A Divine Rose Became an Angel

It was on one of those brilliant days in which we say we live for, nearing the end of the summer season, and heralding the cold days of autumn and when the leaves begin to die, I walked to join a line to grab some lemonade from one of those shake-up stands that usually pop up around the time of Derby Day. I looked around and the world – which I knew had such colour, such splendour and beauty – seemed as black and white as those old movies. Like Casablanca, like The Dam Busters. Waiting in line, waiting for lemonade, waiting for something to happen, waiting for death – really whichever came first I would be happy to oblige. Looking around, I could see assortments of people, large people, skinny people, people who were outrageously camp or reserved in their manners, people who were loud, people who were quiet. There were just too many people. And as I neared the stand, lost in this reverie of depressive thinking, a collision occurred which broke the mindset I had nestled into, and I felt coldness soak through my shirt and onto my skin. Almost as soon as the collision occurred, I heard a small shocked cry, a face which had a dropped mouth in the extremity of disbelief. But as soon as I saw her, the world changed. The colour had returned to my life; like in that scene from The Wizard of Oz, where the girl walks from the grainy depressing brown to this full-blown assault upon the senses, colours that would blind, colours that would slap one right in the face without them being aware of it. She stood there, arms out like La Pieta, questioning the cruelty of humanity, but instead wondering whether or not what had just happened actually happened. She looked up and looked me in the eyes, her own were entreating, inviting forgiveness, hoping that she would be spared being shouted at.
‘Oh my God, I am so so so sorry. I didn’t see you there! I didn’t mean to knock into you. Is there anything I can do? Truly, is there anything I can do?’
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do; so struck by her face, struck by her voice. I caught a scent, like roses, a perfume comprised of the scent of roses; I felt its power and its enticement.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry, it’s perfectly okay. I can get it aired out, dried up in the Library.’
‘Where is that?’
‘Just down that way,’ I pointed off yonder. ‘But first, let me get you another lemonade, please’ – for she had then opened her mouth to protest – ‘I insist; my treat.’ And I waited in the line, no longer conscious of depression, nay not even feeling such bleak thoughts, but I had turned skippy, and giddy. When it was my turn, I ordered two and paid the man. Off we went to the Library, asked the receptionist if I could use the sink since I had suffered an unfortunate accident – did I catch a blush collecting on my new friend’s cheek? – And we went to the back. She did not follow me, since I would have to shed off the layer that had been soaked before it became dry and sticky. This I did and I felt the coolness on my skin, it had already become sticky from waiting so long, and I looked down at myself, my imperfect body, the pale skin, the roughness of its touch. I didn’t bother any longer, and turning on the tap allowed the water to swill in the basin before I scrunched up my shirt and dipped it in. Water was better than Lemonade, I thought. Washing didn’t take too long, so when I was done, and I pressed the automatic drier, giving its raucous roar and howling, blowing me and the shirt with hot air. I was done in little under ten minutes, and I met my new friend again, and she was still blushing. She stood there, waiting, like an obedient child waiting on the grown-ups, self-conscious and nervous.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked.
She jumped a little, like a frightened rabbit. ‘Yes, yes,’ she said, ‘yes I am all right. I’m just so flustered and embarrassed.’
‘Don’t be,’ I said, ‘these things happen all the time.’
Her blush seemed to recede, and her smile came back. Lord, what a smile she had! It was perfect, a neat curve that showed a little of her teeth; her brown eyes twinkled merrily, and her hair, dirty blonde, had come to rest on her shoulders, like rivers of satin or silk. I don’t know what magic she was possessed of, but I know that one of allurement and attraction must have been one of her many arts. She was simply striking, and I’m not usually one of those Romantic types, the Romantic Novelists who used to write about their heroines as having eyes of blue deeper than the oceans of sapphire colour, their complexion toned to perfection, their sweetness and gentility beyond question.
‘You’re very pretty,’ I admitted. Then it was my turn to blush, letting slip such a notion, and so early on into meeting someone. I was half expecting to be met with a smirk, but I wasn’t. I was met with another tomato-red blush and she said:
‘You really think so?’ If she could use her hair to hide her face, she would have, but she didn’t – perhaps out of fear of making a spectacle of herself or thinking I would imagine her as silly.
‘Yeah, I think so. Why would I not?’
She giggled softly and then the receptionist gave a sharp ‘Shhh!’ to us and we dipped our heads, like reprobates who have been caught. We ushered ourselves out of the Library and made our way outside. The street was still blazingly warm and the sun still high in her heavens. I wondered what was going to happen. Had I recognised her before? Was she at my school? No I don’t think so.
‘Are you from round here?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m from the other end of the state.’ She never said where.
After that we parted, but she gave me her number and I blushed, almost till I would turn a blotched mottled red. I had never gotten a number off a girl so pretty before; and when I went back home, I logged it into my phone. She had given her name on the note. ‘Jessica – but you can call me Jessi.’ I giggled, much like a school girl. Then the most striking feature came to my mind when I remembered. She wore a necklace, a handmade necklace with strange wooden beads and on the end, a long tooth. I thought it the coolest thing I’d ever seen.
*
Thus began a long period of talking, laughing and messaging. Numerous times did we speak and laugh, and I learned a lot more about this girl – this Jessica who liked to be called Jessi. She was living with her family, but her family, so she told me, were difficult. They were violent and didn’t like her. God knows what else they did, but I couldn’t allow my mind to run away with me. Accusations like that need proof. I wanted to speak to her in person again, wanted to help her, at least speak a few words of comfort. A year was coming since I had met her, and we were speaking nonstop. I wouldn’t be off my phone, off my laptop, and I wouldn’t stop talking with her, making sure she was okay, making sure that she had friends.
I made sure that she had someone to talk to.
During the course of talking to her, I wanted to say to her: ‘Do you wanna go out?’ and I prayed in my nights and days that she would say: ‘Okay!’ and be excited about it.
When the time of a year had nearly come, and when I was speaking with her, as normal, she came away abruptly. She said: ‘I gotta go.’ And she went offline for the rest of that time. I sent numerous messages, numerous texts, and numerous calls. No reply from any of them.
A letter came through the door, addressed to me, and as I opened it, I caught again the scent of roses, when I opened the envelope and the note inside, there fell with a clatter onto the floor the necklace she wore, the tooth, hung by a leather thong with beads. Shaken, I took it up on my hand. It felt strange, felt like it gave power, like some form of magic object found in books or when playing video games. I turned to the letter read:

Sweetheart,
I will be dead when this finds you, and I hope that you will have heard it in the papers, or seen it on Facebook or anything like that. I wanted to say this to you myself. I wanted to write to you. I can’t do this. Since I met you, life has been worth living, but it’s gone too far. My parents just won’t let me live. And if I can’t live, then why shan’t I die? Don’t be afraid of death; death, the great neutral chooses friend and foe. When the skies are calm and the dead stars ride high, sometime tomorrow midnight, we may know. Sorry, got a little poetic there. But I thank you for being there for me. Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for showing me love when no-one else did.
Your loving friend,
Jessi

I felt the world under my feet move. I felt the relentless tide surge within me and a sharp tug at my heart and at my insides. My hand went over my mouth to keep a dry sob from escaping. My other hand went to the kitchen unit, to steady myself but it didn’t work. I fell to the heaviness that now weighed down my legs.
She was gone. My friend, the girl I was falling in love with, was gone. How? Why? When?
*
‘Hanged.’
The word sounded like a gunshot and the delivery a blow in the centre of my chest.
‘She hanged herself in her home with an extension cord.’
The image of her couldn’t get out of my mind. Her head on the side, the cord bitten so deep into the neck, the neck itself stretched and mottled, like that of a plucked turkey. The hurt surged within. The pain was never-ending. I tried to push the images out my mind, seeing her in death’s final indecency and discourtesy.
What now? What could I do? Two days. Two days after it happened, that letter came. I couldn’t save her. Couldn’t help her like I usually did, and what was all that help for?
I won’t blame her, I wouldn’t blame her. People think that it’s selfish to take your own life, because it leaves people behind devastated. Yeah, I understand that. But why would they think that they would have to in the first place if things were never that bad? Did her mother and father weep as I wept? Did they even care? Did they go through a phase of horror as I did, the imagery surging through my mind like an obscene slow-motion film? I don’t know. I won’t dwell on it.
I stood there, listening, reading the reports, and reading the Facebook appeals, the condolences. The necklace lay on the table beside my laptop. And, without a word, I slipped it over my head and let it lay. I placed it inside my shirt so I could feel the cold tooth tap softly against my skin, tapping in tandem with my beating heart.