Suicide Notes From Beautiful Girls (5 page)

Chapter 9

2 years, 4 months, 17 days earlier

Delia and June lay on
their backs on the grass, fingers intertwined between them, staring up at the big blank sky.

“Imagine floating off into that,” Delia said. Her voice sounded dreamy and wistful, the way it did when she was fucked up, which she currently was.

“If I ever get the chance to go to space,” Delia went on, “I’m definitely going.”

June laughed. But she closed her eyes. She didn’t even want to look at it.

“I’m serious. I’d do it in a second. Everything down here is meaningless . . .”

June wasn’t high like Delia. She was sober as usual. She hated the idea of so much emptiness, above them, around them, everywhere.

“. . . but nothing bad has happened out there yet.” Delia
finished. “It’s all brand-new.” Delia inhaled deeply like she was sucking in the sky. “And if I go, you’re coming with me.”

Without even meaning to, June inhaled also. She felt Delia’s feelings curling into her body with her breath.

And when June opened her eyes again, she saw only soft velvet blackness, endless possibilities. It was beautiful.

Chapter 10

It’s nighttime again and I’m
alone, driving down the dusty streets in Macktin, where I’ve never been before. It’s a strange and uninhabited place full of sprawling industrial buildings, mostly deserted.

I pull into a parking lot. The building next to it looks like a prison. The fear I’ve been trying to squelch starts bubbling up again. I can take care of myself, but I’m not an idiot. Maybe this isn’t really the place, and Infinity was messing with me. Maybe I should have asked Ryan to come too. Or even told him where I was going.

Except I couldn’t. I get out of the car and remind myself that telling him would have just made him worry. Earlier this afternoon I brought up the idea that someone might have done something to Delia. Ryan shook his head, worry lines between his eyes. “The whole thing is really, really sad, but that doesn’t
mean there’s a mystery here,” he said. He put his hand on my cheek, so softly, talking to me like I was someone he had to be careful with. He’d never acted like that before, and it made me feel embarrassed. To him I am tough. He likes that. I like it too. “She was a very messed-up girl who did a lot of messed-up things,” he went on. “It’s why you stopped being friends with her in the first place. You said so yourself.”

He was right; I
had
. Maybe I even halfway thought it at the time. But it wasn’t the whole truth.

I didn’t press it after that. And really, it’s better that I’m alone for the exact reason that I’m wondering if it’s smart to be: I’m unintimidating. Not a threat. People tell me things sometimes without really meaning to.

Maybe someone will tonight.

I’m up at the door now. It’s propped open with a brick. I let myself inside.

There are bare bulbs dangling from the ceiling, leading the way down a long hallway. At the end is a set of stairs, a piece of paper stuck to the railing, on which is written
MAYHEM: THIS A’WAY
over a bright pink arrow pointing up. And so I climb and climb until, legs burning, I’m finally on the top floor. There’s another door there. I can feel my pulse in my ears, my temples, my throat.

I open the door and look out into an enormous open loft.

It’s eerily beautiful. I’ve never been anywhere like this.

There are only thirty or so people here, but the place could
hold hundreds. Dozens of tiny white lights dangle from the ceiling, and dozens of white pillar candles sit in clusters on the concrete floor. The music is an otherworldly rumbling that rattles the inside of my chest. The air smells like plaster and wax.

In one corner of the loft there’s a modern kitchen, all white lacquer and chrome. There are rows of glass bottles piled up on the white kitchen island and a handful of people standing around pouring themselves drinks.

I start to make my way toward them, but I feel a hand clamp down on my shoulder. I turn. There’s a man in a suit holding on to me. He has a big round head and a space between his two front teeth.

“What’s the password?” he says. His voice is a growl.

Password?

“I . . . ,” I start. I think fast. “My friends are already in here.” I point toward two girls walking past. They’re a few years older than me, wearing short sheer dresses, high shoes. I’m still in jeans and Delia’s sweater. “I think they forgot to . . .”

The guy shakes his head. “No one gets in without a password. I’m going to have to ask you to leave, then.”

But I can’t leave yet. And the idea of someone trying to get me to go makes me brave.
You’re the sweetest little honey pie,
Delia said once,
until someone tells you that you can’t do something.

I clear my throat. “Be careful what you say, now. Tig’s expecting me, and if you stop me I doubt he’ll . . .”

The guy puts his hands on his hips and sets his jaw. And then, suddenly . . . he bursts out laughing, like this is the funniest joke he’s ever heard in his life. “Ah, I’m only messing with you, dolly.” He looks me right in the eye. His pupils are enormous. “It’s the suit, right? Makes me look like I get to make the rules.” He winks and steps aside. “Have a big ol’ blast!”

I feel a flood of relief, because I’m in. And then right behind that, ice-cold fear, because I’m
in
. I grit my teeth. It’s time to do this.

I make my way forward. I’m the youngest person here. Everyone looks like they’re in costume—colored fishnets on their arms, top hats, jewel-toned tuxedos, tiny glittering dresses. Delia would have loved this place. Maybe she did.

I look out at the rest of the room. It’s all raw open space. There are three enormous white sculptures off to the side—a ten-foot-tall head, a dancer with no arms, two bodies entwined. At the back of the room is an entire wall of windows, looking out over dark buildings and beyond that a cold white moon that looks carved too.

“For me?” a voice says.

I turn. There are two girls standing next to me: one tall and thin with a huge glittery choker, the other shorter, her eyes lined in green. Choker hands Eyeliner a small white pill. Eyeliner raises her perfectly arched eyebrows.

“Yup,” Choker says. “His very finest.”

They place the pills on the tips of their tongues and swallow them dry.

I stare at them, like I want what they have. “Hey, do you know where I can find Tig?”

Eyeliner gives me a puzzled look, then points toward the back corner of the room. A doorway. “Where else would he be?”

I force myself to inhale slowly, to exhale slowly. I pass a couple swaying against each other. I pass three girls laughing.

This is it.

I look through the doorway now; it leads to another room, much smaller than the first. In the center of the room is an enormous old-fashioned sleigh bed, covered in pillows. And on the bed is a guy sitting cross-legged, head shaved smooth.

Tig.

A girl with long bleached-white hair climbs on Tig’s lap and presses her lips to his. I step back. He looks up. He pulls away from the kiss.

“Come on in,” he says. His voice is high and breathy. He points at me and curls his finger. I walk forward.

Tig’s face is thin, lit from below by the small stained-glass lamp on the nightstand. He could be any age at all.

He leans back, stroking the girl’s hair like she’s a cat. His shirt is half unbuttoned, revealing a hard, pale chest. “And how may I help you, pretty girl?”

“I was hoping you could hook me up,” I say. I press my
tongue to the roof of my mouth. Fear rises up from my stomach.

Tig tips his head to the side. “What are you looking for?”

“Something . . . fun,” I say.

Tig twists his mouth to the side. “I don’t know you. Who are you here with?”

“No one.”

Tig licks his lips and smiles, but his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “So what the hell are you doing in my house?”

Another wave of fear washes over me. But I hold his gaze.

“I’m here because . . .”
Because I want to know if you killed my friend.
“Because I heard there was a party.”

“Like fuck, you did.” He shakes his head. “Tell me or get out.”

A jolt of electricity shoots up my spine. I think of Infinity and my promise, I think of my dead best friend and how no one can hurt her anymore. I think of the fact that someone did. I clench my fists. “Delia sent me.”

Tig raises one eyebrow ever so slightly. “Ah-ha, a message from the underworld, then.” He whispers to the girl on his lap. She pulls herself up off the bed, smooths her small white skirt, and heads for the door. When the girl is gone, his smile fades. “Save your bullshit,” he says. “What do you want?”

Maybe Delia’s ghost really is here, because Delia wouldn’t have been scared of this guy for a second, and suddenly neither am I.

“I want to know what she stole from you,” I say. But, really, I just want to get him talking.

“So she told you about that, did she?” He clenches his jaw.

“She told me a lot of things.”

“Well, then you know a hell of a lot more than me.” Something in the room shifts.

“What did she take from you? And what did you do to try to get it back?”

“Well, well,” Tig says. “Are you here to avenge your poor dead friend?” He purses his lips into a frowny little pout. “How sweet.”

Something inside me bursts. I open my mouth, and then it’s like I can’t stop. “I know where you live, and I know what you do. And if you did something to Delia . . .”

“Are you really threatening me?” His eyes don’t look right. I realize then that he’s on something—lots of things, probably. “That would be an extremely silly thing to do.”

I want to turn and run. I exhale through my nose. “I’m not making a threat,” I say. “I’m stating some facts.”

“Well, then I’ll state some facts too. You shouldn’t be poking other peoples’ beehives. But you have balls, and I like that in a girl.” He pauses. “So I’ll do you a favor and tell you a little thing about your friend: She was up to some fucked-up stuff that even I wanted no part of, and that is really saying something. But I didn’t
do
anything to her, if that’s what you’re here to find out. She told me she needed it for protection—that was her excuse.”

It.
“Who did she need protection from?”

Tig shrugs and his lips spread into a slow smile. “Based on what happened, I’d say herself.”

He pulls himself up off the bed then, tall and sinewy. He opens the drawer of the nightstand, takes out a pill bottle. He walks toward me, falling, catching himself, falling again. He grabs my wrist. His hand is strong and too hot. He forces something into mine, then lets me go.

“What’s this?” Sitting on my palm is a small white pill.

“A goodie bag,” he says. “Because it’s time for you to leave my party.”

He stands there, hands on narrow hips. And I realize there is nothing left I can do. He’s not going to tell me anything else.

My body still buzzing, I walk back out into the main room. Someone is watching me—a girl with short dark hair. For a second I think she looks familiar. She reaches up and waves.

“Go on then,” Tig says. He is standing behind me. “I’m not going to ask you so nicely next time.”

I drop the pill onto the concrete floor as I walk and crush it under the sole of my boots. I feel angry, sharp-edged, sick scared. I don’t know what to make of what has just happened. I don’t know what to think or what to believe.

I stop in the doorway and look back at the party one last time. The music is different now. People are dancing with their arms in the air. A girl in a long gold dress is crouched down on the floor where I left the pill, snorting up the dust.

I start down the stairs, taking them two at a time. The crowd climbing up grows thicker the closer I get to the bottom, my eyes are starting to cloud, the faces blending together. Up above, someone cranks the music.

I came here looking for answers, but now I am filled with questions. There’s one thing I do know though: if Delia thought she needed protection, it means this wasn’t a surprise.

It means whatever happened, she saw it coming.

Chapter 11

5 years, 3 months, 8 days earlier

Later, Delia would explain to
June that finding a best friend is like finding a true love: when you meet yours, you just know. But the third week of sixth grade when the cool new girl, Delia, invited June for a sleepover, June was a nervous, happy kind of shocked. And she wondered if maybe Delia had made a mistake, thought June was someone else when she invited her. Or maybe it was because Delia hadn’t had a chance to make cooler friends yet.

June was painfully, desperately lonely. She spent her weekends by herself, reading and cleaning up after her mother. June liked this new girl with her big turquoise earrings and enormous smile. She liked how this girl didn’t seem to give a shit about absolutely anything. So even though June had never had a one-on-one sleepover before and the idea made her very nervous, she said yes.

The night of the sleepover Delia’s stepfather was working
late, so her mother let them order pizza and cans of Coke and eat in Delia’s room. “My stepfather’s diabetic,” Delia said, slurping on the soda. “So the only soda we ever have is
diet
,
which is
poison.
My own mother is trying to poison me.” Delia didn’t sit while they ate; instead she walked around the room pointing things out like a museum tour guide—there was a tiny painting of a winter scene that Delia had found at a thrift store, there was the prescription pill bottle nicked from her mom (Delia kept breath mints in there now), there was a cherry stem that she’d knotted using only her tongue (it was the only time she’d ever successfully done it, so she’d saved the evidence). June had never seen a room like this, one filled with so much interesting stuff. It was like she expected to have friends over to show things to.

Shortly after ten Delia’s stepfather came home and started yelling at her mother behind their closed bedroom door, yelling in an unhinged, out-of-control sort of way. That’s when Delia said it was time to sneak out.

She climbed out her window and then dropped down into the grass. June was scared, but she followed. They walked up and down the block a couple of times. They left dandelions in peoples’ mailboxes. They peeked into the window of Delia’s cute high-school-aged neighbor. They saw him changing out of his clothes, and he got all the way down to his boxers before he shut the curtains. “Damn it!” Delia said. And then she grinned. “I have an idea.” And then—and even at the time, June couldn’t
really believe it was happening—Delia reached around back and unhooked her bra through her shirt, then pulled her arms into her shirt, wriggled around, and suddenly her bra was off and in her hand right there on the street. June stared at it in the light streaming from the windows of the houses. It was black, with an underwire. A real bra, because Delia had real actual boobs. She convinced June to do the same, and taught her how to get it off without taking her shirt off. June was embarrassed that hers was barely a bra at all, more like a shiny little undershirt. But Delia didn’t seem to notice or care. “Now what?” June said. She felt breathless and giggly.

“Now we mark our territory,” Delia said. She grabbed June’s hand and then snuck around the front of the house, opened up the boy’s family’s red-barn mailbox, and tossed both bras inside.

“There,” Delia said. “And now we have a secret.”

June nodded, like she understood. But she didn’t until Delia went on. “Having secrets together makes you real friends,” she said. “Secrets tie you together.” And June felt suddenly giddy at the idea that Delia would
want
to be tied to her.

Then they snuck back in through Delia’s porch. And even though it wasn’t cool at all, June told Delia this was probably the first thing she’d done that she wasn’t supposed to. Maybe ever in her life. Delia just smiled. “Guess you haven’t been hanging out with me enough,” she said. “We’ll have to change that.”

They tiptoed back upstairs, and Delia made a show of
locking her bedroom door behind them. Then she leaned over and lowered her voice to a whisper. “My stepfather is an asshole. So I always keep it locked, in case.”

June felt fear prickling her belly. “In case what?”

“In case he tries something.”

“Has he?”

Delia shrugged and shook her head. “But if he ever does . . .” Delia reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a switchblade. She held it up. “I’m ready for him.” June opened her mouth in a little shocked O. Then Delia pressed the silver button on the base and a plastic comb popped out. Before June could feel the full effects of her embarrassment, Delia started laughing. It was round and rolling and joyful, her laugh. It didn’t feel like she was laughing at June was the thing, it felt like she was inviting June to join in on the joke.

“You should have seen your face,” Delia said. She shook her head. “You were so shocked, it was amazing.” She put her arm around June. “My stepfather really is a shit, though. My family in general is complete bullshit, actually. What’s yours like?”

“I only have a mom,” June said. “She’s pretty bullshit too.”

And then for some reason—maybe because June liked the sound of Delia’s laugh, or maybe because she couldn’t even remember a time when she’d been honest, really truly honest with anyone, or maybe just because it was late at night and that’s the hardest time to hold things in—June began to talk. She talked about how her mom was out most nights, even when
she wasn’t working; how she came home early in the morning, knocking into things and stinking of alcohol. She talked about her father, who she’d only met twice. She talked about the time her mom fell and sprained her wrist after tripping over June’s school bag and blamed June, and June felt really guilty, but also didn’t totally know what to think because of what she smelled on her mom’s breath.

June talked and talked, felt the words pouring from her mouth as though she was a faucet and had forgotten how to turn herself off. And when she was finally done, she was struck with a wave of horrible embarrassment. She had ruined her new friendship when it had barely just begun.

“I’m sorry,” June barely managed to mumble. Her cheeks burned with shame and disgust at herself, at how needy and weak she suddenly felt.

But as she looked up, she saw that Delia was staring at her, her head tipped to the side. She didn’t look bored or freaked out or like she thought June was a weirdo. She just smiled in this way that made her seem very wise. “Crazy that we have such messed-up families, and yet somehow we both turned out so awesome, right?”

June felt something lifting inside of her.
We.
“Right,” she said. She forced a laugh and then she meant it.

They brushed their teeth after that and put on pajamas. Delia got them three glasses of water (“I need two, in case I dream about a fire,” Delia said), and they lay side-by-side
in Delia’s enormous queen-size bed. Delia combed June’s hair with the switchblade comb—Delia insisted on doing it, because her own curls were too thick and would break the teeth off, and she hadn’t yet used it on anyone—and June felt almost drugged with happiness and relief. Now that this girl was her friend, everything might just be okay. She wouldn’t be so lonely anymore. She wouldn’t be alone. This girl was going to change everything.