Prologue

Suicide. If it had no meaning the word would be beautiful. It rolls off your tongue like silk with soft ss sounds and the long i. But it has a meaning. It has a terrible meaning that breaks hearts and tears people apart. Sometimes really awful things have really beautiful names. Nothing is ever what it appears to be because if it was then what would the point be? I know this now. I know what suicide means, that beautiful word with a terrible meaning. I know what it is and what it does and how much it hurts. I know the feeling of being left behind in the name of it. It builds up inside like a volcano ready to burst, to spew hot lava everywhere and burn everything in its path. I know. And I wish that I could stop knowing, but that isn’t how it works. So instead of letting it build up and destroy me, I’m going to try something a friend taught me. I’m going to write my story. I’m going to write their stories and our story together. It hurts, oh it hurts, but like alcohol on a wound pain sometimes means the medicine is working.
Chapter One

“GET UP MIA!” My brother, Sam called up the stairs at me. I rolled over groggily,
“I’m coming!” I grumbled, grabbing my thick-rimmed glasses and swinging my legs over the side of my bed. I got dressed in a faded Beatles T-shirt and the closest pair of jeans I could find. I ran a comb through my impossible black hair and looked at my reflection.
“That’s just gonna have to do,” I muttered to myself, turning on my heel. “Hey early bird,” I punched Sam on the arm on my way into the kitchen.
“Morning, sunshine,” He grinned, “Pancakes?”
“You are incredible,” I said while helping myself to his perfect pancakes. “Thank God my brother can cook.”
“Yeah…” Sam replied with barely any of his usual perkiness. It happened sometimes over the few weeks before.
“You ok, bro?” I asked him. He nodded as I heard the somewhat depressing honk of my best friend Amy’s Subaru. I inhaled the last few bites of pancake and bolted out the door, vaulting into the passenger’s side. Amy sniffed the air and smiled. She has an unbelievable nose for Sam’s pancakes. She grinned at me while simultaneously opening her door. I watched happily as she sprinted into my still-open door and crashed into Sam’s arms. He was still holding a batter-covered spoon when she barreled into him and fell to the ground laughing. It was incredibly obvious how in-love they were, except to them. I giggled to myself when I saw Amy carefully pick herself up and stride back to the car as if nothing had happened.
“Obviously you’re only in it for the pancakes,” I said sarcastically when she made it back to the car.
“Shut up he’s sweet,” she replied, turning on the car and starting out of the neighborhood.
“Well you two have my blessings,” I told her.
“Thank God,” She muttered good-naturedly. I laughed, and so did she and we drove to school laughing that morning.





~
When we arrived at the vastly uninteresting and inappropriately named GreenPond High, Amy parked her car and we went our separate ways. Since Amy is a senior and I’m only a sophomore, we only have one class together- art. The great thing about how the art department is set up at GreenPond is that all grades take the same art in the same room at the same time and it is always open for anybody with free time, not to mention the fact that our art teacher is Mr. Dink. Anyways, both of us split off to our respective homerooms with our respective friends and didn’t see each other until we got The News. Most of my day passed fairly uneventfully. It was in art that the intercom beeped calling me to the main office. I sighed, packed up my art supplies, and made my way to the front of the building where the secretary was holding a phone and looking very worried.
“It’s your father. He seems pretty frantic,” She said. I took the phone and thanked her wordlessly.
“Sam didn’t go to school today,” was the first thing he said. I was surprised, but that was no cause for alarm. No matter how studious you are, you’re bound to miss some school.
“What about it?” I asked, still not terribly frightened although my dad’s tone was kind of freaky.
“He… Come home, MiMi. Come home now.” It was at this point that I began to sense that something was really and truly wrong. The last time my dad had called me MiMi was when my first dog died two years ago. Something bad had happened.
“Okay. I’m on my way,” I assured him, “I need to go home. I think something bad happened at my house. Can I leave?”
“Of course. Go get your homework and I’ll check you out,” She replied in that motherly tone that adults use whenever they sense something is wrong. I sprinted out and grabbed my bookbag. I also texted Amy:
Mia: Hey Aim can u ditch need a ride home
Amy: K b ther soon
Mia: Cool am @ ur car
Amy arrived just minutes later, looking worried.

“Why are we going back to your house?” She asked me.

“I dunno, but my dad called me MiMi,” I told her. Amy knew that this meant it was dire and quickly started the ignition. She drove me back rather recklessly

“What do you think it is?” I asked her.

“Not sure but Sam said something weird this morning,” She replied.

“Oh my God me too,” I remembered the strange seriousness of his goodbye. Amy sped up and we reached my house in record time. I burst into the door to find my mother weeping at the dining room table and my father standing over her as silent tears dripped down his face.
“Dad… what happened,” I whispered. It was more of a statement than a question really. I already knew what had happened. I saw the note. I floated over to the table as if in a dream, except that this particular dream happened to be a nightmare of the very worst kind; it was a real one. I lifted the paper up to my eyes so that I could read the careful lettering of a boy about to die.
Dear Mom and Dad and Mia,
I hope you all know that it isn’t your fault. In fact, I only lasted this long because of you. And Amy, of course, but this note isn’t for her. Hers is in my desk drawer, she’ll know which one. Anyways, I know you weren’t expecting this. At least I hope so. I didn’t want to tell you or let you know because you would’ve worried and school would’ve been hard and work would’ve been hard. You would’ve worried about me because you love me and I love you, too. I love you so much and you shouldn’t feel bad. It was the kids at school. Maybe I could’ve ignored them or told them to leave me alone or not let it hurt, but the fact of the matter is that it did hurt. And this is my solution- that’s the thing about pain. It demands to be felt. So goodbye. And please don’t let me ruin your lives like some ruined mine. And never forget me.
Love, Sam.

“WHAT KIND OF A SICK JOKE IS THIS!?” I screamed at the top of my lungs, tears streaming down my face. “He isn’t gone. Right? He. Is. Not. Gone.” Sam had always been a constant in my life. While my friends changed and my interests shifted and nothing stayed the same, Sam had always been there. He hadn’t changed since I could remember. Sam was the star that my world turned around and now he was gone and my planet was spinning off into space with nothing to hold it down and no one to save me. I collapsed next to my mom and sobbed. I could barely breathe, I was crying so hard. After a few moments, a hand touched my shoulder and I jumped. I looked up onto the tearstained face of my perpetually-jaunty best friend.

“Amy…” I muttered.

“He loves me, Mia,” she said, and her eyes were filled with the kind of pain you only hear about in books. “He loves me and he never said it because he was afraid I wouldn’t and now he has nothing to lose and he loves me,” she said, “That’s what he told me in his note. And the worst part is that I love him, too. I love him more than he could ever have imagined, Mia. And I never told him because I was afraid, too, and now I’ve lost everything where as he had nothing to lose. But I lost him, Mia. I lost him and so did the entire world and the people he has met and the people he would have met. He’s lost.” I had no reply to that, so I just reached up to wipe away her tears.

“He used a John Green quote,” I muttered. It’s funny how in the biggest moments of your life you notice the smallest things. She just nodded, the funniest little smile on her lips.

“Of course he did,” she whispered. Her words appeared to have a greater meaning behind them, but I was too exhausted and upset to pay much attention. Amy suddenly looked at me like she had just remembered something. She gestured to the stairs,

“He left you something in his room. I didn’t read it but…” I didn’t hear the end of her sentence because I was already halfway to his room. On his desk there lay a fake rose wrapped in a piece of paper. The biggest letter had my name written on it in beautiful calligraphy. I unrolled it and inside was a poem I had never heard before- some research would later uncover that it was called Rose by Dheeraj Haran.

A single rose to lane
A single rose to slain
A single rose to hide my pain

A single rose to turn the tide
A single rose to make roads wide
A single rose as my guild

A single rose to rise the soul
A single rose to widen the hole
A single rose to achieve a goal

A single rose to melt the heart
A single rose to force a start
A single rose to cult

A single rose to freeze my body
A single rose to mourn this memory
A single rose to start a life
A single rose to end the strife

I puzzled over the poem for a moment, but my mind couldn’t be further away from critical reading. I rolled the rose back up and hid it underneath the spare pillow on my bed. I wanted to keep it a secret, although I wasn’t sure why. Then I lay down on my bed and cried myself to sleep.