The weekend. We had a blizzard on Sunday and school was cancelled on Monday. Didn’t make much difference to me. Every day I woke up, remembered everything all over again, cried for a good hour or so, and then spent the rest of the day in a miserable stupor. All day I thought about Roger and his mother and his blood, and how much suffering there was in the world. Why hadn’t I known? Why hadn’t I been able to do anything about it?

I’d never felt so ignorant and powerless in my life. So I found a knife.

I took it from the kitchen drawer when my mother left to go on an errand on Monday afternoon. I locked my bedroom door and sat down on the floor. I rolled the sleeve of my shirt up, exposing the smooth yellow-pink flesh of the underside of my left arm. It was flawless, without a blemish or freckle in sight. I picked up the knife.

For days now, I’d seen Roger’s mutilated body every time I closed my eyes, and every time I wondered how he could do that to himself—why he would want to. He said it helped sometimes. How did it help? What was it like? What could there be to cutting yourself that would make him want to keep doing it to the hideous extent he had? I wanted to know.

Heart pounding, I pressed the blade of the knife to my skin, far up, just below the crook of my elbow. In a quick movement, I slid the blade across my skin. Pain shot through my arm, and I yelped. I dropped the knife to the floor and clamped my hand over the cut. Blood spurted beneath my fingers, and my stomach churned. And it hurt!

Freaked out and shaking, I washed the blade in the bathroom, and then cleaned the cut and put a Band-Aid on it. I put the knife in the dishwasher.

For the rest of the day my arm ached, and I felt guilty and sick. Whenever I was alone, I rolled up my sleeve and stared at it, disgusted that I’d done it. I had on a thick long-sleeved sweater, but every time a family member approached, and all through dinner, it seemed as if their eyes were on my arm, as if the cut was glaring through the Band-Aid and sleeve like a neon light. I hated the feeling.

I never cut myself—nor wanted to—ever again. Whatever appeal he’d found in it was lost on me.

It seemed stupid to me anyway.

By Tuesday, everyone knew about Roger, for Señor had briefly explained what had happened when he’d returned to the classroom and the word had spread like crazy. Everyone was talking about it; as I trudged the halls between classes I heard whispers of his name and the words suicide and depressed. When people saw me, their eyes went wide, and they pointed to their friends and whispered more. Everyone knew we were best friends. Poor Arik, poor Arik, I wonder how he’s taking it?

It was unbearable, but somehow I made it through the day.

But what was home really any better than school?

My mother greeted me with a half-hearted smile as soon as I stepped in the door, but I didn’t even attempt a grin. What on earth was there left in the world to be happy about?

What she told me then did not improve my mood either: she wanted me to go to Roger’s house and shovel for Mrs. O’Donnell.

“I’m not going back there,” I declared.

“Arik, please. She has enough on her hands at the moment, and what she really needs is some help around the house. She doesn’t have a strong guy around to do things like shoveling. And this last storm was a bad one. The snow is total slush. The poor woman simply doesn’t have the strength to do it.”

“Don’t make me go back there,” I begged.

“You’re being selfish,” Mum told me, scowling. “Try to think about someone other than yourself.”

She made me go.

My stomach was in my shoes by the time I got to that small white house where I’d spent so much time over the last few years. The driveway and porch hadn’t been shoveled at all, though there were deep ruts in the snow from Mrs. O’Donnell’s tire tracks. Regardless, I parked by the road and hiked through the slush to the house. My innards were quivering, and my fingers shook as I knocked at the door. It was amazing how much I hated this house already. It was connected to too many bad things, too many tears, too much blood.

Mrs. O’Donnell smiled at me when she opened the door, which surprised me, for it was a genuine smile and there was color in her cheeks.

"Oh, Arik, hello, honey!” she said, gesturing for me to come in.

“I, uh, came to see if you needed help with anything. Shoveling, or whatever…” I murmured, realizing that my mother had probably not mentioned to Mrs. O’Donnell that I was coming over.

She smiled sweetly, looking pleased and more like herself than she had for days. “Oh, thank you! Yes, that’d be extremely helpful—thank you!”

I tried to smile back. I asked her where she kept the shovels, found one, and set about working.

The snow was heavy and wet, and had begun to ice over, so it was grueling work. My shoulders and back were soon burning from the exertion, and I was sweating despite the frigid wind that whipped at my face. Dig, up, over the shoulder. Dig, up, over the shoulder. Block by block, the snow gave way to black ice beneath. In an hour or so I had the driveway done, and I moved on to the porch. The snow had really piled up in the corners, and it was so heavy that I wasn’t sure how many more storms the structure could have held up against. The wood, after all, had seen far too many years, and I doubted Mrs. O’Donnell planned on fixing it soon. I sighed. Mr. O’Donnell would have been on top of the situation. He’d be out shoveling his property the instant the storm let up. He’d be yelling into the house for Roger to come help him until he was red in the face, but Roger would conveniently have a stomachache/have gone momentarily deaf. He and I would hide out in his room feigning ignorance, while his father got increasingly flustered. He’d give up eventually and finish the work by himself, and by the time he came back in, we’d serve him cocoa, just to piss him off.

I missed those days already.

When I finished, I put the shovel back in the garage and went to say goodbye to Mrs. O’Donnell. She had made hot chocolate for me and insisted that I stay for a few minutes to drink it and warm up. Once more, I forced a smile and then sat down in the same seat where Roger had sat and hacked at his arms that awful night…which wasn’t really as long ago as it felt.

“I’m so glad you came over,” Mrs. O’Donnell said, sitting down across from me. “It’s…very lonely around here.”

“Call me if you ever need anything else done,” I offered, sipping at my cocoa, having a slight change of heart because she truly seemed cheered up by my presence.

“Thank you, I appreciate that,” she said.

We sipped our chocolate in silence for a few moments. I kept my eyes on the steaming brown liquid, but I could feel her gaze on me.

“Arik…” she said gingerly, “I-I have something for you.”

She got up and went to the island. Delicately, she picked up a piece of paper, looked at it sadly, and then presented it to me. I took it from her, and she sat down at her seat again.

“I-I found that in Roger’s room,” she said briefly.

My stomach lurched. Dear God, I knew what this was.

I turned the paper over in my hands. It was regular lined paper, with a fringe of ripped edges along one side, and it had been folded into thirds. In Roger’s quick handwriting, he’d sprawled TO: ARIK across the front.

“D-did he write one to you?” I asked, wondering if I had to open it.

Her face softened tragically, and she shook her head slowly. “N-no, he didn’t.”

I sighed, hot cocoa churning in my jittering stomach. Now I had to open it, had to read it.

With shaking fingers and Mrs. O’Donnell’s eyes on me the whole time, I unfolded the paper.

It had been written quickly, and the paper was crinkled and splotched from dried teardrops. Roger’s handwriting was rushed and sloppy, and his spelling and grammar were horrendous. Still, I’d read enough of his writing to translate through the dyslexia.

Being able to read through my tears was another matter.

This is what the note, the suicide letter to me from my best friend, said:

I set the paper down, closed my eyes, and breathed. I just had to remember to breathe.

You amaze me, Roger, I thought. But you just keep making this harder and harder.

When I opened my eyes, I realized Mrs. O’Donnell was watching me intently, desperate to know the contents of the letter. I handed it to her. She read it slowly and began to cry.

Strangely enough, I realized I wasn’t going to. There was nothing in that letter I hadn’t heard him say before. If anything, I was slightly amused that he remembered to warn me against the horndog brigade. And that he was still concerned about his car. The damn car! Perhaps some things never change, no matter what.

Mrs. O’Donnell finished reading, and she folded the note back up again and set it down, a hand over her eyes. Standing up, I took the note, folded it again, and stuffed it in my pocket.

“I don’t want the car,” I said, taking my coat from the rack. “Save it for him when he comes home. Bye.”

“A-arik, wait, please…!” Mrs. O’Donnell called out, standing up. Reluctantly, I halted and turned. She approached me, and much to my surprise, embraced me tightly.

“You saved his life, Arik,” she whispered, and my throat tightened. “If you hadn’t stayed with him—if you hadn’t called me when you did—he would have died. The doctors and the EMTs all said it was a miracle that we got to him in time. Ten minutes more and he wouldn’t have survived.”

Oh, hell, Mrs. O’Donnell… Tears so sternly held at bay were on my cheeks now.

She was sobbing, too—“You saved him, Arik. Thank you for that. Thank you for everything.”

She kissed my cheek and then pulled away. “I love you, honey.”

“If you need anything, just call me,” I said, and escaped outside, because when things get too hard, I always run, don’t I?

Bitch.

(Who are you referring to, Mrs. O’Donnell or yourself?)

Chapter Thirty-two...