Of Silence and Skipping Rocks

“You didn’t have to, you know,” the girl with the dark hair whispered. She stood on the bank of a river, the place that her and her close friend had always met. Their secret place. She turned a smooth, wet rock over in her hand, eyeing the distance between herself and the center of the ripples the last rock had left. “You didn’t have to do this.”

Her friend said nothing. He didn’t actually talk much these days. Not since he’d swallowed twenty-four pills with a shot of vodka a few months back. She’d lost him then, no matter what the hospital charts said. He just sat there on the ground with his back against one of the trees, watching her skip rocks along the river.

She flicked her wrist, gracefully sending the smooth stone across the water. Bounce, bounce, bounce, sink. It had made it a few feet farther than the last rock she’d thrown. Immediately, she started scanning the shoreline for a new weapon against the sparkling glass of the river. “I was there. I’m still here. You should’ve talked to me. I would’ve helped you.”

No response. Typical.

Frustration welled up inside of her, threatening to boil over. She snatched up a jagged rock, not caring that it wouldn’t skip well. She closed it tight in her fist, wincing against the pain it caused. After a few moments, she snapped her arm back, forward, and then let the rock go. It sailed in a graceful arc before slamming into the water, nearly to the other side. “Why don’t you talk to me?”

She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of turning to look at him. She knew that he would just talk to her with his eyes, like he had become accustomed to. She wouldn’t let him. She would force him to use his vocal cords if she had to rip them out and use them herself. “God, you know that I love you. You know that you’re one of my best friends. Why can’t you just trust me for one freaking second and just talk to me?”

The frustration burst into her words, raising the volume and anger in her tone. It, thankfully, blocked the choked sound of her forcing back tears.

She was a strong girl, and most of the time was not easily brought to tears, but this was different. This was about him, this was about the one person who could get to her with only a few words. This was the boy that she talked to about everything, the one that she never had to build walls against…and yet, there he was, pouring cement between them. He was the only one that could make her cry like this, and he did. Frequently.

She should have seen it coming, really. That was what bothered her the most. She could have stopped him from doing what he did. But she didn’t. She was too caught up in her own stupid problems - her own stupid life - to notice that he was slowly spiraling out of control. The guilt, during those first few weeks after it happened, had nearly killed her.

“You were depressed. I get that. But damn it, I’ve been depressed, and I’ve never done what you did.” Her hands tightened into fists. “And you want to know why? Because any time I’ve thought about taking the easy way out and just ending it, I thought about who I’d be leaving behind. I’ve thought about how my mom would cry, how my dad would blame himself by blaming everyone else, how my sister would take that example, and how you would spend the rest of your life wondering what you could have done to stop me.” Her voice was deadly calm now. “I thought about someone other than myself - maybe you should try that. Maybe then things wouldn’t be like this.”

She wanted to turn around so badly, but she knew that she couldn’t. She wanted to look him in the face so that he could see the anger and pain in her eyes. But she knew it wouldn’t do a thing. She couldn’t give in. She couldn’t let him go on being silent.

Looking back, she never really knew how much time passed after that. All she would remember was staring out at the bleak grey sky, watching the rain clouds roll in, and then feeling the cool droplets hit her skin. She knew that she stood in the rain long enough to be shaking when she finally spoke again. “Maybe then I wouldn’t have lost you.”

Because, even when someone is right beside you, they can be gone. Even when you’re right there, screaming at them, venting out the frustrations that they’d given you, they could be just…gone. Nonexistent.

“Just say you’re still here,” she pleaded to the sky. “Say you haven’t actually forgotten every time we’ve talked. Say something to let me know that you didn’t just leave me.”

Silence.

She looked over her shoulder, exhausted and unable to fight anymore. She took in the place where he sat, beneath the large tree that had always been his favorite place in the world. She studied all that was left of him - the plaque in the ground that bore his name, his birth-date, and the day of his death. “…Just say…anything.”