Suicide Notes

Encounters of the Third Kind, which is the greatest movie ever made, and
way better than Star Wars, no matter what the geeks say. She said okay, and
after that we were best friends.
Allie’s story is that her mom and dad split up, and her mom moved her
to our town because she said it was as far away from Allie’s dad as she
could get without making it too hard for Allie to see him if she wanted to.
Only Allie didn’t want to see him, because she was really angry at him for
cheating on her mother. That’s why they divorced. Allie’s mom found out
her husband was sleeping with her best friend, which didn’t go over very
well with her.
Anyway, Allie only sees her dad when she has to, like every other year
at Thanksgiving and sometimes in the summer when he decides to pretend
they have a relationship and he makes her go on vacation with him and his
new wife, who Allie totally hates because she’s always trying to get Allie to
like her. Her name is Kati—with no e—and she says things like, “Think of
me as your big sister,” which Allie says makes her want to puke.
Like I said, some people think it’s weird that my best friend is a girl.
Sometimes I think it’s weird, too. Mostly people assume that we’re
boyfriend and girlfriend, which I guess we could be. But that just seems too
teen-movie, if you know what I mean. A boy and girl are best friends,
neither of them dates anyone else, and then one night they look at each
other and—bang—they realize they’ve been in love with each other the
whole time. Everyone’s happy and they go to the big dance together.
Allie and I did go to a dance together once—the spring social in eighth
grade—just so we could see what was so thrilling to everyone else. Our
mothers made a big deal about it, making us dress up and taking our
pictures and all that crap. My mother still has one of the pictures framed
and hanging on the wall in our living room. Every time Allie comes over
she looks at it and says, “My hair looks like it exploded. Can’t you take that
down?” But I think secretly she really likes that it’s there.

---

The best thing about Allie is that I can talk to her about pretty much
anything. I wish I could talk to her about how I’m feeling right now, about
how I hate being in this place with these other people and their weird
problems. I know she’d get a laugh out of it all.
I guess I could write it all in a letter, like Sadie, but it’s not really the
same. I’ll wait to tell her everything in person.
I was still thinking about Allie when Sadie came back. I was surprised
that a whole hour had gone by already.
“How’d it go?” I asked her.
She said, “You know we’re not supposed to talk about our sessions with
anyone. Seriously, it might set me back. Do you want to be responsible for
that?”
“I’ll risk it,” I told her.
She slapped my arm. “Thanks for taking my mental health so seriously,”
she said. “Actually, we talked about my dad.”
“What about him?”
Sadie sighed. “Oh, you know, about how I don’t think he really loves
me and how maybe I was trying to get his attention.”
“Were you?”
Sadie looked at her nails, which were chewed down to almost nothing.
“Seeing as how he was halfway around the world at the time giving a
lecture on medieval architecture, I think I might have planned it a little
better if I was,” she said. “Once he found out I wasn’t dead he waited
another week to come home because there was a castle in Spain he wanted
to see first.”
I wasn’t sure I believed her. I mean, a dad who lectures on medieval
architecture? That sounds like something I’d make up. But I don’t know if
Sadie is a liar or not. It’s hard to tell with crazy people.
“Do you really think he doesn’t love you?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “How do you really know if anyone loves you?”
When I didn’t answer, she looked at me. “Really, how do you know?”
I thought about it for a minute. “I guess you just assume they do until
they tell you they don’t,” I said.
Sadie shook her head. “You need a better system than that.”
“Maybe you ask,” I suggested.

---

“If you have to ask, the answer is probably no. Do you think your
parents love you?”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I answered. “I do. They may be a little whacked, but
they love me.”
“Do they tell you they do?”
“Sometimes,” I said. “My mom more than my dad, but I think that’s
usually how it goes.”
Sadie looked at me for a long time. “You’re lucky,” she said finally.
I’ve been thinking about that ever since. Am I lucky? Am I lucky that I
didn’t die? Am I lucky that, compared to the other kids here, my life doesn’t
seem so bad? Maybe I am, but I have to say, I don’t feel lucky. For one
thing, I’m stuck in this pit. And just because your life isn’t as awful as
someone else’s, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. You can’t compare how
you feel to the way other people feel. It just doesn’t work. What might look
like the perfect life—or even an okay life—to you might not be so okay for
the person living it.
God, this place is starting to rub off on me. I sound like Cat Poop. I
wonder what he would think if I told him about Allie. He’d probably ask
me if I’m in love with her.

---

Day 08
This is my one-week anniversary at Club Meds. Instead of a party, my big
surprise was that my parents came to see me. Or they came because
someone told them to, at least. Anyway, when I walked into Cat Poop’s
office for what I thought was going to be my usual brain-picking session,
there they were. At first I thought I was seeing things, or that two people
who just happened to look like my parents were there for their own session
and I was interrupting. But it was them. They were sitting on the couch.
When she saw me, my mother stood up and started to come toward me,
but then stopped. I think maybe Cat Poop had told her not to make any
sudden movements because they might scare me, like I’m a wild animal or
something, because she kept looking at him and then at me. Finally she just
said, “Hello, Jeff,” and sat down again next to my father.
I sat in the big chair across from the couch and didn’t say anything. I
mean, really, what do you say to your parents when the last time they saw
you, you were practically dead and they had to call the paramedics? It’s not
exactly your typical “How was school today?” kind of thing. And it’s not
like we’ve ever been into the whole sharing thing, anyway. We’re not
huggers.
“Jeff, is there anything you would like to say to your parents?” Cat Poop
said when we’d all been quiet for what seemed like a hundred years.