I shouldn’t have been surprised by the heaviness of it, though, seeing as how I first met the boy in a cemetery talking to dead people.
“Yes,” I said quietly, as if saying it too loud would make me get struck by lightning. I didn’t want to die. At least I didn’t think I wanted to go that far. It was more that some days I didn’t want to live. Those two things had to be different, right? I didn’t want to die, but at the same time I hated living, too. I wished there was a word for that—for the space between living and dying.
Maybe it was numb.
I wanted to be numb.
“My brother killed himself,” Ash blurted out, making my heart skip a million and four beats. “He was thirteen.”
Thirteen?
Only a year younger than me?
Those words made me want to throw up.
“Ash. I’m sor—”
“Don’t,” he cut in, shaking his head. “Don’t be sorry. I’m just saying. If you have a lot of those thoughts about not wanting to be alive, can you just... maybe call me first?”
“What would me calling you do?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged as his light-brown eyes glassed over. “Give me a chance to tell you to stay.”
“Was your brother sad?” I asked.
“Only when he was around people who made him feel that way. He was bullied a lot, even though he was the best person I’ve ever known.”
Oh, Ash...
Is that why he was so big on standing up to the bullies with me? Is that why he wanted to shut Colton down in the cafeteria? Because of how he lost his brother? “You blame yourself for his death, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“But you weren’t the one bullying him, right?”
He shrugged. “I could’ve convinced him he was good enough. I could’ve made him feel more seen, so he would’ve stayed.”
His hands were in his sweatshirt pocket again. I couldn’t keep myself from finally asking about it. “What’s in that pocket?”
He looked down and then pulled his hand out, revealing a toy in his grip. A red toy truck. “Rian loved cars. He and Dad had that in common. They’d always go to car shows together, and Rian would take a ton of photographs of them. He had dozens of these toy cars in his bedroom, but this one was his favorite. He left it in my room before he passed away, and I just hold on to it to feel... well... him.”
“That’s sad,” I said.
Ash didn’t say anything for a moment as he stared down at the toy in his hand. Then a small breath slipped through his lips. “Yeah, well. That’s life for ya.” He shoved the toy truck back into his pocket. “I’m good, though.”
“You don’t have to do that, you know,” I urged.
“Do what?”
“Pretend that you’re OK.”
He smiled. “But then there would be two of us who are sad, and we can’t have that. We need a more balanced friendship.”
“You’re still sad, even if you pretend that you’re not.”
He scrunched up his nose before raking his hand through his hair. I tossed a grape at him, and remarkably, he caught it in his mouth.
“Ohhh!” we both shouted at the same time, tossing our arms up in a unified victorious field goal sign. We needed that win exactly in that moment.
