing this to you.

I love you, Nate.

Always –

Colie

Love me always.

“What happened to always, Colie?” I sobbed. I wanted to scream. The sun was shining and the sky was a beautiful vibrant blue and the air coming in through my slightly open window held the promise of frost that night. It had been Colie’s favorite kind of day. I could barely breathe. After all this time, after six months, after feeling a tiny bit okay once in a while, the memories were surging back, harder and faster than ever. I was still clutching the note in my clammy hands. Reading it had left millions of paper cuts all over my soul.

“What happened to always?” I croaked, but it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t there to answer me. She would never be there to shoot a sarcastic remark my way, or kiss me when I did something stupid, or crack jokes about chemistry with me. I thought that after this long, I would stop hurting so much. But it never stopped.