My gaze swings back to the tree, and I peer harder. The eastern sun is coming up on the other side, and it's bathed the meadow and the tree in golden light. On the side opposite the tire swing, I see something near the base of the tree. It looks like Barb's backpack.
I start walking that way, tilting my head to the side as I get closer, not knowing what I'll find. Her backpack comes fully into view, followed by a pair of jean-clad legs stretched out with her recognizable combat boots on the end. My lips curve into a smile, knowing I've found her and that she's probably getting high before we hit the road.
I sneak up, still only able to see her backpack and legs, but it's clear she's sitting with her back up against the tree trunk. With a slight hop around the side of the tree, I yell, "Caught ya," as I come to a rest beside her, hoping to scare the shit out of her. I even start laughing, knowing she'll cuss me out big time.
Instead, she doesn't move.
Her hands rest on her lap with her fingers curled slightly inward, and her head is lolling on her shoulder. I walk around further, looking at her slack face with her eyes closed and her lips slightly parted.
"Barb," I say hesitantly, nudging the tip of her boot with my shoe.
She doesn't move, and I'm thinking she must be trashed.
"Barb," I say a bit louder as I squat down in front of her.
Still nothing, and that's when it hits me … her chest isn't moving.
"Barb," I yell at her as my hand shoots out to palm her face. Even through my roughened, scarred skin, I can feel how cold she is and I jerk my hand back involuntarily.
"Barb," I whisper, bringing my hand back to her and placing my index and ring finger against her carotid.
I get nothing but icy skin and utter stillness.
My entire body goes numb and my good leg turns to jelly. I collapse backward on my ass, and I just stare at Barb in disbelief. I look around, but I don't see anyone. I swivel my head and look at the area around Barb, and that's when I see it.
An empty baggy next to her.
I have no clue what was in it, but whatever it was, it was lethal. It's empty, and now Barb is no more.
My guts twist, feeling like a wet dishrag being violently wrung out, and nausea overwhelms me. I take in a deep breath through my nose and exhale it through my mouth, willing the bile to stay down. Moisture leaks from my eyes, and I hastily rub the back of my hand over them.
"Goddamn you, Barb," I whisper hatefully toward her. "Goddamn you for this."
Goddamn her for being so complex and broken and yet completely real to me. Fuck her for being just like me. In this moment where her truest weakness is exposed, it shines a light as bright as the sun on my own weaknesses. Fuck her to hell for that peaceful look on her face that says she's escaped this hard world and left us behind. And fuck it all as I wonder what we could have done to prevent this.
And mostly screw her goddamned tortured soul all the way to hell because while Jillian's actions alone have given me unfettered hope, I'd given part of the credit for my transformation to Barb-the woman who pissed on graves and defaced headstones-thinking that she truly was the strongest out of all of us. She was the one who raced to rescue Connor from a furious homeowner whose house we egged. And she was the one who, oh so sweetly and with great care, gave Connor a very special experience before he died. She was strong for a whole host of reasons that she probably never even recognized, but mainly because she had many times chosen to live when she wanted to die. She'd faced suicide down before and walked away from it. That should have been her destiny.
To live.
If I had miscalculated Barb and her ability to pull herself back from the edge of darkness so poorly, what else am I wrong about?
I think back to when I questioned Jillian about her strength and courage while facing impending blindness and how she gave me the hard truth about sunshine. She said she wouldn't miss it when she could no longer see it, because it wasn't going anywhere. It would always be there for her to feel in other ways. The only thing that would change was her ability to perceive it in a certain way and she said she'd accommodate that.
She made it sound so easy.
She made that optimism seem attainable to me, and I jumped at it like a starving man handed a ribeye steak.
I bought it hook, line, and sinker, and I was gullible enough to think that Barb would be able to understand that hard truth about sunshine too. I thought with enough support, her gray world would brighten and she'd find her way out of the darkness the way I was.
But she hadn't, even though she was so strong, and now I have to question my own strength and whether I can actually accept the truth about sunshine.
Chapter 32
I step out onto the hotel balcony and shut the door behind me. Digging in my pocket, I grab onto the pack of cigarettes and my lighter. I don't give a second thought about pulling one out and lighting it. It's not my first since I found Barb, and it won't be my last. Since smoking a joint, drinking a fifth of liquor, or popping some pills isn't an option, this is the only thing keeping me semi-sane. At the very least, my hands don't shake as much while I'm smoking.
Taking a deep drag, I pull the smoke down into my lungs, hold it for just a moment, then let it out on a forceful sigh. Resting my arms on the balcony railing, I drop my head down and stare at the street five floors below us. Would I die if I jumped from here?
Probably not. My body would just be mangled, and I've already been there and done that.
Besides, I couldn't do that to Jillian and Connor. Not after what they've gone through today.
They are in the hotel room. Jillian's dead asleep, exhausted from the myriad of emotions that she's been having. Obviously, she was distraught and cried hard for almost an hour. I was afraid she wouldn't be able to stop. But then she squared her shoulders and became the one to comfort because she knew that Connor was taking Barb's death really hard. She spent most of the day blowing sunshine up his ass about "God's plan" and "circumstances beyond our control." I know it was mentally draining for her to keep up that façade, and she's been sleeping hard for a few hours. Connor is just sitting on the other bed, his back up against the headboard. When I came out onto the balcony, I left him staring at the wall.
When my fingers touched Barb's cold skin and I knew she was dead, something inside me shifted. I felt like I was dangling from a precipice. I was so angry with her-still am for that matter-and I knew it wouldn't take much more for me to let go and fall from that cliff. I could fall right back into misery and self-loathing, because Barb's suicide gave me tacit permission to continue to feel crappy about my life because she damaged the hope I'd been building up.
But then Jillian came walking down the gravel drive from the bathrooms, and I knew I had something more important to do than to give in to the darkness. I had people I needed to protect other than myself.
I'd scrambled up from the ground, wiped my eyes again, and hurried over to Jillian before she got too close to the tree. She took one look at my face, and she knew.
She just fucking knew.
Her face crumbled as tears started streaming down her face. She shook her head forcefully in denial. "She didn't. Please tell me she didn't."
"I'm sorry," I said gruffly as I jerked her into my arms and held her tight against me. Jillian let it all go, immediately pouring out her sorrow and despair in racking sobs that carried throughout the campground. Some people came out of their tents and looked at us with worry, yet I did nothing to try to calm her down. She needed to get it out. The more she cried in my arms, the stronger my backbone felt.
Good thing too, because Connor appeared from the trailhead and he immediately locked eyes on us. And even though he was a good fifty yards away, I could see on his face that he knew too.
In hindsight, it was no surprise to us.
It made me realize how foolish I'd been to think that just because Jillian managed to point out a different, more optimistic view of the world, it didn't mean everyone would subscribe to it. I'd also been foolish to underestimate the depth of Barb's despair, and I feel guilty that perhaps I didn't do enough to help pull her back. That fucking conversation I'd had with her about suicide replays, and I can't believe I didn't do anything to help her.
Connor's gaze had swept around the campground, and he spotted Barb's backpack with an eagle eye. He took off running for it-for her-and I had to let go of Jillian to intercept him. But the little fucker was fast. Faster than me on a prosthetic leg, and he breezed by me, coming to a skidding halt by the tree.
"Connor … don't," I called out to him.
He ignored me and knelt on the ground beside Barb's body. He just stared at her blankly.
Jillian brushed past me and I lunged to grab her hand, missing it totally. She ran to Connor and knelt beside him, her arm coming protectively around his shoulders. Her sobs continued, and I'd never felt more helpless in my life.
Not even when the pain was so unbearable that I wanted to rip my own leg off.
By this time, the people who had come out of their tents started to realize something was wrong, a few moving closer to get a look at what Connor and Jillian were looking at on the other side of the big tree. While I very much wanted to go pull them away, I knew I had other things to do.