Part 61: James
Courtney Collins sat with Victoria at lunch. James sat alone, but also at a table with a bunch of guys.He spent most of the twenty-two minute period trying to watch Courtney Collins give Victoria her briefing, much more detailed than his, and look away in time so when they turned around to look at him, it would look like he had been looking away the whole time. When he wasn’t looking at them, he mostly stared at the painted name of the school on the cafeteria wall, done by some art class a few years back. (The tags belonged to now-high-school-juniors-and-seniors, local legends.)
XxXSuicidesXGraceXxX: wtf is a growing horizon anyway
XxXSuicidesXGraceXxX: how can a horizon grow
XxXSuicidesXGraceXxX: our school literally makes no sense lmao
He had to get home so he could read what Hannah had posted. Courtney Collins couldn’t be trusted to understand what Hannah meant, anyway, even if she had wanted to tell him everything she was telling Victoria. “Gone,” she had said - but was that Hannah’s word, or hers? Hannah used words carefully, precisely (that was why he loved her) instead of throwing them around like they were nothing. When she said she hated someone, you knew she really meant it.
If only Myssenger wasn’t blocked at school. More proof that it was a prison; more proof that the teachers didn’t trust them. But if he could just get on there for five minutes - just to read Hannah’s post, nothing more, he swore - then maybe he would actually be able to concentrate on his classes this afternoon. But as it was, there was no chance. And they had only themselves to blame.
The lunch bell rang at 12:35. This time there was no warning, just the single chime, so it got them all moving. James dumped his last Healthy Chicken Nugget into the trash and shuffled into the afternoon. 12:40 - 1:25: Social Studies. A bunch of white people killed a bunch of Native Americans a long time ago, and there were blankets involved. 1:25 - 2:10: Science. Some birds turned white and then black and then white again, also a long time ago.
2:10 - 2:20: the totally useless end-of-day Advisory Time. In September, some of the teachers had tried to get them to Reflect on their days or Set Goals for the Future, but by now it had devolved into social time. But James had no one to be social with, so he played with his shoelaces and the cuffs of his jeans, which were starting to get a little bit worn out in a way that he liked.
2:22. As he shoved his binder and his textbooks back into his locker, deciding not to take his backpack home, James could sense someone hovering behind him. Assuming it was Courtney Collins again, he ignored her. But when he finally turned around, instead he saw his former best friend and more-recently-former best male friend, Sean, standing there with his hands in his pockets. Sean’s locker was on the other side of the common area, closer to the exit, which meant he came here to talk to James. He didn’t have his backpack either, James noticed, which made him feel better about leaving his behind.
“Hey.’
“Uh, hey.”
“Can we talk?”
“I don’t know, can we?” James realized how stupid this sounded immediately after it left his mouth. He sounded like one of those teachers who couldn't just say yes you can go to the bathroom.
“What?” Sean squinted, flipped his hair, looked around the common area.
“Now’s not really a good time, actually,” James said, picturing the bus, the computer, Hannah’s post - the afternoon he had been planning for himself. Talking to Sean might get in the way of that, and he had resolved to put Hannah first.
‘Why not?”
“It just isn’t, alright?” He couldn’t tell Sean it was anything about Hannah. Surely even Sean, as self-involved as he was, must have noticed that she had been missing for the past two days. And worrying about her - no, about what happened to her - didn’t count as being a puppy dog.
“Fine, whatever. I tried, dude.” Sean looked defeated as he slunked away to the crowd of kids who were gathered by the doors, waiting for the last bell of the day, the 2:25 dismissal bell, the one thing that kept this place from being an actual, literal prison.
2:26 - 2:30: Sitting on the bus, waiting for it to leave, shaking his leg, hoping no one sat next to him.
2:30 - 2:50: Sitting on the bus, headphones in, no music playing, trying to get the people around him to move in fast-motion, while he remained stationary: a rock in the current of the river.
2:50: Home, the computer, Myssenger, Hannah - at last. James had to wade through the refuse of this morning and late last night to find it, but there it was, posted at 9:40 PM.
To all my friends enemies and everything in between yes it’s true I am gone, he read rapidly, thirstily. (Her word after all.) Maybe you noticed maybe you didn’t. (Everyone noticed, how could anyone not notice.) Some of you are probably . . .
2:51
sk8lyfe141: james.
What horrendous timing. James closed the window, tried to resume reading. But it kept coming: james. james. james. james. james. Sean wasn’t going to stop until he got a response. James considered blocking him, but then: what if he got other people to do it, what if he called, what if he came over, what if he started doing this at school, etc. Sean wasn’t like Hannah: he was a guy, and he was an idiot. So it should be easy to get rid of him, and then he could pay attention to what actually mattered.
sk8lyfe141: JAMES.
xx themachine: what do you want?
sk8lyfe141: finally
sk8lyfe141: is it a good time NOW?
xx themachine: No, not really.
sk8lyfe141: well to bad
sk8lyfe141: ur gonna talk 2 me
xx themachine: About what?
sk8lyfe141: why ur such a little bitch
sk8lyfe141: nd u wont even talk 2 me in real life
xx themachine: This isn’t real life???
xx themachine: Am I dreaming?
xx themachine: Having a hallucination?
sk8lyfe141: u kno what i mean
xx themachine: I said I was busy.
sk8lyfe141: no u didnt
xx themachine: Well, that’s what I meant.
sk8lyfe141: ur a liar nd a coward
xx themachine: Sean, if you want people to take you seriously, maybe you should consider learning to spell.
sk8lyfe141: lmao ya
sk8lyfe141: cuz thats what ppl care abt
sk8lyfe141: this is y u dont have friends n e more
sk8lyfe141: now that hannahs gone LOL
xx themachine: she’s not gone
sk8lyfe141: ya she is
sk8lyfe141: nd didnt i warn u?
sk8lyfe141: at the school
xx themachine: She’s coming back.
sk8lyfe141: ya right
sk8lyfe141: but n e ways i was gonna try nd be friends again 2day
sk8lyfe141: cause i felt kinda bad for you
xx themachine: I’m not interested in your pity friendship, Sean.
sk8lyfe141: pity???
xx themachine: Look it up. There’s this thing called a dictionary. Be careful with it, though, you might accidentally learn something.
This felt like a good place to end the conversation, so he minimized the window and went back to Hannah. But Sean evidently didn’t agree. The window kept flashing, distracting him as he tried to find evidence that he was right, that she was coming back from wherever she had gone. (“Gone” didn’t have to mean forever, right? What about “gone fishing” - he thought of an old, wooden sign, where Fishing was spelled Fishin’, with the apostrophe and everything, hung up as decoration in some store, some restaurant, some relative’s kitchen maybe.)
And then, a bigger tragedy, footsteps upstairs. Shit, it was Wednesday. The day Susan didn't have work and picked Becca up from regular school at 2:15 instead of Extended School at 4:00. She had been here the entire time, James realized, and it hit him with the force of a twist ending. It made him reconsider everything. He couldn’t have said half of that shit to Sean with her home.
CourtSport32: u read it yet????
Courtney Collins he could ignore no problem. He minimized the window, thinking the words stupid bitch.
The pounding upstairs continued.
victoriASS1992: James?
Now there were three flashing windows on his screen - Courtney Collins and Sean were still going, and Victoria had decided to acknowledge him. With a capital letter and everything. But he couldn’t really talk to her until he finished reading Hannah’s post, because obviously that was what she wanted to talk about. So he gave her a quick hey so she would know he wasn’t ignoring her, minimized her, opened up Sean to see a barrage of insults and atrocious spelling, hit block, closed out Courtney Collins, pulled up Hannah - footsteps getting louder, Victoria flashing again, hold on one damn minute - and then, of all catastrophic things, the goddamn house phone ringing.
Susan would answer it. But she didn’t. So after four rings, four attempts to read the same sentence, James slammed both hands down on the desk, shaking the monitor, and speed-walked to the phone in the kitchen. “Hello?” he said loudly, hoping his irritation would be clear to whatever pathetic telemarketer was surely on the other end.
“Hi, Mr. Cooper, this is Ashley, a friend of Becca’s from school, is Becca there?” said a singsong voice, either Ashley or a liar, reciting a memorized script.
“Sorry, she’s not home.”
“Uh . . .” Ashley sounded confused. He heard her hand cover the mouthpiece of the phone and a muffled shout of “Mom what do I say if he says she’s not home.” All in one breath. James looked back at the computer screen, four flashing windows now, Sean was like one of those mythical creatures where you cut off its head and more heads grew back - and tapped his foot impatiently. He should just hang up, he thought, but he didn’t. “Sorry to bother you, Mr. Cooper, but would you mind double checking for me, I’d appreciate it thank youuuuuu.”
Becca probably was home, but if she couldn’t even pick up the phone herself . . . “Yeah, okay, hold on.” James rested the phone on the kitchen table, walked to the foot of the stairs, passing by Susan in the living room, and screamed “BECCA PHONE!” No response. He looked at Susan, who just shrugged. Aren’t you supposed to know how to deal with her? He stomped up three steps, yelled again, changed his mind, went and got the cordless phone from the kitchen, marched back upstairs, flung open the door to Becca’s room, threw it at her, slammed her door, and came back downstairs to find Susan standing a few feet from the computer, craning her neck to read what was on the screen.
“What are you doing?” he shouted.
Susan looked genuinely startled, embarrassed. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, I just saw that it was flashing and I . . . James, did you write this?”
“Write what?” He had forgotten what he was doing before. Everything was moving too fast to process, it was like one of those war movies with bullets or swords flying around in all directions. Except he had no army, there was no one on his side, it was everyone against him. “No. Don’t read my stuff.”
“Sorry, it just . . . I . . . oh, Hannah wrote it,” she said to herself under her breath, still reading. “Did she just post this? When did she post this?”
“Last night, but . . .”
“Oh my God, last night. We’ve got to call, we’ve still got to call.” She sounded frantic, desperate. She was going back and forth from the living room to the kitchen aimlessly, as if she had misplaced something very important and had forgotten not only where but also what it was - all of which made James feel stable in comparison.
“Becca’s on the phone,” James reminded her, annoyed that she didn’t remember the scene from two minutes ago. “Call who?”
“The police, right? 911? Oh my god, I hope it’s not too late. Why didn’t you tell me? You should have told me. I know you want to deal with things on your own, but with something like this . . .”
“Mom. Stop.” She did. Direct orders worked. “Something like what? I haven’t even finished reading it yet, because people keep interrupting me!” The last two words directed vaguely upwards - at Becca, perhaps.
“Still you should have told me right away, sometimes you’ve got to ask for help, you know, you can’t do everything on your own, you always try to do everything on your own, and that’s great, but you’re not a mental health expert, you’re only fourteen, you don’t know what to say to someone who’s suicidal, you’ve never . . .”
“Suicidal?” James almost laughed. “Mom, Jesus Christ. Not every teenager is on the verge of killing themselves all the time. Hannah’s not dead, she’s just . . .”
"Just what?" Susan didn’t look convinced, but she wasn’t shaking quite as badly anymore. "But it says right there . . ." She pointed at xxXSuicidesxGraceXxx.
"That's just her name, Mom. And I dont know just what, maybe let me finish reading it and then I can tell you.” He went around her, sat back in the computer chair and defiantly ignored all the flashing boxes on the screen - after a while he stopped really seeing them - and focused on Hannah, only Hannah. Knowing Susan was watching him, he focused all the more intently, as if she could see into his mind.
if you are my true friend you already know.
Which meant he did know; he just didn’t know right now. And Susan being there meant there was a time limit, or else she was going to do something irrational like call the police, which Hannah would hate, and so he had to say something - just sound sure, just sound confident and she’ll listen, and then figure out the real answer later when he had time.
Under pressure, a possible answer presented itself. Just a quick Internet search, and . . .
“Pittsburgh,” he heard himself say. “She’s in Pittsburgh.”