Cornered

by Rhoda Belleza

  And what if it doesn’t work? Not much is said about the fact that death by suicide is not an easy way to go. It’s not at all a sure thing. For weeks, I’ve been studying various means and the odds are not good. I’ve given each and every method plenty of consideration, trying to imagine if it’s a good fit for me. Guns, for instance, are out of the question. I don’t have the nerves for it. Everything I’ve read about guns mentions the difficulty of actually pulling the trigger, but that’s all been written by people who chickened-out at the last minute. I can’t take the risk of being one of them, a loser among losers. In addition to that, the notion that my mother or brothers would find my dead body in such a splattered state is almost too horrible to think about. How would they ever be able to walk into my room again? They’d never get over that bloody mess on the wall out of their minds. (“Out, damn spot!” as Shakespeare once wrote.) Neighbors would talk about what happened here for years, until finally my family would be forced to move out and start over. Besides, no one I know owns a gun, so . . .

  Hanging is way too dramatic, and once again the idea of someone walking in and finding me in such a state is enough to dissuade me. Dangling from the rafters is not a pretty sight, and anyway I can’t find a decent rafter. We live in a split-level, four-bedroom suburban dream house; it’s nothing fancy, but rafters don’t figure into it, not the kind that my Grampa Barlett had in his barn that are just right for hanging. I suppose a tree limb would do the trick, but I’m pretty sure that I’ll want to be indoors at the moment of my death. I don’t believe in dying outdoors unless you are an animal in the wild.

  For a while I considered our garage because there is a kind of overhead crossbeam, but there’s so much crap jammed into the every nook and cranny that it would require a major overhaul. Last week I started to remove some of the junk in order to make room. Mom took notice.

  “And what d’you think you’re doing?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” I replied. “Y’know, making some room in here.”

  “For what?”

  End of story.

  I considered jumping off a bridge, but there isn’t a bridge within a hundred mile radius that’s worth talking about, and getting to any one of those places without a car and on my own would be suspect. Plus I hear my Dad’s voice in the back of my head, saying to Sam and me: “If everybody in the world decided to jump off a bridge would you do the same?” The answer was always No. What else can you say to a question like that? And if Heaven exists, I don’t want my dad meeting me at the Pearly Gates and saying, “If everybody in the world decided to jump off a bridge . . .” You get the point.

  I’ve seen old movies where people go and sit in a garage with their car motor running; it’s the carbon monoxide from the exhaust that eventually kills them. But like I said earlier, our garage is crammed with stuff, and then there’s the problem of finding a car that was manufactured back in the twentieth century when the levels of carbon monoxide fumes were lethal. Nowadays, if you choose that method to kill yourself, the best you can hope for is extreme drowsiness, nausea, and wasting a few precious gallons of gas.

  Slitting my wrists or stabbing myself is definitely out of the question. I tried it once with a kitchen knife, but the thought of the pain kept me from making the decisive cut.

  The point is no one realizes how difficult it is to do harm to yourself until you actually try.

  For me, pills will have to do—even if it’s the least effective way to go. I read something like 90 percent of the people who try to kill themselves with pills fail miserably, sometimes tragically. But it’s a chance I’m willing to take, because considering the alternatives (see above) it’s better than nothing. I have two pills so far, pain killers Sam never took after he broke his ankle last year. It’s a start.

  FRIDAY

  Suicide is a tall order. You can’t pussy foot around. You have to commit yourself—and not just to the idea of it, but also (and here’s the hard part) the actual doing of it. Once the moment of truth arrives, there’s no turning back. You can’t choke, not now, not at the last minute or else it just won’t happen. Few things are so final, so definite. And it’s going to take more than just two pills.

  Which is all to say—I’m still alive.

  Earlier this morning, Sam forced the basement window and tried to get into the house without being noticed. Staying out all night seems to be Sam’s new thing. Our old dog, Duke, barked at the sound of the screen popping out of its track, then he bolted through the house and gamboled down the basement stairs. He continued to bark his head off as Sam shimmied, head first, through the narrow window and eased himself into the house.

  “Oh. Busted,” said Sam when he turned around and caught sight of Mom standing at the bottom of the stairs. She had her hands on her hips, lips pressed tightly together.

  I was standing behind Mom. No way was I going to miss this performance. Sam tossed his honey-colored hair out of his eyes so that he could give Mom the full-court press—smile, charm, and anything else he had in his bag of tricks and treats. His eyes literally twinkled as he brushed off his jeans and straightened his T-shirt.

  Mom’s eyes were doing the opposite of twinkling. Her jaw was set tight, and I could tell that she was calculating how many more seconds she could manage to hold the pose of disapproval. She doesn’t really want to lose her temper, but she also doesn’t want to lose Sam to the gang of heartthrobs and roughnecks that he’s been hanging out with lately. So rather than unleash a pent-up scold, she looked up at the ceiling and forced a bitter smile.

  “And what, Sam?” Mom said, clipping each word like a coupon. “What exactly did you think was going to happen here? Did you think that you could just stay out all night, break into your own house, and expect it to go unnoticed? Is that how it’s supposed to work?”

  “Kinda,” said Sam. And the weird thing is he wasn’t being a smart-ass; he actually thought that his strategy would work. “Don’t tell Gary, okay? It’ll only be drag for everybody.”

  I could see Mom weighing her options. “Right now, I expect you to get ready for school.”

  She then did an impressive about-face, which sent her crashing into me. She looked at me from head to toe and then said, “And would it kill you to wear a skirt every once in a while?”

  Sam bent down and gave the dog’s skull a knuckle rub. Duke is happy to receive whatever from Sam. Always has been. To Duke, Sam is a biscuit in human form.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Sam said.

  “Like what?”

  “Someday you’re going to fall in love,” he told me. “And you’ll understand.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “Ever.”

  He looked at me like I was a lost cause, and I wondered if he’d heard any gossip at school about me and Fiona. Was he trying to tell me that I would eventually get over my massive crush on her?

  “Yes, you will,” he said. “Trust me. And when you do, you’re going to do some stupid stuff.”

  He offered me a quick fist-bump and then sauntered off to the shower. I stood there thinking about what he said, realizing he had no idea what my life is like. Sam is a senior this year and he’s got it made. With the undying love of the hottest cheerleader in the lineup, he can afford to do some stupid stuff. Not like me. I can’t afford to take a breath without the threat of someone noticing.

  • • •

  I return to my room and lay the pills out on my pillow. One. Two. Three. The third one is really just a fancy aspirin that was in Mom’s medicine cabinet, but it’s better than nothing. I smell the toast burning and the coffee brewing in the kitchen. Mom’s cell phone rings in the kitchen. It’s Gary. I can tell from the way she answers the phone that she’s already decided not to tell him about how Sam stayed out all night. It’s going to remain a mother-son secret. Another one.

  “Hey, honey, can you hold a minute?” I hear her say before she yells up the stairs again, “TYLER? YOU AWAKE?”

  “Yeah,” Tyler says with his froggy
morning voice. “’M up.”

  I hear Tyler as he shuffles toward my bedroom door. I quickly gather my pitiful stash of pills and flop onto my bed, reaching to open the drawer of the bedside so I can dump them all in. My heart is beating, and I’m praying, literally praying, Dear God, please don’t let Tyler see what I’m up to. Funny moment to call on God, I think to myself.

  The door swings wide and Tyler is suddenly standing there, all slouchy and sleepy-eyed. He blinks several times and cocks his head like Duke does when there’s a high-pitched sound.

  “Hey,” Tyler says.

  “Oh. Hey,” I answer back. I must look crazy, splayed out on my bed. All my limbs frozen at awkward angles.

  “Whata ya doin’?”

  “Nothing. Go get dressed.” But he doesn’t move. “Don’t look at me like that,” I tell him as I slowly sit up.

  “Like what?”

  “Just go!”

  He turns around like a robot that’s programmed to respond to my commands and heads back toward his room; but before he’s out of earshot, I call out to him: “Someday you’re going to fall in love, and you’re going to do some stupid stuff. Y’hear me?”

  “Okay,” he calls back.

  SATURDAY

  I counted the pills today. Again. This has become my daily ritual. I’m up to six. I’m not sure what my most recent finds are good for, but I found three of them rolling around in the corners of Mom’s bedside table. There aren’t nearly enough of them to do any real damage and certainly too few to do the deed, but at least I’m getting closer. I place them in the pottery vase that I made for Mom when I was six, back when Dad was still alive. It’s the color of dust with a bumpy surface and my initials are carved clumsily into the bottom, making it an unsteady proposition. For this reason, it’s never been used for flowers, and no one would ever think to look down its scrawny neck for anything worthwhile.

  Got to find more pills.

  SUNDAY

  Instead of going to church this morning, I told Mom that I was feeling sick. Really sick. She rolled her eyes and then told me that I could stay home, but I was not to leave my room. I must have laid in bed for hours thinking about Ophelia. She was Hamlet’s girlfriend. Mrs. Sweeney says that Ophelia actually lost her mind because Hamlet suddenly started acting weird to her. She couldn’t take it and killed herself. Courageous or crazy? This is a question that her death seems to have answered once and for all. I’m hoping that my own death will do the same.

  “Are you still alive up there?” Mom called up to me when she and my brothers got back from church.

  I made a noise, just enough to indicate that I was living, but not enough to encourage an entire conversation.

  “EMMA!” she calls out again. “Do you feel well enough to eat breakfast?”

  As I lie here listening to breakfast bacon sizzling in a pan downstairs and its smell beginning to fill my bedroom, I’m thinking that I will force myself to eat a little something and pretend that it’s my last meal.

  MONDAY

  Every morning before school, Mom harangues us with details, questions, and criticisms of the “I thought you were going to wear a skirt today?” and “Did you finish your homework?” variety. We rarely respond. We know that if we wait it out, she’ll get tired and say something that actually requires a response, like: “Do you guys have your lunch bags?” Grunts and nods from us, and then she moves onto the next thing which is usually her pumping us for information about some kid who’s got a problem.

  As a guidance counselor at the school, Mom needs to keep up to date on all the local gossip, making sure that girls aren’t getting pregnant and boys aren’t doing drugs. She’s big on abstinence and promotes it among my peers as though their lives depend on it, though she’s in denial about Sam’s shenanigans. Mom doesn’t realize that pretty much everybody is having some kind of sex all the time behind her back. Everyone but me.

  “Anything new with school?” she asks me while making our sandwiches.

  I consider telling her about what’s going on between Kyra and me, but before I can say anything Sam enters. He plops his backpack on the counter and starts acting as though the kitchen is his private kingdom.

  “What’s up?” he asks.

  “I was just asking Emma if there was anything new going on at school.”

  “Did you tell her about that Justin Guns kid?” Sam asks. I’m assuming that he wants my opinion even though he doesn’t look at me directly. Mom stands at the counter, and by the way the question hangs in the air, I can tell that her interest is piqued.

  “What about him?” she wants to know.

  Justin Guns is a freshman starvling who was recently diagnosed as anorexic. Usually, he goes around saying that he requires less to eat than a typical American because he’s naturally small-boned. But Justin Guns is far from a typical anything. He weighs like twelve pounds, tints his hair blue, and though he claims that his sartorial edits are unisex and “totally in fashion right now,” he wears eye makeup and favors women’s clothing.

  “He’s been out of school for over a week,” Sam mumbles into his half-eaten toaster pastry. “I mean, besides being so obviously a gay.”

  “Not a gay,” I remind him. “Just gay will do. And for the record, we don’t know that Justin is gay. Not for sure.”

  “Please,” Sam rolls his eyes.

  Mom hands me an extra sandwich, and tells me to give it to Justin when I see him in the cafeteria.

  “He doesn’t eat,” I say. But she doesn’t understand and looks at me as though I’m joking.

  “Everybody eats,” she replies and to prove that she knows what she’s taking about, she stuffs the sandwich into my backpack.

  “Even if I did see Justin in the cafeteria,” I say with a bit of scold in my voice, “he would flat-out refuse a ham-and-cheese-whatever from me. To Justin, we are ALL the enemy, and food is poison.”

  “There’s something seriously wrong with that kid,” Sam announces. “I mean besides being a gay.”

  “I simply asked why the boy has been missing school,” says Mom. “And I don’t need a personality assessment from the peanut gallery, thank you very much.”

  Personally, I appreciate Justin’s eccentricities. Ever since grade school when he moved here from Atlanta, I’ve been grateful that he’s around in just the way he is. He’s always been so obviously gay that any discussion about homosexuality naturally begins and ends with the mention of his name. “Don’t be such a Justin,” is a phrase we kids have used since middle school. Back then he was teased mercilessly and occasionally beaten up. He had walked around for three clueless days with the word FAG written in Sharpie on the back of his jacket. I’ve been witness to the kind of cruelty that kids my own age inflict on other kids who happen to be different. Only now, I’m the one who is different, and I wish I wasn’t.

  TUESDAY

  Today I went to Mrs. Sweeney and told her that I wanted to discuss the final scene of Hamlet. She was sitting in her empty classroom eating her bagged lunch and reading a fat novel.

  “It’s crazy,” I said to her, “By the end of the play the whole cast is lying dead on the floor. What’s that about?”

  She closed her novel and began to explain what Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote Hamlet, but to tell you the truth I wasn’t listening. Instead I was examining the highlights in her hair and wondering about her apartment. I’ve never been there, but sometimes I imagine her standing in front of the bathroom mirror and preparing herself for the day. There was a tiny crumb from her bologna sandwich stuck to her cheek. Do I tell her? I wondered. And then the thought occurred to me that if I were dead I wouldn’t be sitting there with her and then maybe no one would tell her about the crumb. I imagined her during the next period, standing in front of her students, becrumbed. The whole class would laugh behind her back.

  That’s when I started to cry.

  “What’s wrong,” Ms. Sweeney said, putting down her novel and leaning toward me.

  I t
old her the whole story. In between sobs I explained how Kyra had been terrorizing me and how I had felt my life just wasn’t worth living. She placed her hand on my shoulder.

  “Things will change,” she said.

  “But how do you know that?” I asked. I swooped big gulps of air into my lungs and then cried fresh tears. “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I’m going to help you,” she replied.

  ”I’m sorry,” I said. Then repeated it, over and over.

  “You haven’t done anything wrong, Emma. In fact, you did the right thing coming to me.”

  She handed me a napkin, and I blew my nose into it mightily.

  “What warlike noise is this?” she said, which caused me to laugh out loud. It’s a quote from Hamlet, something he says just moments before he takes his final breath. Then Ms. Sweeney leaned back in her chair, smiling, and I knew that she was right. It would get better, she would help me and unlike Hamlet, I would live through this ordeal.

  “I hope you don’t mind my saying this,” I told her. “But there’s a crumb on your cheek.”

  WEDNESDAY

  The weirdest thing—Kyra was ignoring me at school today. Totally. It was as though I didn’t exist. I couldn’t tell if this was a blessing or if I should have been prepared for something really bad. I thought that maybe Ms. Sweeney said something to her, gave her a warning because as she passed by me in the hallway she didn’t sneer or scoff or curse or push or shove or in any way take notice of me. But my heart breaks a little as I notice Fiona has joined her posse. She looks at me now as though we never knew each other’s secrets, never slept over one another’s house, never read each other sonnets or kissed on the mouth.