the beginning of my group suicide story, perhaps....
S.
S. is disconnected. She sits at her kitchen counter, foot tapping against the metal rung of her stool. She’s always had a lot of nervous energy, but these days it feels like she expels these nervous tics in order to shake off a pervasive heaviness.
S. hates it when the Internet is down. This fact weighs on her chest, making it hard to breath. Her foot taps faster.
The sun comes through the freshly scrubbed window in a pale sheet, laying itself down over the counter, over the checked tiling, over her pale, freckled arms.
Yesterday, she spent 18 hours on her computer. This includes time spent at work, of course, clicking through websites and gulping down water. Her trivial desk job, an “internship” if you will. All she does is Google things upon command, and even those requests are sparse.
S. surveys her apartment. She considers it hers, though she has a roommate – a girl named Esther who spends every night at her boyfriend’s. She and Esther were good friends last year – they painted their toenails and made a habit of stumbling home drunk after parties together. S. likes Esther, likes her vivacity and her habit of leaving piles of worn-once clothing in her room. Esther is mostly gone now, but her messes remain, and S. says nothing because they comfort her, these little nests of shirts and socks.
There is a knock on the door and S. startles. She peeks through the peephole to see Esther’s distorted, sheepish face grinning back at her.
“Sorry,” Esther cries when S. opens the door, spilling inside in her pea coat and pink cheeks. Esther always looks alive. “Sorry, sorry, I’m a dumbass and I misplaced my keys.”
“Don’t worry about it,” S. says. She smiles at Esther, and the tightness in her chest grows. “Are you staying here tonight?”
“No, no, just grabbing some stuff,” Esther says, walking towards her room in quick strides. Esther is petite, compact even, but always on the move. “Dan and I are going up to his parents’ for a week, remember? How about you? Are you going home soon?”
S. chews on her thumb and glances at the school calendar tacked onto their refrigerator, with the phrase “WINTER BREAK” scrawled across in pink highlighter. “Maybe in a couple days,” she responds. “I haven’t decided yet.”
