“So, what? You just let her die? Because you didn’t want to get involved?”
I take her hand.
“We don’t know for sure that the deadline’s real. This could just be her way of getting rid of the thoughts. Putting them on paper so she doesn’t do them.”
She looks at me. “But you don’t believe that, do you? You wouldn’t have called me if you believed that.”
She looks down at our hands.
“This is weird,” she says.
“What?”
She squeezes once, then pulls her hand away. “This.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not like the other day. I mean, it’s a different hand. You’re different.”
“But I’m not.”
“You can’t say that. Yes, you’re the same person inside. But the outside matters, too.”
“You look the same, no matter what eyes I’m seeing you through. I feel the same.”
It’s true, but it doesn’t really address what she’s saying.
“You never get involved in the people’s lives? The ones you’re inhabiting.”
I shake my head.
“You try to leave the lives the way you found them.”
“Yeah.”
“But what about Justin? What made that so different?”
“You,” I say.
Just one word, and she finally understands. Just one word, and the door to the enormity is finally unlocked.
“That makes no sense,” she says.
And the only way to show her how it makes sense, the only way to make the enormity real, is for me to lean over and kiss her. Like last time, but not at all like last time. Not our first kiss, but also our first kiss. My lips feel different against hers, our bodies fit differently. And there is also something else that surrounds us, the black cloud as well as the enormity. I am not kissing her because I want to, and I am not kissing her because I need to—I am kissing her for a reason that transcends want and need, that feels elemental to our existence, a molecular component on which our universe will be built. It is not our first kiss, but it’s the first kiss where she knows me, and that makes it more of a first kiss than the first kiss ever was.
I find myself wishing that Kelsea could feel this, too. Maybe she does. It’s not enough. It’s not a solution. But it does lessen the weight for a moment.
Rhiannon is not smiling when we pull away from each other. There is none of the giddiness of the earlier kiss.
“This is definitely weird,” she says.
“Why?”
“Because you’re a girl? Because I still have a boyfriend? Because we’re talking about someone else’s suicide?”
“In your heart, does any of that matter?” In my heart, it doesn’t.
“Yes. It does.”
“Which part?”
“All of it. When I kiss you, I’m not actually kissing you, you know. You’re inside there somewhere. But I’m kissing the outside part. And right now, although I can feel you underneath, all I’m getting is the sadness. I’m kissing her, and I want to cry.”
“That’s not what I want,” I tell her.
“I know. But that’s what there is.”
She stands up and looks around the room, searching for clues to a murder that has yet to happen.
“If she were bleeding in the street, what would you do?” she asks.
“That’s not the same situation.”
“If she were going to kill someone else?”
“I would turn her in.”
“So how is this different?”
“It’s her own life. Not anyone else’s.”
“But it’s still killing.”
“If she really wants to do it, there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”
Even as I say this, it feels wrong.
“Okay,” I continue, before Rhiannon can correct me. “Putting up obstacles can help. Getting other people involved can help. Getting her to the proper doctors can help.”
“Just like if she had cancer, or was bleeding in the street.”
This is what I need. It’s not enough to hear these things in my own voice. I need to hear them told to me by somebody I trust.
“So who do I tell?”
“A guidance counselor, maybe?”
I look at the clock. “School’s closed. And we only have until midnight, remember.”
“Who’s her best friend?”
I shake my head.
“Boyfriend? Girlfriend?”
“No.”
“A suicide hotline?”
“If we call one, they’d only be giving me advice, not her. We have no way of knowing if she’ll remember it tomorrow, or if it will have any effect. Believe me, I’ve thought about these options.”
“So it has to be her father. Right?”
“I think he checked out a while ago.”
“Well, you need to get him to check back in.”
She makes it sound so easy. But both of us know it’s not easy.
“What do I say?”
“You say, ‘Dad, I want to kill myself.’ Just come right out and say it.”
“And if he asks me why?”
“You tell him you don’t know why. Don’t commit to anything. She’ll have to work that out starting tomorrow.”
“You’ve thought this through, haven’t you?”