Badfish

Is he wearing a mask? Click. The lock moved over,

permitted me to enter, and slowly I pushed open the door and
stepped inside. It groaned too loudly in the silent house.
Andrew and his friend had been sleeping, at peace on the
couches when I walked in, and I gracefully tip-toed around
them. Amidst the alpine ceilings, everything seemed to echo,
each footstep down the hall, each short, hollow breath that
managed to escape me. Barely a walk from the open front door
to his bedroom, but with every step my heart slid deeper from
its nestled spot between my ribs to the twisting pit of my
stomach, twisting like it was being wrung out like a towel. As
I pulled the bobby pin out of my hair to jimmy the locked
bedroom door knob, I already knew.
I knew when I woke up that morning. As I got up off
the couch in an unfamiliar basement, I knew. As I searched for
my black flip-flops, covered in sticky red from last nights
drunken accident and woke my sister up so I could drive us
home, I knew. I remember sitting on the brown rocking chair in
my living room and calling again. Why is his phone off? His
phone had been going straight to voicemail all night, and
though worry seeped in and out of my dwindling
consciousness, I drenched it all with each consecutive shot of
liquor. I remember looking at the time on the phone I had then
as my mind replayed our last conversation. It was slightly after
noon, and I knew. I remember telling my sister I had to go up
there, to his house, and though I doubt she asked why, I think I
probably mumbled something about talking to him, because I
wouldnt have dared said what I knew. I remember the thirty
minute drive, as many thoughts racing through my mind as
there were yellow squares beside my tires, flying just as
quickly, just as sure. I had taken that drive one hundred times,
two hundred maybe. I remember that regardless of the fact that
it wasnt very close, it never felt too far. I remember that day it
seemed like forever. I remember the ambulance that passed
with its lights screaming, flashing at me, and the quick,
descending weight of dread that welled up in the deepest part
of my chest. I remember slamming the pedal harder. I
remember the empty driveway when I got there, and a small
sigh of relief But I knew.
The bent, black bobby pin slowly slipped out of my
hand and silently landed in the threshold. Where is he? In the
doorway, I hesitated for a second, waited for him to hear me
and wake up and look at me with those sparkling eyes. He
didnt. My mind raced through a labyrinth of possibilities, of
all the places he could be, of friends from his work I could call
as I took a step onto the carpeted floor, my eyes darting too
frantically around his room. I didnt see his body at first,
though it was right there in front of me on the top bunk of the
bed that I knew so well, the top bunk of the bed where we laid
every morning, every afternoon, every fucking night, and held
each other and talked about how much we missed the past and
kissed like we knew what forever was and made love. And I
didnt see him there on his black sheets, so I looked to the
couch, burrowed in underneath him where the bottom bed of
the bunk bed should have been, though of course he had
changed it because he was always inventing and surprising me
with the strange ways he saw the familiar things in the world
But he wasnt there either.
Lifeless is not a strong enough word to describe the
body when I finally saw it, because there was so much life in
him and this body, there, looked as if it never had life in it at
all- never once. If surprise was the correct word to describe
what I felt when I saw what I saw on the top bunk of the bed I
would use it, but its not. If horror was the correct word, Id use
that. But there is no one word in the world to describe what I
saw. There is no one word to describe an abstraction I never
believed in all sketched out in black and red right in front of
my eyes with vivid details that the brain is never supposed to
learn of, details that would later haunt not only my sleep and
my dreams, but my sunrises, my favorite seasons, the words of
every line that I wrote.
If I knew my thoughts at the moment of realization, I
would put them in italics here, but I dont think real thoughts
circulated in my mind. Except maybe go, get out of there,
leave. And if I could remember how my body felt, how my
limbs went weak or how my heart actually cracked, actually
splintered down the middle, I would share that with you, but I
dont think I could actually feel anything. And I ran down the
hallway to the kitchen, at least I think I did (I cant imagine
that I knew how to walk) and I shook Andrew, asleep on the
couch, saying go look at Tyler, go look at Tyler, seriously
Andrew, go. And as he walked back, his friend woke up and
looked at me, my hands foolishly covering a mouth that could
not speak, pacing the hardwood floor with wide eyes, my legs
shaking so furiously I could not sit down or stand still. And he
asked me what was going on and he looked scared, and I
looked scared, and Andrew looked scared as he walked back
out to ask me if Tyler was wearing a mask. And one of us
threw a chair, but I swear I cant remember who, because we
knew that he wasnt. And all of us ran to pile in my car because
like the suddenness of a gunshot we realized we were so
young, and our minds were screaming help. We needed help. Is
he wearing a mask? This sentence will never, ever escape my
thoughts, the only full sentence that I remember hearing and
understanding and responding to. No.. Hes not. And the rest of
the details of the day do not matter, not the jumping in my car
to find Joye who we passed only halfway down the street, not
the phone call to my mom, or to the cops, or the hustle of the
boys moving the pot plants from the closet to the woods. Not
the swing in the front yard that I sat to sob in, or the
interrogations, or the cars that never stopped pulling into the
long, secluded driveway. I saw none of it. I only saw him lying
there, and I will not describe to you what a face looks like that
has been blown apart by a bullet because I never want you to
picture it. I have done a lot to stop picturing it myself.


Goosebumps spread across every inch of my arms and
my legs as I write this. As I revise it relentlessly, I realize I am
tearing up now, and it has been awhile since Ive cried. It has
been awhile since Ive seen him. It has been awhile, now. It has
been almost three years. I could try to explain to you what it
feels like to lose your love to suicide. To many people, I have
tried. But I promise you wont get it. And I hope you never do.
As I sat on the couch in that house, and as police and sheriffs
and investigators and coroners walked in and out and looked at
me and asked me if I was okay, I only screamed. I only
screamed his name, and no, and why, and please, and my baby,
the wildest and most genuine I have ever screamed in my life. I
only wept and stuffed my face behind a tan throw pillow,
begging anyone that would listen to give me my baby back, to
erase the image from my mind, to let me fucking die. I sat on
the couch and trembled, shook, terrified that he was going to
walk down the hallway towards me. I saw it happen, over and
over and over behind the darkness of the cloth. And I dont
know if it was hours or half hours or days or minutes that I
remained on that couch, but eventually they forced me up and
outside. Eventually they made me answer questions.
Eventually they required that I tell his secrets. I did not believe
he was gone until the coroner promised it to me.
For many, many weeks, his saint-like, twisted face was
all that I saw no matter how hard I shut my eyes. I could not go
into a room by myself, could not sleep by myself, could not
even be in a bathroom alone. I could not look down his
hallway, go outside unless it was daylight, or walk into his
emptied room. I was haunted. The memories we had together
almost didnt seem real anymore; they felt like a dream- too
beautiful and faultless to exist, too storybook to fit into my
tragedy. To this day, they often still do. And sometimes it is
still hard not to be mad at him for leaving me. I spent a lot of
months sitting with that. Sometimes, I still want to scream like
I did that day on the couch. Sometimes I do. Sometimes, I blare
the CD that he made for me and pretend that hes singing Tom
Petty beside me again like he used to. Sometimes I actually
here him singing. Sometimes, I feel his presence and other
times, I know he is gone.
There is a quote by Sigmund Freud that his best friend
read aloud at his funeral. He says that, We find a place for
what we lose. He says, Although we know that after such a
loss the acute stage of mourning will subside, we also know
that we shall remain inconsolable, and will never find a
substitute.He says, No matter what may fill the gap, even if it
will be filled completely, it nevertheless remains something
else. This quote burned itself, word for word, to my memory.
I could have written those fucking words. Because we do find a
place for what we lose. We do fill the gap. It is never the same,
but we do.
You never realize what you are capable of enduring
until you are compelled to endure it. I never expected that
when my boyfriend and I broke up, he would shell out over
1,500 dollars on drugs and dig himself into a hole of depression
that would eventually lead to his suicide. I never knew that
when I started to come back around, I would find powdered
lines and needles throughout his room, find a worn, fucked up
soul in his presence. I never thought that he would look to me
as the someone who could save him, and I never envisioned I
could not. I never knew I was as fucked up as he was. And
above all things, I never believed he would do it. Regardless of
the innumerable cries for help, the uncounted messages that I
still cannot delete from my phone, I supposed he would be
okay. I thought we would be. I thought we would do it
together. I never believed that Icdanttark it anymrow I lobve
you so mvuchim so sorfry meant he was planning to leave
forever. I never believed that he would leave me here, that he
would put that gun between his eyes and really pull the fucking
trigger, without simultaneously putting one to mine. But in his
own way, he did.


I allowed Tylers death to take over my heart, my soul,
my mind, and my spirit for many, many months. His friends,
whom I so desperately clung to, watched as I drank myself to
hell, thinking I had already arrived. And they, and the whole
rest of the world, gazed in pity and apprehension of me as I
pushed Tylers death from my mind with every damn shot. My
tears were hollow and unknowing of what I wasnt facing.
They slid down my face full of only liquor and regret and a
guilt that I could not shake. Yet, the alcohol was all that I
found comfort in. It swarmed me, put a thick cloud over my
eyes and construed all the details that I didnt want to see. The
alcohol made the days go by and it made me numb and it made
me forget and it made me sick. I was forced into rehab during
my senior year and then forced out of college during my
freshman year because I had become such a goddamn mess. I
went through programs and counseling with people that pried
my eyes open and made me look at his death, until I could not
see it anymore. And so it goes, I did it. I got through it, because
I had no other choice.
Because we have no other choice. You can spend days
and nights hiding out underneath blankets, crying and pleading
to whoever you speak to, but the world wont stop. You can
skip work or skip school, you can stop getting showers or stop
eating meals or stop picking up phone calls, but the world
wont stop. You can drink yourself half dying so that maybe
you dont feel the weight of the dead, but the world will only
snarl at you with half pity, half revulsion- it will not stop. Your
world, your world will stop, though. Your world will cease to
spin on its axis (whichever way that it spins) and it will cease
to have any colors or comforts or candor. And your world will
look at all the other worlds with a hatred laced with what ifs
and how will I go ons and why did this happen to mes, but time
keeps fucking ticking. And thats what I used to rack my brain
trying to figure out- how could time just keep going without
him? How could the world not have the decency to realize
what was happening here? Hes gone. And every time I smiled,
I thought, how can I smile? Every time I laughed, my mind
reeled with thoughts of uncertainty. Every time I found
someone new that helped ease all the pain just a little bit or for
a little while, I felt his eyes on the back of my neck. How could
you? And how could you is what the rest of the world asked
too, whenever I smiled or laughed or found someone, but they
didnt fucking get it. They never would, and I hope they never
do.
The world does not understand suicide. I didnt either. I
am not sure that I even believed it really happened. I couldnt
have, or I would have done more. And you could say that
suicide is selfish or foolish or insane, and you would be right. It
is all those things sometimes. I felt his heavy regret in my heart
for awhile, and I felt anger towards him for even longer. It took
a lot of months and a lot of uneasy effort to replace all the bad
shit at the end with all the fucking goodness that boy gave to
me before it all collapsed in on him. Maybe suicide was the
only means he saw left of letting us know how serious it was.
By doing what he did, he allowed me to truly understand his
sadness for the first time. Or maybe, he wishes he wouldnt
have taken it that far. But it doesnt matter now. It really
doesnt. I have become content with the understanding I have,
that we cannot understand. It was not his fault. We can become
so fucking sad.
But just as we can become so fucking sad, we can
become so many things. So, I listened to people. And I allowed
myself to learn, and breathe, and I wrote, and I became the
character of my own story, the one I wanted to be a part of.
Today, I am not haunted. Today, I am deeper, I am braver, I am
stronger. Today, I am much more compassionate, and I know
how to appreciate. I know I owe all of this to him. I cannot
count the amount of times that people have called me the
strongest person they know and relayed how much they
dont see how I could do it. But I dont want to be looked at
as some sort of hero or martyr or a brilliant protagonist because
I have survived. We do.


I am wracking my brain here, rewriting each paragraph
and searching for all the perfect words because I have to get
this right. I have to get this right for him. At least, I owe him
that. I could tell you all the ways that Tyler gave life to me
while we were alive, together, but the memories that I save in
the special cupboards of my brain never resonate as well on the
page. Anyway, they are mine. What he has given me, all the
ways that I have grown and always keep growing, I know
stems from the heartbreak, and what can I be now but thankful
for how he has shaped my soul, and continues to shape it- in
my dreams and in his voice in the back of my mind and in the
smile and sparkle of his eyes that I will always be thinking of.