All the Bright Places (5 page)

A quick internet search turns up the information that only five to ten percent of all suicides are committed by jumping (so says Johns Hopkins). Apparently, jumping as a means of killing oneself is usually chosen for convenience, which is why places like San Francisco, with its Golden Gate Bridge (the world’s top suicide destination), are so popular. Here, all we have is the Purina Tower and a 1,257-foot hill.

I write:
Reason for not jumping: Too messy. Too public. Too crowded
.

I switch off Google and hop onto Facebook. I find Amanda Monk’s page because she’s friends with everyone, even the people she’s not friends with, and I pull up her friend list, typing in “Violet.”

Just like that, there she is. I click on her photo and there she is, even bigger, wearing the same smile she gave me earlier. You have to be her friend to read her profile and view the rest of her pictures. I sit staring at the screen, suddenly desperate to know more. Who is this Violet Markey? I try a Google search, because maybe there’s a secret back entrance to her Facebook page, one that requires a special knock or a three-digit code, something easily figured out.

What I pull up instead is a site called EleanorandViolet.com, which lists Violet Markey as cocreator/​editor/​writer. It’s got all the usual boys-and-beauty-type blog posts, the most recent from April 3 of last year. The other thing I pull up is a news article.

I sit reading and rereading this, a black feeling settling in the pit of my stomach. And then I do something I swore I’d never do. I sign up for Facebook just so I can send her a friend
request. Having an account will make me look sociable and normal, and maybe work to offset the whole meeting-on-the-verge-of-suicide situation, so that she’ll feel it’s safe to know me. I take a picture of myself with my phone, decide I look too serious, take another one—too goofy—and settle on the third, which is somewhere in between.

I sleep the computer so I don’t check every five minutes, and then I play the guitar, read a few pages of
Macbeth
for homework, and eat dinner with Decca and my mom, a tradition that started last year, after the divorce. Even though I’m not much into eating, dinner is one of the most enjoyable parts of my day because I get to turn my brain off.

Mom says, “Decca, tell me what you learned today.” She makes sure to ask us about school so that she feels she’s done her duty. This is her favorite way to start.

Dec says, “I learned that Jacob Barry is a jackass.” She has been swearing more often lately, trying to get a reaction out of Mom, to see if she’s really listening.

“Decca,” Mom says mildly, but she is only half paying attention.

Decca goes on to tell us about how this boy named Jacob glued his hands to his desk just to get out of a science quiz, but when they tried to separate skin from wood, his palms came off with the glue. Decca’s eyes gleam like the eyes of a small, rabid animal. She clearly thinks he deserved it, and then she says so.

Mom is suddenly listening. “Decca.” She shakes her head. This is the extent of her parenting. Ever since my dad left, she’s
tried really hard to be the cool parent. Still, I feel bad for her because she loves him, even though, at his core, he’s selfish and rotten, and even though he left her for a woman named Rosemarie with an accent over one of the letters—no one can ever remember which—and because of something she said to me the day he left: “I never expected to be single at forty.” It was the way she said it more than the words themselves. She made it sound so
final
.

Ever since then, I’ve done what I could to be pleasant and quiet, making myself as small and unseen as possible—which includes pretending to go to school when I’m asleep, as in
the Asleep
—so that I don’t add to the burden. I am not always successful.

“How was your day, Theodore?”

“Grand.” I push my food around my plate, trying to create a pattern. The thing about eating is that there are so many other more interesting things to do. I feel the same way about sleeping. Complete wastes of time.

Interesting fact: A Chinese man died from lack of sleep when he stayed awake for eleven days straight as he attempted to watch every game in the European Championship (that’s soccer, for those, like me, who have no clue). On the eleventh night, he watched Italy beat Ireland 2–0, took a shower, and fell asleep around five a.m. And
died.
No offense to the dead, but soccer is a really stupid thing to stay awake for
.

Mom has stopped eating to study my face. When she does pay attention, which isn’t often, she tries hard to be understanding about my “sadness,” just like she tries hard to be
patient when Kate stays out all night and Decca spends time in the principal’s office. My mother blames our bad behavior on the divorce and my dad. She says we just need time to work through it.

Less sarcastically, I add, “It was okay. Uneventful. Boring. Typical.” We move on to easier topics, like the house my mother is trying to sell for her clients and the weather.

When dinner is over, Mom lays a hand on my arm, fingertips barely touching the skin, and says, “Isn’t it nice to have your brother back, Decca?” She says it as if I’m in danger of disappearing again, right in front of their eyes. The slightly blaming note in her voice makes me cringe, and I get the urge to go back to my room again and stay there. Even though she tries to forgive my sadness, she wants to count on me as man of the house, and even though she thinks I was in school for most of that four-almost-five-week period, I did miss a lot of family dinners. She takes her fingers back and then we’re free, which is exactly how we act, the three of us running off in three different directions.

Around ten o’clock, after everyone else has gone to bed and Kate still isn’t home, I turn on the computer again and check my Facebook account.

Violet Markey accepted your friend request,
it says.

And now we are friends.

I want to shout and jog around the house, maybe climb up onto the roof and spread my arms wide but not jump off, not even think about it. But instead I hunch closer to the screen and browse through her photos—Violet smiling with two people
who must be her parents, Violet smiling with friends, Violet smiling at a pep rally, Violet smiling cheek to cheek with another girl, Violet smiling all alone.

I remember the picture of Violet and the girl from the newspaper. This is her sister, Eleanor. She wears the same clunky glasses Violet had on today.

Suddenly a message appears in my inbox.

Violet:
You ambushed me. In front of everyone.

Me:
Would you have worked with me if I hadn’t?

Violet:
I would have gotten out of it so I didn’t have to do it to begin with. Why do you want me to do this project with you anyway?

Me:
Because our mountain is waiting.

Violet:
What’s that supposed to mean?

Me:
It means maybe you never dreamed of seeing Indiana, but, in addition to the fact that we’re required to do this for school, and I’ve volunteered—okay, ambushed—you into being my partner, here’s what I think: I think I’ve got a map in my car that wants to be used, and I think there are places we can go that need to be seen. Maybe no one else will ever visit them and appreciate them or take the time to think they’re important, but maybe even the smallest places mean something. And if not, maybe they can mean something to us. At the very least, by the time we leave, we know we will have seen it, this great state of ours. So come on. Let’s go. Let’s count for something. Let’s get off that ledge.

When she doesn’t respond, I write:
I’m here if you want to talk
.

Silence.

I imagine Violet at home right now, on the other side of the computer, her perfect mouth with its perfect corners turned up,
smiling at the screen, in spite of everything, no matter what.
Violet smiling
. With one eye on my computer, I pick up the guitar, start making up words, the tune not far behind.

I’m still here, and I’m grateful, because otherwise I would be missing this. Sometimes it’s good to be awake.

“So not today,” I sing. “Because she smiled at me.”

Saturday night. Amanda Monk’s house.

I walk there because it’s only three blocks away. Amanda says it will just be us and Ashley Dunston and Shelby Padgett because Amanda’s not talking to Suze right now. Again. Amanda used to be one of my closest friends, but ever since April, I’ve drifted away from her. Since I quit cheering, we don’t have much in common. I wonder if we ever did.

I made the mistake of mentioning the whole sleepover thing to my parents, which is why I’m going. “Amanda is making an effort, and you should too, Violet. You can’t use your sister’s death as an excuse forever. You’ve got to get back to living.”
I’m not ready
doesn’t work on my mom and dad anymore.

As I cut across the Wyatts’ yard and turn the corner, I hear the party. Amanda’s house is lit up like Christmas. People
are hanging out the windows. They are standing on the lawn. Amanda’s father owns a chain of liquor stores, which is one of the reasons she’s popular. That and the fact that she puts out.

I wait on the street, my bag across my shoulder, pillow under my arm. I feel like a sixth grader. Like a goody-good. Eleanor would laugh at me and push me up the walk. She’d already be inside. I get mad at her just picturing it.

I make myself go in. Joe Wyatt hands me something in a red plastic cup. “Beer’s in the basement,” he shouts. Roamer has taken over the kitchen with random other baseball players and football players.

“Did you score?” Roamer asks Troy Satterfield.

“No, man.”

“Did you even kiss her?”

“No.”

“Did you get any ass?”

“Yeah, but I think that was by mistake.”

They laugh, including Troy. Everyone is talking too loud.

I make my way to the basement. Amanda and Suze Haines, best friends again, are lounging on a couch. I don’t see Ashley or Shelby anywhere, but fifteen or twenty guys are sprawled on the floor playing a drinking game. Girls are dancing all around them, including the three Brianas and Brenda Shank-Kravitz, who is friends with Theodore Finch. Couples are making out.

Amanda waves her beer at me. “Oh my God, we need to fix your hair.” She is talking about the bangs I gave myself. “And why are you still wearing those glasses? I get wanting to remember your sister, but didn’t she have, like, a cute sweater you could wear instead?”

I set my cup down. I’m still carrying my pillow. I say, “My stomach’s bugging me. I think I’m going home.”

Suze turns her big blue eyes on me. “Is it true you pulled Theodore Finch off a ledge?” (She was “Suzie” until ninth grade, when she dropped the
i
. It’s now pronounced “Sooze.”)

“Yes.” Please, God, I want that whole day to just go away.

Amanda looks at Suze. “I told you it was true.” She looks at me and rolls her eyes. “That’s just the kind of thing he does. I’ve known him since, like, kindergarten, and he’s only gotten weirder.”

Suze takes a drink. “I know him even better than that.” Her voice goes slutty. Amanda slaps her arm and Suze slaps her back. When they’re done, Suze says to me, “We hooked up sophomore year. He may be weird, but I’ll say this for him, that’s one guy who knows what he’s doing.” Her voice goes sluttier. “Unlike most of these boring-ass boys around here.” A couple of those boring-ass boys yell from the floor: “Why don’t you come and try this on for size, bitch?” Amanda slaps Suze again. And on they go.

I shift my bag over my shoulder. “I’m just glad I was there.”

To be more accurate, I’m just glad he was there before I fell off the ledge and killed myself in front of everyone. I can’t even think about my parents, forced to deal with the death of their only remaining child. Not even an accidental death, but an intentional one. That’s one reason I came tonight without a fight. I feel ashamed of what I almost put them through.

“Glad you were where?” Roamer stumbles up with a bucket of beers. He slams it down, ice sloshing everywhere.

Suze looks at him through cat eyes. “The bell tower.”

Roamer stares at her chest. He forces himself to look at me. “Why were you up there, anyway?”

“I was on my way to Humanities and saw him go through the door at the end of the hall, the one that goes to the tower.”