Suicide Notes

The Ring, where the characters have to pass along the haunted videotape to
someone else so that the ghost girl in the video won’t come out and kill
them. They know the girl will kill the person they give the tape to, but they
do it anyway because they don’t want to die more than they don’t want to
be responsible for someone else dying.
Not that picturing Rankin would kill me, but it was giving me a pretty
bad headache. So bad that I couldn’t sleep. I went into the lounge, and there
was Sadie. I don’t think she ever sleeps. I think she just watches TV all
night.
“It was so weird,” I said after I told her the basics.
“Why?” she asked me.
“What do you mean why?” I asked back. “Because it’s weird.”
“Please,” she said. “Like you don’t do it too.”
I almost said I didn’t, but that would have been an obvious lie. I mean,
come on. I bet even the Pope does it.
“But he wasn’t even embarrassed,” I said.
“Is it big?” asked Sadie.
“Is what big?” I said.
“You know,” Sadie said, looking down with her eyes. “It. He’s a big
guy. I bet it’s big.”
“I didn’t exactly notice,” I told her.
She grinned. “Yes, you did,” she said.
“I did not!” I protested.
She rolled her eyes. “You know you did,” she said. “Guys always look.
They have to compare. So, is he bigger than you?”
“You are such a perv,” I said.
“What is it with guys?” she asked me. “Girls always compare.”

---

“Big deal,” I said. “It’s not as if there’s a lot of difference between . . .”
This time it was my turn to look down in the general area of her, you know,
girl parts.
“How do you know?” she shot back. “How many of them have you
seen?”
“Enough,” I said.
“Like Allie’s?” Sadie asked, surprising me.
I felt myself turning red, which totally made me mad. “All right,” I said.
“So I saw it. I guess it was pretty big. Are you happy?”
“Are we talking about Allie or Rankin now?” said Sadie, grinning again.
“I should never have brought this up,” I said.
“Relax,” Sadie said. “Let’s get back to the problem. Why are you so
freaked out about this?”
“What if . . .” I started.
“What if what?” asked Sadie when I didn’t finish.
I took a deep breath. “What if he wanted me to see him?” I said.
Sadie laughed. “So what if he did?”
“That’s kind of creepy,” I said.
“Please, it wasn’t like he asked you to help out or something,” she said.
“You just wandered in.”
“But he didn’t seem to care that I saw him,” I said.
“Why should he?” Sadie asked. “It’s no big deal. You guys are always
walking around with those things sticking out and touching yourselves and
whatever. It’s like you’re so proud of them that you have to show them off.”
“Sure,” I said. “It’s like a dog show. Sometimes we even have talent
contests.”
Sadie shook her head. “Guys are so fucked up. You get all freaked out
about people thinking you’re gay if you look at each other. Girls aren’t so
hung up about that.”
“What do you mean?” I asked her.
“Well,” she said. “Have you ever practiced making out with one of your
guy friends?”
“No!” I said.
“See,” said Sadie. “But girls do it all the time.”
“You do?”

---

“Sure. I’ve made out with lots of my friends. Sometimes more than
that.”
“More how?” I asked her.
“You know, a little touching and stuff. No major lesbo action or
anything. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I mean, I’d probably do
that with the right girl.”
I didn’t know what to say. To be honest, she was freaking me out a little
bit.
“I don’t think guys do that kind of stuff,” I said.
She laughed. “You just don’t admit that you do,” she said. “Trust me.
Guys do it, too.”
I don’t know about that. I can’t imagine many of the guys at my school
playing around with each other during a sleepover. But maybe they do.
They sure slap each other’s butts enough in the locker room and on the
field. I always thought that was weird, by the way. Guys are so afraid of
people thinking they’re queer, but the jocks are practically feeling each
other up out there.
I didn’t want to think about it anymore, so I changed the subject.
Actually, I suggested that we play the dialogue game. I figured that might
distract Sadie from the whole sex subject.
It didn’t. As soon as we started playing, I knew I was in trouble. The
movie was one of those really bad teen slasher movies. It took place at a
summer camp (don’t they all?), where someone was offing all of the
counselors for no apparent reason.
The scene we were watching was about two of the counselors, a guy and
a girl. For some reason that would only make sense in a bad teen slasher
movie, they had decided to go camping in the woods when there were
perfectly good cabins right there. They were inside a tent, sort of half in and
half out of their sleeping bags, and they were talking. It was perfect for the
dialogue game.
“Let’s do something different,” Sadie suggested. “I’ll be the guy. You be
the girl.”
She didn’t wait for me to say okay; she just started in. “Heather, there’s
no one in the woods.”
“But I heard something, Sean,” I said as the girl moved her mouth.
Sean put his hand on Heather’s cheek. “It’s just the wind,” Sadie said.

---

The girl looked like she didn’t believe him. “I’d feel better if I was in
your sleeping bag with you,” I said in her voice.
As Sean unzipped his sleeping bag and the girl in the movie slid out of
hers, Sadie said, “I hope you don’t mind, but I sleep in the nude.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to sound like a girl who was surprised. “I wish I’d
shaved my legs.”
“That’s okay,” Sadie replied in a low voice. “I like a girl with hairy legs.
It turns me on.”
We both laughed. Then I did something I hadn’t planned on. I slid my
hand over and put it on top of Sadie’s. My heart was fluttering like a crazy
butterfly, and for a second I almost pulled my hand back. But then Sadie
folded her fingers around mine. She didn’t say anything or even look at me.
It was like she’d expected me to do it.
We sat like that while we kept playing the game.
“You’re so warm,” I said in Heather’s voice.
“That’s because you make me warm,” said Sadie.
“Oh, Sean,” I said. “I feel so safe with you.”
“Safe enough to go all the way?” said Sadie.
I hesitated along with the girl in the movie. When she started moving
her lips again I said, “I think so.”
Just at that moment, a knife plunged through the tent wall. The guy and
the girl screamed and tried to get away as the killer came at them, but they
were tangled in the sleeping bag. The knife came down again and again,
and blood went everywhere.
“So much for Heather’s first time,” Sadie said in her normal voice. “She
died a virgin. How sad.”
She was still holding my hand. But now that we weren’t playing the
game, it felt a little strange. Still, neither of us let go of the other’s hand. I
kind of felt like I should say or do something, but I didn’t know what.
We sat like that until the movie was over. I can’t even tell you how it
ended. All I could think about was how warm Sadie’s hand was, and how I
hoped I wasn’t sweating or anything. I forgot all about Rankin and, well,
everything. It was like when I touched her, some magnetic force in her hand
erased all of the stuff in my head.
“All right you two, I think that’s enough television for tonight.”

---

Nurse Moon’s voice startled me. I’d forgotten all about her. For a
minute it was like Sadie and I were just sitting in the living room at home.
But Moonie’s voice reminded me where we really were.
It also reminded me that Sadie and I weren’t supposed to be holding
hands. I let go of hers just as Nurse Moon walked over and clicked the TV
off.
“Off to bed,” she said.
I mumbled a good night to Sadie without looking at her, then walked
back to my room. As I was going in, I heard Sadie whisper, “Hey.”
I turned around. She glanced back at the lounge, then leaned in and
kissed me quick on the lips. “Good night,” she said.

---

Day 26
Oh, man. Cat Poop cannot find out about this. Nobody can find out about
this. If they do, Sadie and I are both screwed.
Okay, so after Sadie kissed me good night last night, she went back to
her room. Nothing else happened. But the thing is, I kept wondering what