Suicide Watch

SUICIDE WATCH

By Kelley York

Published by Kelley York

Smashwords Edition 1.0

Copyright 2012 Kelley A. York

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Go Away. I'm all right.

– H. G. Wells

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Acknowledgments

About the Author

June

CHAPTER 1

Last Christmas Eve, I watched a girl throw herself off the Woodshire Bridge.

I didn't know her. I'd never seen her around town or anything.

(Though it's not like I get out much.)

She was a stranger I happened to see during my early morning jog, a mile and a half from home.

Not raining, but cold and wet. I stopped at the end of the bridge beneath the shadows of dew-dripping trees, and watched. She didn't notice me. Or maybe she noticed and simply didn't care. By that point, I'm not sure she cared about much of anything. She had on a plaid jacket and black pants, her blonde hair tangled, whipping around her face as she slung her legs over the guard rail. The ledge on the other side wasn't even wide enough for her feet, so she clung to the railing behind her and stared down into the abyss.

At first glance, I had no idea what she was doing. The idea seemed too bizarre, too out there. But I'd heard of people jumping off the bridge. It was prime suicide territory. A newer, wider, sturdier bridge was built closer to the main roads, leaving the Woodshire Bridge pretty abandoned. I've heard how the drop is so high that a body shatters on impact with the water. Even if that didn't kill you, you wouldn't be in any shape to swim and the river would swallow you up. The idea terrified me, but the jumping girl wasn't afraid. From where I stood, I could see her face, and she was so...

Peaceful.

As her hands started to uncurl from the rail, I stepped forward to call after her, to say...I don't know.

Something. Anything.

"Hey!"

My voice wavered, but there was no way she couldn't have heard me.

She stopped, one hand still on the rail, the other hanging free, and looked at me. She didn't say a word, but waited to see what I wanted as though I'd flagged her down on the street to ask for directions.

In that moment, I should've said a lot of things. I should've asked her why she wanted to die, if living really was that bad. If I could do anything to change her mind and did she realize the number of bones she would break by jumping and...

None of those things came to mind.

I asked, "What's your name?"

My question startled her. Of all the things, right? And at first I thought she wouldn't respond until she finally said, "Jessica."

Jessica. Jessica the Jumper. I swallowed hard.

"Don't you think someone will miss you, Jessica?"

Her smile was a distant. Muscle memory. Not truly reaching her eyes. "No one will miss me. You'll see."

She spread her arms wide and jumped.

I never saw her hit the water; she vanished into the fog.

Jessica was right. I searched the papers both online and offline for any mention of a girl who leapt off the bridge. No missing person's report, no obituary, no found body, nada. The world kept turning. Jessica the Jumper was gone and nobody cared. And yet, she'd looked so relaxed and at peace. She was grateful to be getting the hell out of this world and into whatever lies beyond. Her sadness is over.

Since then, I've thought a lot about her. Anytime I get stressed out, I remember her face and I breathe deep, in and out, in and out, trying to find within myself that calm state of being she'd achieved just before death. Sometimes it works. Sometimes, it doesn't.

At this particular moment in time, it fails miserably.

Even when I'm standing in front of an auditorium full of people alongside my graduating class—which consists of a whopping thirty people—I'm thinking about Jessica. I wonder how old she was. If she graduated, or had plans of graduating. If she went to a regular school or an independent study course like me.

Which is why we've got such a small group of students here. The independent course, I mean. A few of them did it to graduate high school early, but a majority of them, myself included, are here because we were not cut out for regular school.

Since we're the throwaways, we're also wearing cheap, borrowed cap and gowns that make my arms itch. Or maybe that has to do with the fact I've got a hundred pairs of eyes on me.

I want to crawl out of my own skin. Peel it off and run screaming from the room.

I keep scanning the crowd, over the tops of heads, looking for Maggie. I don't see her but I know she's out there somewhere. I left the house this morning after she waved me off and told me to get out of her hair so she could make herself look presentable for the ceremony. And despite her clipped tone, I knew she was pleased. After all, we've spent the last three years, since she took me in as her foster kid, not knowing if I'd make it to this. I wouldn't have if it weren't for her.

"Vincent Hazelwood," calls the announcer.

The guy standing next to me shoves an elbow into my ribs so I'll step forward. I can't walk across this small stage with all these eyes on me. No way. I flunked subjects because I refused to get up in front of the class to give reports or participate in group activities.

But Maggie is out there. And I've let her down so much. It would be nice to make her proud with my attempt to be normal, even just this once.

Legs wobbling, I shamble to the lady at the mic and take the diploma she offers me. Even shake her hand and manage a tight-lipped smile, which I offer to the crowd. See, I can do something without screwing it up. Though I don't say thank you before hurrying off the stage because I'm about three seconds from either bursting into tears, or hurling on her nice shoes.

In the adjoining room, I claw off the scratchy gown and toss the cap aside, clutching the diploma tight. Maybe it's nothing special, maybe it's not even like a real diploma from a real high school (I never asked if they were the same) but, damn it, it's mine and I worked hard for it. All I want to do is get out of here and find Maggie and show it to her. Maybe she will take me for something nice to eat. Maybe she will even give me a hug. She doesn't do that often.

They're on the T names when I step back into the main room and start squirming my way through the tightly packed crowd. So many people for so few graduates all squeezed into a little rented auditorium like sardines. Yet even once I've made it to the far back near the double doors leading out, there's no sign of Maggie. She would've seen me get off stage and headed for the exit, right?

I wait until the rest of the graduates are called. Until the kids I know vaguely by faces but not names have joined up with their families and move past me out the doors until there are just a handful left.

A handful, me, and no Maggie.

Maybe she's running late. That's what I tell myself as I head out to the parking lot, squinting, looking around for her ugly gold minivan. As quickly as I think it, I know it's unlikely. Maggie is a lot of things—distant, crass, cranky, overbearing—but she's never late.

I fish my lock key and phone out of my pocket as I head for my bike. I've got three missed calls from a number I don't recognize, and a voicemail. I halt beside my bike, heart thumping wildly. I can feel it in my fingertips, my toes, my ears. That number doesn't have to mean anything. They're just numbers. Maybe even a wrong number. I get people calling all the time asking for someone who isn't me. Nobody calls me except Maggie. I unlock the bike and swing onto it, and let the voicemail play.

"Hi, this is Debra. I'm calling from Shire Hospital for Vincent Hazelwood. If you could please give me a call back..."

What does that mean? Why would the hospital be calling?

Unless—unless. Maggie fell. Broke a leg, a wrist, a hip. She's a tough old dame, but she's got the bones of a bird like anyone her age would. I'll try not to be mad when I see her. I guess a broken bone is a good enough reason for having missed out on my important day. Though I wish I would've known so I could spare myself the agony of walking across that stage.

I don't call Debra back. The hospital's between here and home, so I'll head over there. If Maggie broke something, she'll need me to drive anyway. Right? Right.

#

I've never really been in a hospital before. Never needed to. So I turn in circles until someone points me to a nurse's station and I tell them my name, and that I'm looking for Debra. They send me to another nurse's station down the hall where I find a short, pudgy lady with graying hair, and a name tag. Debra. I stand in front of her desk and stare at her until she looks up.

"Oh, I didn't even—I'm sorry. Can I help you?"

I hold up my phone, like that'll somehow answer anything. "You, uh. You called me."

A frown tugs at her face.

"I'm Vince Hazelwood," I say, then repeat, "You called me."

Debra's expression immediately smooths out. Softens. "Oh, honey..." She pushes her chair back and stands, stepping around the desk to draw me off to one side, out of the hall. "I called about Maggie Atkins. You're her...?"

"Foster son." My voice wavers. Where the hell did that come from? I would have liked to say I'm her real son and she's my mom, where is she? Except Maggie never adopted me officially. I wouldn't let her. "What'd she do, trip carrying laundry into the house? Fall in the shower?"

The look she's giving me...I don't like it. Makes my insides twist all up.

"She had a heart-attack, sweetheart," Debra says.

I squint at her, not understanding. "Okay."

"Earlier this afternoon. A neighbor was there. But by the time the ambulance arrived, there was nothing they could do."

She strokes my arm but I don't really feel it. Kind of numb all over, actually. All I can think to say is, "Women don't die from heart-attacks."

"They..." Debra purses her lips. "What makes you think that?"

I stare at her because I don't have an answer. It seems true. Statistics or something, isn't it? Maybe if I say it enough, think it enough, it'll be true.

But it's not.

At the end of the day, I'm still peddling the four miles home where Maggie left chicken thawing on the counter for dinner and the book she was reading is open on the table. I wonder if it was a good book. I wonder if she would be disappointed she didn't get to finish it.

I pick up the book and throw it across the room. The sound it makes hitting the far wall isn't as satisfying as I hoped it would be.

I think I should be doing something. Maybe calling people to tell them what's happened. Maggie has a few friends whose numbers are listed in a rolodex in the kitchen, but I'm willing to bet if our next-door neighbor, Penny, was here when it happened, everyone in town knows by now. Maggie doesn't have any family; she had a son who died in a war at some point, but otherwise it was just me and her.

It was one of the only things we had in common: we were all alone in the world.

Nobody wanted me. Not until Maggie.

The only person who ever gave me a real chance is dead, and all I can think is how disappointed I am she didn't see me graduate.

Something is wrong in my head.

I tear up my diploma. It's paper. Proof I was able to memorize some facts and copy them onto a few tests. Proof I did something everyone else does. It's not proof that I am special. I sit on the couch late into the night, thinking about Maggie. Thinking about loneliness and hospitals and useless papers that mean nothing at all to anyone once we're dead.

And I think maybe Jessica had the right idea all along.

CHAPTER 2

I made my only friend when I was thirteen. Corey Larson was as much of a loner as I was, except where I sort of took it quietly, she was loud and in-your-face. We got on well and spent our weekends in front of the TV watching any movie where people died or blew things up. We trolled cemeteries at night. Her parents hated me.

Then I turned fifteen. I was getting into no less than three fights a month at school. My grades sucked so the kids thought I was stupid. I was quiet, moody, and kept to myself, so they thought I was stuck-up. I never had a girlfriend, so they thought I was gay.

Which I am, but that's not the point.

My foster family was more than ready to pass me on to someone else. Like clockwork. I'd been to five different homes by that point. Maggie took me in, but her place was six hours north.

Six hours was a huge distance for kids our age. I saw Corey twice in that first year, once in the second, and not a single time within the last twelve months. She's changed. Blossomed into this pretty, bubbly girl who attracts attention everywhere she goes and I guess...

I don't know. Guess she moved along, too. Outgrew me.

But Corey is my only option to talk to someone about Maggie. If I don't, I think I'm going to explode. Or throw myself out a window.

(Or off a bridge.)

The last few times I tried to call her, she either didn't answer or was quick to say she had to go. I'm not up for handling that kind of rejection, so the next morning I email her instead. It takes me thirty minutes to type up a page-long letter. Another thirty to cut out all but a few lines and make the words fit together right. To make sense of them.